About John

Dr. John La Puma is a highly influential physician, chef, and author known as a founder of culinary medicine and clinical nature therapy in the U.S. A board-certified internist (internal medicine doctor), he holds a medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine and completed the country’s first post-graduate fellowship in clinical medical ethics at the University of Chicago. John was the first physician to teach a cooking and nutrition course at a U.S. medical school, a practice now adopted by 80% of medical schools worldwide. After attending culinary school (part of Cordon Bleu) and cooking professionally at Chef Rick Bayless’ Topolobampo, he founded the CHEF Clinic to focus on using food as medicine to prevent and treat illnesses like obesity. He is a two-time New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including ChefMD’s Big Book of Culinary Medicine. Living and working on an organic demonstration farm in Santa Barbara, California, where he grows avocados and rare citrus, John’s current passion is nature therapy. He hosts the video series A Green Rx on YouTube and taught the first nature-as-medicine class at Harvard. His work in EcoMedicine involves using specific prescriptions of nature and diet to treat conditions like stress and digital addiction, proving that a healthy connection to food and nature is vital for wellness.