★The American Kitchen Project
A Civic Movement · Founded 2026
The American Kitchen Project

Real food.
On your table.
This week.

Three free kitchen tools put the real-food plate in your house: what to keep, what to buy, and a week of dinners that fit a working night. One signup, all three, free.

The Pantry Diagnostic and Shopping Guide arrive in minutes, then the 7-Day Starter, one short email a day.

See the 30-Day Program For Partners & Institutions
★
5 Million
Kitchens
By 2030
Founded By
Helene Leeds, MS
★
Why This Exists
The change that matters
starts at the stove.

Helene Leeds has spent thirty years teaching families to cook their way to health. She has lived both directions of this story: she lost her mother to ultra-processed food, and she brought her own daughter back with real food, cooked at home. One family, one force, pointed two ways. The kitchen decided which.

That is why this project exists. The meal you cook is the change-making act, for your health and for the country's. Every kitchen counts, and the count starts with yours.

Read Helene's full story
01
The New Pyramid
America has a new
real-food plate.

On January 7, 2026, HHS and USDA released the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, anchored to realfood.gov. For the first time in the document's history, federal nutrition policy explicitly named highly processed food as a category to avoid. The pyramid itself was rebuilt: protein, dairy, and healthy fats stand at the wide top beside vegetables and fruits, equal in importance, narrowing to whole grains at the smallest part. The guidance is sound. The kitchen is where it becomes dinner, and that is the part this project takes on.

★ Category 01
Protein, Dairy
& Healthy Fats
At the wide top of the pyramid, beside vegetables and fruits. Eggs, poultry, seafood, beef, full-fat dairy, butter, olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds. Target: 1.2 to 1.6 g protein per kg body weight per day.
★ Category 02
Vegetables
& Fruits
Three servings of vegetables, two of fruit per day. Fresh, frozen, or canned without added sugar or salt. At the wide top of the pyramid, equal in importance with protein.
★ Category 03
Whole
Grains
Two to four servings per day. Oats, brown rice, quinoa, barley, whole-wheat pasta, true sourdough. The smallest part of the pyramid.
02
The Promise
Three shifts every
household will feel.

The promise of this movement is not aspirational. It rests on what is already known about what happens when households move off ultra-processed food and onto real food. Each shift can be measured. Each begins inside the first weeks.

01 / Body
Steady energy.
Deeper sleep.
Markers that move.

In the 2019 NIH inpatient trial, twenty adults ate 508 more calories per day on an ultra-processed diet matched for sugar, fat, salt, and fiber, and gained two pounds in two weeks. They lost the same amount on minimally processed food. The body responds faster than people expect.

Hall et al., Cell Metabolism, May 2019. DOI 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008
02 / Kitchen
A household that runs on real food without willpower.

Americans 15 and older spend 40 minutes a day on food prep and cleanup. Women average 52, men 28. The promise is not that families will cook more. It is that the same minutes will produce real meals, because the pantry, the freezer, and the weeknight menu have all been rebuilt.

BLS American Time Use Survey, 2024. Released June 2025.
03 / Country
Five million kitchens.
A curve that bends.

Five million kitchens is roughly 4 percent of U.S. households. It is the threshold at which a movement becomes a measurable national signal. Each household is doing something private. Together they are doing something national.

U.S. Census Bureau, ACS, 131M U.S. households, 2024.
03
How It Works
A 30-day program.
Built for a real week.

A practitioner-led program that teaches you to build the real-food plate, one week at a time, on the schedule your family already has. Real food, real cooking, real change you can keep.

