Culinary nutrition in practice:

Integrate real food and cooking into your professional work with confidence, clarity, and the skills to design programs that transform outcomes

Enrollment is currently closed but the April Cohort opens soon!

Get first access, early-bird pricing, and priority enrollment when you join the waitlist.

Take Nutrition Out of the Office and Into the Kitchen

This is for RDs and nutrition pros who know there’s a more effective, engaging, and evidence-based way to work with food and are ready to integrate cooking and culinary nutrition into their professional practice.

Research consistently shows that hands-on cooking and food engagement improve confidence, skills, dietary quality and long-term behavior change.


This program shows you how to apply that research intentionally and professionally and turn culinary nutrition into impact-driven programs that go beyond the office and into real-world food experience.

Welcome to Culinary nutrition in practice

Whether you want to:

  • expand your impact beyond counseling sessions

  • teach food with real confidence

  • design signature programs beyond just classes

  • integrate culinary nutrition into clinical, community, corporate, or private practice

This is where that transformation begins…

Food isn’t meant to be explained.

it’s meant to be experienced.

Nutrition education or coaching in an office alone can feel like something is missing, because it rarely engages people where dietary change actually happens: in the kitchen, with real food and in real contexts.

At the same time, research continues to reinforce what many RDs intuitively know:

  • Cooking skills increase dietary quality

  • Food experiences change behavior

  • Confidence with food builds self-efficacy and empowerment and helps clients move past a diet-mentality into something that’s sustainable, enjoyable, and nourishing

Culinary nutrition is an evidence-based evolution of how nutrition works in the real world.

This program exists to help you integrate that evolution into your work.

Here’s What You’ll Learn Inside the 4 Weeks:

Week 1:

Foundations of Culinary Nutrition Practice

Understanding how food experiences drive behavior and how to leverage it in your work.

This week sets the philosophical and practical foundation for everything that follows. We explore why traditional nutrition education often falls short and how hands-on, food-centered experiences create meaningful behavior change.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Understand the psychology of food experiences and how they influence behavior

  • Apply culinary nutrition principles within your specific role or setting

  • Clarify what “success” looks like for food-driven programs beyond attendance or likes

Week 2:

Designing Food-Driven Programs

Turning nutrition knowledge into intentional, repeatable food experiences.

This week focuses on design: how to move from ideas to programs that are structured, scalable, and aligned with your audience’s needs.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Choose program models that fit different audiences, settings, and goals

  • Use simple tools to design programs with intention and clarity

  • Translate nutrition guidance into engaging, food-forward experiences people actually remember

Week 3:

Marketing + Monetization

Positioning your work, pricing it confidently, and building demand

This week is about making your work visible—and viable. We focus on how to communicate the value of culinary nutrition in a way that feels aligned, credible, and sustainable.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Price food-driven programs across different settings (community, corporate, education, private practice)

  • Clarify your positioning and communicate your value with confidence

  • Fill seats, create momentum, and design programs people want to return to

Week 4:

Deliver + Impact

Facilitating meaningful experiences and building long-term growth

The final week focuses on delivery, refinement, and long-term impact. We cover how to show up as a confident facilitator while continuously improving your programs over time.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Develop facilitation skills that create real engagement and connection

  • Troubleshoot challenges and adapt programs in real time

  • Use feedback, metrics, and reflection to strengthen future programs and expand your work

I have been searching - for years!! - for someone like you to develop your Food School, and I’m so excited to learn from you!
— Previous Cooking Class Blueprint Student

This program is about integration and evolution

Culinary Nutrition in Practice is designed for RDs who don’t want to abandon what they know but rather want to expand how they apply it.

Inside the program, you’ll learn how to:

  • Use cooking and food skills as professional tools

  • Translate nutrition science into food-based experiences

  • Design culinary nutrition programs that fit your setting

  • Facilitate food engagement with confidence and clarity

  • Build offerings that are evidence-informed, adaptable, and sustainable

You don’t have to be a chef. In fact, the kitchen needs more RDs!

