Those who are trained at the “Calogero Amato Vetrano” school in Sciacca are real “health chefs” thanks to the “food approach to cancer patients and cooking techniques” project launched in collaboration with the Agrigento provincial health authority.
For a few days now, at the institute directed by the school director Caterina Mulé, hotel students have had the opportunity to participate in specific training meetings with the coordinator of the oncology unit of the Sciacca hospital, Domenico Santangelo, and with Matteo Pillitteri, a specialist in the field of nutrition who recently made himself available for the start-up of a specific clinic dedicated to the clinical nutrition of “John Paul II” cancer patients.
The initiative, welcomed with enthusiasm by the ASP extraordinary commissioner, Mario Zappia, aims to describe the importance that nutrition assumes in improving the quality of life of people with cancer by identifying which foods are to be preferred and which cooking techniques to adopt.
During the laboratory exercises, the students will learn to elaborate specific recipes for the various clinical pathologies prepared with the aim, on the one hand, of making cancer patients rediscover the taste and pleasure of eating (in which the alteration or lowering of the sense of taste due to chemotherapy) and, on the other, to better calibrate the relationship between foods and therapies.
At the end of the project, the creation of a publication is also envisaged in which all the recipes developed by the students of the “Vetrano” will be collected.