01
Diagnose
Your Pantry
Day one, you do a 30-minute audit of what is in your kitchen now. Keep, phase out, replace. A clear inventory before you change anything.
02
Unlock the
Modules
Each week, new short videos go live: protein and fats, vegetables and fruits, whole grains, then implementation. Watch on your phone, eight to fifteen minutes at a time.
03
Cook
Real Food
Family-tested recipes, a 30-minute grocery list, and four live group calls with Helene for questions, demos, and accountability. Recorded if you cannot make them.
04
Walk Out
With a Plan
Day 30, you have a written 90-day household plan, eight to twelve staple recipes your family will eat, and a kitchen that defaults to real food without thinking about it.
★ What is in it for you
  • Steady energy and deeper sleep within the first two weeks
  • A pantry that supports your goals instead of fighting them
  • 30-minute grocery runs that cost less than what you are spending now
  • Drive-through and delivery nights cut in half or more
  • The federal protein target hit most days, on any budget
  • Eight to twelve staple recipes the whole household will eat
  • Picky eaters working through the no-thank-you bite framework
  • Markers your doctor cares about, moving in the right direction
★ Where this gets you
Day 1, then Day 30.
★ Where most families are
Day 1
  • Drive-through three or four nights a week
  • Contradictory nutrition advice from every direction
  • A pantry of beige boxes nobody trusts
  • Vague guilt about food, no clear plan to fix it
  • Kids who will not eat vegetables
  • Grocery runs that take 90 minutes and cost too much
  • The doctor said cut back, you do not know how
  • Energy dips at 3pm, restless sleep, slow mornings
★ Where you are at Day 30
Day 30
  • Real food on the table most nights, on a normal schedule
  • One framework, anchored to the new federal guidance
  • A pantry triaged once, restocked around the three categories
  • A written 90-day plan, built around your household
  • Kids working through the no-thank-you bite framework
  • 30-minute grocery runs, same store, smaller bill
  • A specific way to apply your doctor's printout at home
  • Steady energy, deeper sleep, markers moving
How It Works
30 Days · 4 Weeks · 1 Real Plan
04
Free Downloads
Start with three guides
built around the plate.

A diagnostic for what is in your kitchen now. A grocery list that fills the real-food plate in thirty minutes. A 7-day starter delivered one day at a time. All three are free. One signup gets all three.

No. 01
The Real Food
Pantry Diagnostic

A six-page audit of what is in your kitchen now, mapped against the real-food plate. Keep. Phase out. Replace.

PDF Download
No. 02
The 30-Minute
Shopping Guide

An eight-page grocery list organized by the three federal categories. SNAP-friendly substitutions. Brand-agnostic.

PDF Download
No. 03
The 7-Day
Starter Series

One short email each day for a week. One recipe, one swap, one way to build the plate. Built to be doable on a working night.

Email Series
05
The Seven Pillars
Real food is one pillar.
Helene's practice rests on seven.

Thirty years of clinical work has taught Helene that real food is the most actionable place to start, and not the only place that matters. Her full practice rests on seven pillars of true health. Cook the New Pyramid is the public, scalable expression of the second pillar, and the entry point to the rest.

Pillar 02 · Start Here
Real Food
Heals.
The entry point. The most measurable, most family-shared, and most policy-aligned of the seven pillars. Real food in three categories: protein with healthy fats, vegetables and fruits, whole grains. Cook the New Pyramid teaches this pillar publicly.
76.4%
US Adults With Chronic Disease
55%
Of US Calories From Ultra-Processed
See the 30-Day Program →
★ The Six Supporting Pillars Mutually reinforcing
  • 01
    Sleep
    The foundation. Without it nothing else compounds.
    Foundation
  • 03
    Circadian Light
    Morning light, evening dark. The rhythm that regulates the rest.
    Rhythm
  • 04
    Movement
    Daily, not heroic. The body is designed to move.
    Body
  • 05
    Love & Meaning
    Belonging, purpose, the connections that hold a life together.
    Spirit
  • 06
    Hydration
    The simplest pillar. The most overlooked.
    Daily
  • 07
    Stress Care
    Breath, practice, time. The skill of regulating the nervous system.
    Practice
Why we start with real food. Of the seven pillars, food is the most measurable, the most family-shared, and the most affected by the federal policy environment we now have. Real food shifts the other six. Sleep deepens. Light hits differently when the body is fueled differently. Movement comes more naturally. Hydration becomes obvious. Stress moderates. Meaning returns when energy does. Read more about Helene's full practice →
06
The Practitioner
Thirty years of putting food
back in the center of medicine.
Helene Leeds in her kitchen, preparing real food in evening light
"I have watched this pattern repeat in thousands of kitchens. The plan is sound. The patient is intelligent. The follow-through collapses somewhere between the appointment and the dinner that actually has to happen."

Helene Leeds is a culinary medicine and lifestyle medicine practitioner with thirty years of clinical and curriculum experience. She has certified more than 1,000 practitioners across 63 countries, built and led food-as-medicine programs reaching over 9,000 members, and coached Johns Hopkins physicians through structured nutrition and behavior protocols. She built the culinary medicine curriculum at the Hippocrates Health Institute and designed lifestyle medicine programming for the University of Maryland.