In this program, I’ll share the tips, techniques, and ways of thinking I learned in culinary school so you can think like a chef, while showing up as an RD.

A growing body of research shows that cooking interventions:

Improve dietary quality

Increase self-efficacy around food

Support long-term behavior change

Enhance engagement in nutrition programs

Culinary Nutrition in Practice bridges that research with real-world application and gives you the skills and structure to put it into action.

What You’ll Build Inside the Program:

  • Culinary Nutrition Foundations
    Understanding how cooking, food skills, and behavior intersect

  • Applied Culinary Skills
    Flavor, technique, flexibility — and how to translate them simply

  • Program Design & Integration
    Creating culinary nutrition offerings that work in your role

  • Professional Application
    Adapting culinary nutrition for different audiences and settings

"Participating in Shauna McQueen's Food School was an invaluable experience! She thoroughly guided us step by step thru the process with beautifully inspiring and super informational slides, and a teaching style that was both clear and encouraging.

Her feedback was incredibly generous and creative—she truly listened, honored my ideas, and helped me see how to shape them into something stronger, more cohesive, and uniquely mine. 

I would highly recommend Shauna's series of classes to any and all RDs who recognize that building culinary skills can deeply impact their clients' success."

- Linda, Food School Grad and RD

If you’ve been feeling the pull toward food as a deeper, more effective way to practice nutrition, this is where that path begins…

A woman with long blonde hair smiling at the camera in an indoor setting.

Hi there!

I’m Shauna McQueen, a registered dietitian, trained chef, educator, and yoga teacher with over a decade of experience working at the intersection of nutrition, food, and behavior change.

My work goes far beyond cooking classes. I’ve helped design and lead nutrition-focused food and wellness programs in corporate settings - including work with companies like Spotify and Barclays where food wasn’t just fuel, but part of a larger strategy to support wellbeing at scale.

Food School grew out of this integrated approach. Here, I teach nutrition professionals how to apply culinary nutrition in real-world settings combining practical cooking skills, program design, and mindful, evidence-informed frameworks that help food education truly land.

I truly believe that transformation doesn’t happen in an office.


It happens in the kitchen.

A smiling female chef in a black chef's coat holding a white plate with a fried food item, garnished with colorful edible flowers and greens, in a commercial kitchen.
A female chef in a white uniform and black hat smiling in a kitchen, with a group of people seated at a table in front of her.

You’re in the right place if…

You already value food as more than fuel

You want to incorporate cooking and culinary nutrition thoughtfully

You want your work to reflect both evidence and lived experience

You sense that nutrition education can be more effective

You’re interested in designing programs, not just giving advice

You’re Inspired by a preventative, holistic approach

FAQS

Who is Food School for?

Food School is designed for:

  • Registered dietitians and nutrition professionals

  • Educators, program designers, and facilitators

  • Professionals working in community, corporate, healthcare, foodservice, or private practice settings

Whether you want to teach cooking classes, design food-driven programs, collaborate with brands, or expand your role beyond traditional nutrition counseling, Food School meets you where you are.

How is Food School different from other nutrition or culinary programs?

Most nutrition programs focus on what to recommend. Most culinary programs focus on how to cook.

Food School bridges the gap. It teaches you how to:

  • Translate nutrition science into food experiences

  • Design programs that fit people’s lifestyles, budgets, and and goals.

  • Communicate and position your work in a way that feels aligned and sustainable

This is about building a culinary nutrition practice..

Is this course eligible for CEUs?

Food School is an educational program designed to support professional growth and practice development.

Details about continuing education credits, certificates, or future accreditation options will be shared as they become available.

How long will I have access to the materials?

All course materials and resources will be available for download.

Is this only for people who want to teach cooking classes?

No. While cooking classes are one application, Food School supports a much broader range of work, including:

  • Workplace and corporate wellness programming

  • Community and nonprofit initiatives

  • Brand and product education

  • Consulting, curriculum development, and partnerships

  • Group programs, workshops, and experiential events

The skills you learn are transferable across many roles.

Have a question?

Get in touch…