★The American Kitchen Project
About the Founder · Helene Leeds, MS

Thirty years.
Real food.
Real work.

A culinary medicine and lifestyle medicine practitioner, formed in European kitchens and yoga studios, trained in nutrition science, and founded the American Kitchen Project to translate the new federal guidance into the home kitchen.

01
The Practitioner
Who is doing
this work, and why.
Helene Leeds, MS, holding a plate of real food
★ At a Glance
Practice
Culinary medicine, lifestyle medicine
Experience
30 years
Trained
1,000+ wellness professionals in 63 countries
Based
Malibu, California
Languages
English, French, German
Lineage
Iyengar Yoga, Ali Dashti

Helene Leeds is a culinary medicine and lifestyle medicine practitioner with thirty years of clinical and curriculum experience. She founded The American Kitchen Project to translate the new federal Dietary Guidelines into household practice, starting with the most actionable change a family can make: real food on the table, most nights, without willpower.

Her work spans the institutional and the intimate. She built the culinary medicine curriculum for the Hippocrates Wellness Institute in West Palm Beach. She designed lifestyle medicine programming for the University of Maryland. She created the official Culinary Institute for the Weston A. Price Foundation. Through these institutional builds and her own private practice, LightBody, she has trained more than 1,000 wellness professionals across 63 countries and worked one-on-one with families, executives, physicians, and patients who needed the gap closed between a medical recommendation and a Tuesday-night dinner.

She holds an MS in Nutrition, with certificates in Nutritional Psychology and master-level training in ontological coaching. Her European formation began with language study at the Sorbonne in Paris and the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, where she lived for a decade. She studied alongside chefs and yoga teachers in the Iyengar lineage of Ali Dashti, who co-authored books with B.K.S. Iyengar. She has studied international culinary healing traditions across Germany, France, Switzerland, Greece, Japan, China, and North America.

Earlier in her life, she was a finalist on MasterChef Season 3 (FOX), a model with Ford in the New York and European markets, a member of the Forbes Coaches Council from 2020 to 2024, and Director of Online Programs at Hippocrates from 2015 to 2021, where she certified over 1,000 graduates in 60 countries through programs she wrote, directed, and presented.

The American Kitchen Project is the public, scalable expression of a practice that has, until now, lived in retreat settings, private coaching, and institutional curricula. The country is sick. The new federal guidance is right. The kitchen is where this changes. Helene founded this work to meet the moment.

02
The Practice
Seven pillars
of true health.

Thirty years of practice has taught Helene that no single intervention carries a household to health. Real food is the most actionable place to start. It is not the only place that matters. Her practice rests on seven pillars, each mutually reinforcing, each individually doable.

01
Sleep
The foundation. Without it nothing else compounds. The 7 to 9 hours a night that regulate appetite hormones, recovery, cognition, immune function, and emotional regulation. Helene's protocol covers sleep hygiene, the circadian inputs that prime sleep (light, temperature, food timing), and the practices that calm an overactive nervous system at the end of the day.
02
Real Food Nutrition
The entry point of the American Kitchen Project. The most measurable, most family-shared, and most policy-aligned pillar. Real food in three categories: protein with healthy fats, vegetables and fruits, whole grains. The federal pyramid in practice. This is the pillar Helene teaches publicly through Cook the New Pyramid.
03
Circadian Light
Morning light, evening dark. The 24-hour rhythm that regulates sleep, hormones, mood, and metabolism. Ten minutes of morning sun within the first hour of waking. Dimmed light after sundown. Screens away from the eyes in the last hour. The simplest, free, most underused pillar in modern American life.
04
Movement
Daily, not heroic. The body is designed to move. A walk after meals. Strength training twice a week to preserve muscle and bone. The Iyengar Yoga practice Helene has taught for thirty years, which restores range of motion, balance, and the breath itself. Movement is medicine, and it is also belonging, presence, and discipline of attention.
05
Love & Meaning
Belonging, purpose, the connections that hold a life together. Loneliness is now classified as a public health crisis on par with smoking. Family meals, friendship, service, faith, work that matters. The pillar that the medical system rarely addresses directly, and the one without which the other six do not hold.
06
Hydration
The simplest pillar and the most overlooked. Half your body weight in ounces of clean water a day, more in heat or with exertion. The mineral content that hydration depends on (electrolytes, trace minerals, light salt) is part of the picture. Most "tired" is dehydrated. Most "hungry" is dehydrated. Most cognitive fog is dehydrated.
07
Stress Management
Breath, practice, time, and discernment. The skill of regulating the nervous system. The pranayama and meditation tools Helene has studied for thirty years through the Iyengar lineage. The ontological coaching tools that teach you how to interpret events rather than react to them. The simple, daily practices that change baseline arousal in the body and the mind.
03
Background
Credentials,
institutions, lineage.
★ 01
Academic & Clinical
  • MS in Nutrition
  • Certificates in Nutritional Psychology, Center for Nutritional Psychology
  • Master-level training in ontological coaching
  • Weston A. Price Foundation Culinary Institute, Founder
  • Hippocrates Wellness Institute culinary curriculum, Author
  • University of Maryland lifestyle medicine programming, Designer
★ 02
Practice & Lineage
  • Iyengar Yoga trained, Ali Dashti lineage (co-author with B.K.S. Iyengar)
  • Patanjali Yoga Level IV certification
  • International culinary healing traditions: Germany, France, Switzerland, Greece, Japan, China, North America
  • Director of Online Programs, Hippocrates Wellness, 2015 to 2021
  • Trained 1,000+ wellness professionals across 63 countries
★ 03
Public & Editorial
  • Forbes Coaches Council member, 2020 to 2024
  • MasterChef Season 3 (FOX) finalist, 2012
  • Ford Models, plus-size and European markets, 1994 to 2001
  • European language study: Sorbonne, Paris; University of Fribourg, Switzerland
  • YouTube channel: 1,000+ videos, 10,000+ subscribers
  • Speaks English, French, and German
04
Philosophy
What this work
is built on.
"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 Tuesday night. The problem was never the information. The problem is the kitchen."

The American Kitchen Project rests on a few convictions earned through thirty years of work.

Real food heals. The science is clearer and more consistent than the press cycle suggests. Across cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, autoimmune conditions, depression, and cognitive decline, the same dietary pattern moves the markers in the right direction. The federal guidance now reflects this more openly than at any point in the document's history.

The country is sick, and the kitchen is where this changes. 76.4 percent of American adults have at least one chronic condition. One in five children meets the threshold for obesity. $4.9 trillion a year in healthcare spending, 90 percent of it on chronic disease. This is the slow emergency of the American century. No drug, no clinic, no policy will turn the curve without the work being done in real households on real Tuesday nights.

This is not political work. Chronic disease is bipartisan, mostly because it has hit everyone. The American Kitchen Project borrows the federal anchor (realfood.gov, the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines) and refuses the tribe. Helene has worked across institutional, clinical, and ideological lines for thirty years. The plumb line is the truth: real food heals.

The practitioner has to do the work too. Helene practices what she teaches. Iyengar Yoga every morning. Real food every meal. Sleep, light, hydration, movement, meaning, breath. The seven pillars are not aspirational. They are the daily discipline of someone who has spent thirty years inside this work and intends to spend the next thirty there too.

Speaking. Press. Partnerships.

Helene is available for keynote speaking, on-camera interviews and series, retreat collaborations, clinical partnerships, and federal and academic engagement. Press kit and full speaker reel on request.

Contact for Speaking See the Program