The Book of the Lamp — Read free with Kindle Unlimited · Kindle eBook: $0.99 · Paperback: $5.75.
Lifestyle Medicine Library
Find independent educational resources for home, community and clinical practice. Browse the topics below or use the shared finder to search both websites.
Navigation checked October 11, 2026. External clinical content, prices and eligibility require checking with the source. Send Chief Flourishing Chef Robin Jeep a correction.
🌱 Support is already here: meet Meryl and her communities
Find encouragement through Plant Based Support, explore the Plant Based Nutrition Movement’s nutrition education, and discover 6 Million SEEDS for families and schools. Choose the path that fits your next step.
🌿 Explore our National Health Association pathway
Follow Nathanael’s two-year path toward National Health Association Life Membership, explore the National Health Association learning community, and meet plant-based culinary contributor Chef James Rohrbacher. Current membership prices, benefits, and Chef James promotions are linked to their official sources and kept separate so readers can verify the latest terms.
🌿 Learn together. Help the world heal and flourish.
Featured: Lifestyle Medicine 2026 Online, November 8–11, 2026. Explore lifestyle medicine with an international learning community, then continue with 🥷 Dr. Karen Laing’s Lifestyle Nursing course through the Integrative Nurse Coach® Academy.
The conference can broaden your perspective; the course gives the nursing team a structured way to bring that learning into everyday conversations, education and care. Thank you for being here—and for helping carry 🥷 Florence Nightingale’s spirit of compassionate service forward. 🪔🌍
🥷 Our 2026 Flourishing Nurse Ninja™ invitation: Flourishing Nursing™ will recognize anyone who completes both Lifestyle Medicine 2026 Online and the Integrative Nurse Coach Academy’s Lifestyle Nursing course as an Official Flourishing Nurse Ninja™. This is our honorary community recognition; it does not change your professional role, license or scope of practice. See the recognition details.
💚 #KitchenMonk #FlourishingNursing #LifestyleMedicine #NurseCoaching #LearnTogether
📚 Find excellent resources. Go to the source. Bring the learning home.
There is already extraordinary educational work in the world. Kitchen Monk™ does not need to recreate all of it. Our role is to help you find trustworthy resources, understand what each one offers, and carry useful knowledge from the screen into the kitchen, home, clinic, family, and community.
🧭 Browse by topic
Every card tells you what it is, who it’s best for, whether it’s free or paid, and whether it’s a Kitchen Monk resource or an independent one. Tap a topic to jump to it.
🍲 Food & Cooking
FREE · KITCHEN MONK
🥦 The Kitchen Monk Diet™
What it is: how we eat: whole plant foods, no animal products, striving toward no added salt, oil, or sugar.
Best for: anyone who wants the big picture in one page.
FREE · KITCHEN MONK
🥾 The Start Your Journey cooking trail
What it is: a gentle path into the Department of Veterans Affairs’ free Practical Plant-Based Cooking guide.
Best for: beginners and anyone rebuilding kitchen confidence.
Keep in mind: the guide defines plant-based broadly, so make every recipe 100% plant-based by swapping out any eggs or dairy (the trail shows you how).
FREE · KITCHEN MONK
🍽️ The Flourishing Table
What it is: Kitchen Monk’s approach to learning food skills, from the classroom to the cutting board to the community.
Best for: people who learn best by doing, together.
FREE · INDEPENDENT RESOURCE
🔬 NutritionFacts.org
What it is: short, free videos and articles about nutrition research, from a nonprofit.
Best for: people who want to understand the “why.”
FREE · INDEPENDENT RESOURCE
🥗 Full Plate Living
What it is: a free program for adding more whole, fiber-rich foods to meals you already eat, including free group visits.
Best for: anyone who prefers small steps over big overhauls.
FREE & MEMBERSHIP · INDEPENDENT RESOURCE
🌿 National Health Association
What it is: recipes made without added salt, oil, or sugar, plus a podcast, a magazine, and an annual conference.
Best for: families and people who like learning in community.
Keep in mind: some resources require a paid membership.
INDEPENDENT RESOURCE · CHECK CURRENT ACCESS
🧑🍳 Teaching Kitchens
What it is: the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative, a network of hands-on cooking classrooms in hospitals, schools, and communities.
Best for: learning by cooking with others.
Keep in mind: class availability varies by location.
🥡 Convenience & Travel
FREE · KITCHEN MONK
⏱ The Healthy Convenience guide
What it is: our guide to cooking yourself, cooking with community, and choosing better convenience, without shame.
Best for: busy, tired, caregiving, or traveling people.
PAID · INDEPENDENT RESOURCE
🎒 LeafSide
What it is: shelf-stable, whole-food, plant-based meals you make by adding water.
Best for: travel, backup meals, workdays, and days when cooking isn’t realistic.
Keep in mind: review ingredients, allergens, pricing, and shipping. Not medical treatment or individualized nutrition therapy.
PAID · INDEPENDENT RESOURCES
🍱 Ready-made meals & pantry helpers
What they are: Chef James Nutrition, Enliven Foods, WellBean, and Well Your World.
Best for: weeks when cooking isn’t realistic.
Keep in mind: Enliven Foods was co-founded by Chief Flourishing Chef Robin Jeep, Nathanael’s co-author.
PAID · INDEPENDENT RESOURCE
🛳️ National Health Association Plant-Based Travel
What it is: whole-food, plant-based group trips, including cruises.
Best for: travelers who want support keeping healthy habits on vacation.
