Erasto Gaertner signs a new category for the Bom Gourmet Award 2023

The 2023 Bom Gourmet Award has already begun to be designed and, this year, it arrives with a new category that is directly linked to a gastronomic trend that is increasingly present in our daily lives: food that is good for you. To this end, Bom Gourmet joins forces with Erasto Gaertner Hospital and brings the knowledge they produce in their nutrition service to the 2023 edition. It is the Erasto special category, in which chefs and cooks from the city will be invited to know a little more about culinary practices that promote health and then challenged to put this in authorial dishes.

“All the research question that Erasto continuously raises related to functional food, made the Good Gourmet thought of spreading this knowledge, taking it to those who are feeding the population: the chefs and cooks”, explains the journalist, head of Bom Gourmet, Caroline Olinda.

Having several actions focused on adequate, healthy and sustainable food, the Hospital intends to demystify the negative concept used in the term “hospital food”. For this, Erasto has had an exclusive kitchen dedicated to the cause for 4 years. There are about three thousand meals served per day, serving patients, companions, clinical staff and other employees of the institution.

In the hospital’s nutrition sector, the team’s work goes far beyond simply preparing meals or analyzing the qualities of food in isolation. The relationship between the inputs, how the preparation methods can enhance the nutritional benefits and how to present this in a seductive way to the palate are premises that guide the work of the Nutrition area of ​​Hospital Erasto Gaertner.

Nutritionist Marina Lopes is supervisor of the Nutrition and Dietetics Service (SND) at the institution and likes to give tomatoes as an example of this way of looking at food. “It is a source of lycopene, being a potent antioxidant, preventing cell damage, being associated with the prevention of some types of cancer. Its presence in the fruit is less bioavailable than when heated and a source of fat is added, such as olive oil, making it a good option to consume in the form of tomato sauce”, he points out.

Marina says that the daily work is guided by the search to offer all the food groups, with emphasis on vegetables. The preparations also seek to potentiate substances that prevent diseases, especially cancer, and improve health.

Also to give visibility and spread this work, produced and thought by Erasto’s nutrition team, a new category in the Bom Gourmet Award was created. “This category works almost like a hub that manages to take the knowledge produced by Erasto, join it with the chefs and transform them into multiplier agents for this”, explains Caroline.

How will the category work?

The first milestone of this action will take place with a workshop on April 17, aimed at guest chefs. Professionals will get to know Erasto’s kitchen and how food is handled to ensure full nutritional power, in methods of preparation studied and tested by the hospital’s team of nutritionists.

“Our proposal is to demonstrate to chefs the importance of healthy, sustainable and enjoyable food, emphasizing that it can be accessible to everyone. To compose a tasty diet that is nutritionally balanced, it is important to pay attention to the type of processing to which we submit food. This conditions the nutrient profile and flavor, in addition to influencing which other products and under what circumstances and quantities these will be consumed”, says Marina.

After having acquired this knowledge and lessons, these chefs will be invited to participate in the category. “They will make a dish thinking about the techniques of this more functional kitchen, with ingredients and preparations that are more thoughtful from a health point of view. Then, they will be evaluated by a committee of judges in a blind test”, says Caroline.

Much more than a prize, benefits for society

According to Caroline, this is a good project for everyone involved. Mainly, for the final consumer and society. “Food that is good for you is a trend and this project looks at this aspect having as a mentor an institution that does this in its day-to-day life, which is the Erasto Gaertner Hospital. We combine this potential with Good Gourmet, a platform that is always on the lookout for gastronomy trends, not just the short-term ones, but changes that have a big impact. So, we were able to connect all of this and make something that will be on our tables for years to come”, explains the journalist.

Marina points to the Bom Gourmet Award as an important moment of visibility for the work carried out at Erasto. “We hope to leave an important mark on the lives of each of those involved and participants, so that together we can create an impact and change habits in favor of the health and well-being of society. We know that building habits is hard, long work. However, the union of efforts collaborates so that the steps towards this objective are wider”, she completes.