Her first Culinary Institute cohort enrolled 376 paying members across 12 countries, translating lab-based nutrition science into daily kitchen practice. That is the work, turning what we know about food into what a family actually cooks. She founded The American Kitchen Project to do it at scale, starting with the most actionable place real food gives us.

★ Credentials
  • MS in Nutrition, with certificates in Nutritional Psychology
  • Master-level training in ontological coaching
  • International culinary healing traditions across 6 countries
  • Coached Johns Hopkins physicians and high performers
  • Built the Hippocrates Health Institute culinary curriculum
  • University of Maryland lifestyle medicine programming
  • Forbes Coaches Council, 2020 to 2024
  • MasterChef Season 3 (FOX) finalist, top 18 of 30,000
  • Trained 1,000+ wellness professionals in 63 countries
  • Iyengar Yoga trained, Ali Dashti lineage
  • Language study: Sorbonne, University of Fribourg
  • Speaks English, French, German
Read the full bio →
07
The 30-Day Program
Cook the new pyramid.
One household at a time.

Cook the New Pyramid is a guided 30-day program that walks you through the three categories of the new federal pyramid and rebuilds your kitchen around them.

Mostly pre-recorded so you can work at your pace. Four optional live group calls, recorded for replay, for accountability. Designed for families with limited time, mixed dietary needs, and the same 24 hours everyone else has.

Three tiers, starting at $97. The next cohort begins Monday, September 14. Self-Study starts the moment you enroll.

See the Full Program
★ Week by week

What you build
in 30 days.

  1. Protein, dairy, and healthy fats. The federal target on the plate, not in grams.
  2. Vegetables and fruits. Three plus two a day, prepared in ten minutes or less.
  3. Whole grains. Five bases that hold a week. Refined carbs out of rotation.
  4. Implementation. A weekly rhythm that survives a real schedule.
The American Kitchen Project
Cook the New Pyramid
08
Frequently Asked
The questions American
families actually ask.

Five of the questions we hear most, answered plainly. The full FAQ covers ultra-processed food, the research record, vegetarian and vegan adaptation, medical conditions, family logistics, and the program itself, with sources throughout.

What does "real food" actually mean?

Real food is the food a kitchen could make. Whole or minimally processed. Recognizable as what it is: an egg, a sweet potato, a piece of chicken, an apple, a head of broccoli, a pot of oats, a wheel of cheese, a jar of olive oil.

It is not a moral category. It is a recognizable one. If you read the ingredients out loud and they sound like a chemistry lecture, the food has been engineered for shelf life and bliss-point flavor, and is doing different work in your body than the food it is shaped to look like.

The federal guidance now says this in plain English. Eat real food.

What changed in the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines?

Three things changed that matter for the home kitchen:

One. The guidelines explicitly named ultra-processed food as a category to avoid. This is the first time in the document's 40-year history.

Two. Protein moved up. The new federal target is 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, a meaningful increase over previous guidance.

Three. The pyramid itself was redesigned. Protein, dairy, and healthy fats now sit at the wide top, beside vegetables and fruits, given equal importance. Whole grains sit at the smallest part.

2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, jointly released by HHS and USDA, January 7, 2026.

Is this just another diet?

No. Cook the New Pyramid does not tell you what to weigh, what to count, or what to eliminate forever. There are no points, no phases, no banned foods, no purity tests, no before-and-after photos.

It teaches you how to apply the three categories of the new federal pyramid in your kitchen. You leave with a way of cooking, not a temporary plan.

My family has picky eaters. Will this work?

Yes. Week 2 of the program addresses picky eating specifically. It uses the "no-thank-you bite" framework, covers the three vegetables that families consistently accept first, and teaches a non-coercive approach that pediatric feeding specialists endorse.

The program does not require everyone in the household to eat the same plate every night. It builds toward family meals over the 30 days, at whatever pace your household can actually sustain.

We are on SNAP. Is this realistic for our budget?

Yes. SNAP-friendly substitutions appear throughout the program. The Shopping Guide is organized by the three federal categories with budget-tier alternatives for each. The 30-minute grocery routine works at any income level.

Eggs, frozen vegetables, dried beans, brown rice, oats, peanut butter, cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, canned sardines, frozen wild fish, and chicken thighs are the spine of an affordable real-food kitchen. The program teaches you how to build around them.

The Self-Study tier at $97 keeps program entry low. Payment plans are available. If cost is the only barrier, write to hello@heleneleeds.com.

Read the Full FAQ