🚶 Movement
◐ IN DEVELOPMENT · KITCHEN MONK
👟 Move With a Nurse™
What it is: walking, rolling, cycling, stretching, and movement people enjoy, with nurses moving alongside.
Best for: beginners, older adults, families, and people living with chronic illness or disability.
Keep in mind: community gatherings are still in development.
FREE · KITCHEN MONK
🌤️ One small movement step
What it is: three simple ideas you can try today, like a five-minute walk or one song of stretching.
Best for: anyone starting from zero.
🌙 Sleep, Stress & Caregivers
FREE · KITCHEN MONK
🤲 Who Cares for the Caregiver?
What it is: reflection and support ideas for nurses, family caregivers, and anyone feeling worn down.
Best for: people who spend much of their life caring for others.
FREE & PAID · INDEPENDENT RESOURCE
🌿 National Health Association
What it is: plant-based health education, recipes, publications, videos and community.
Best for: anyone, with a deeper track for professionals.
Keep in mind: some resources require membership, registration or payment.
FREE · KITCHEN MONK
🕯️ One small rest step
What it is: simple ideas for tonight’s sleep or today’s stress.
Best for: anyone who feels stretched thin.
Ongoing trouble sleeping, loud snoring, or low mood that won’t lift are worth raising with your clinician. In the United States, if you’re in crisis, call or text 988 any time.
🤝 Community & Relationships
● AVAILABLE NOW · FREE · KITCHEN MONK
👥 Kitchen Monk free communities
What it is: free online groups for encouragement, questions, and shared ideas.
Best for: anyone who doesn’t want to do this alone.
● SIGN-UP AVAILABLE NOW · KITCHEN MONK
🗺️ The Community Map
What it is: share your approximate area and interests so we can see where community is growing.
Keep in mind: the United States of America community-interest heat map is live; local teams and practitioner listings are added only when confirmed.
INDEPENDENT RESOURCE · CHECK CURRENT ACCESS
🌱 Plant Based Support
What it is: peer encouragement, recipes, and a place to ask questions about plant-based living.
Best for: people who want ongoing support from others making similar changes.
INDEPENDENT RESOURCE · NONPROFIT
🍎 Plant Based Nutrition Movement
What it is: a nonprofit offering community nutrition education, cooking demonstrations, and teaching kitchens, with a focus on children and families.
Best for: families and communities looking for hands-on learning.
🦉 Kids & Families
FREE · KITCHEN MONK 📖 STORY
🛡️ Flourishing Guardians™
What it is: stories and activities for children, with a separate guide for parents and caregivers.
Best for: families who want to read, cook, and move together.
Keep in mind: the stories are fiction and do not replace pediatric care.
FREE · INDEPENDENT RESOURCE
🥕 The Jaroudi Family
What it is: Brittany Jaroudi’s whole-food, plant-based recipes her own family loves, plus a podcast about raising kids on plant-based food.
Best for: parents cooking for picky or busy households.
INDEPENDENT RESOURCE
🧸 Dr. Yami Cazorla-Lancaster & Nourish Wellness
What it is: a pediatrician’s book and podcast on raising kids who enjoy healthy food, plus her pediatric lifestyle medicine practice in Yakima, Washington.
Best for: parents who want help without food fights or shame.
🌈 Faith & Compassion (optional)
You are welcome at Kitchen Monk regardless of faith background. These are here for those who want them.
OPTIONAL · ◐ IN DEVELOPMENT · KITCHEN MONK
⛪ Faith Communities
What it is: an invitation to congregations of every faith to help bring lifestyle education home through their own nurses and volunteers.
Best for: faith communities and members who want faith-connected support.
OPTIONAL · FREE · KITCHEN MONK 📖 STORY
🌳 Faith & Flourishing: Willow’s Teaching
What it is: an optional Christian faith trail for families within Flourishing Guardians, with Scripture and story clearly labeled.
Best for: Christian families who want faith woven into stories.
📖 Books & Stories
📖 STORY / FICTION
🏮 The Book of the Lamp: From Crimea to the Kitchen Monk
What it is: a story from The EVERgreen Chronicles about finding light for the next step.
Best for: readers, caregivers, and nurses who love a reflective story.
Keep in mind: available on Amazon as a Kindle ebook and a paperback; please check Amazon for the current price and availability.
FREE · OUTSIDE VOICES
📰 Kitchen Monk in the World
What it is: published stories about Kitchen Monk, including Chief Flourishing Chef Robin Jeep’s feature in Women’s Wellness / OptiMYz.
Best for: anyone curious about where Kitchen Monk came from.
🩺 For Nurses & Health Professionals
🩺 PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
CURATE → EXPLAIN → ATTRIBUTE → CONNECT → APPLY
🥾 The Kitchen Monk Learning Path
🔬 1. READ THE SCIENCE. NutritionFacts.org
↓
🌿 2. JOIN THE COMMUNITY. National Health Association
↓
🎓 3. DEEPEN THE PRACTICE. The Plantrician Project + Plantrician University
↓
🩺 4. KEEP LEARNING. American College of Lifestyle Medicine
↓
🤝 5. CONNECT WITH SUPPORT. Nurse Coaches, our Flourishing Care Connectors™ (in development)
↓
🏡 6. BRING IT HOME. Family, kitchen, and community, and in the future, Flourishing Certified Nursing Assistants™ (future vision)
↓
🌳 7. LIVE YOUR FLOURISHING JOURNEY.
This is a trail map, not a required order. Start wherever you are.
🌊 Learning Streams Into the Orchard
Each organization keeps its own name, leadership, and mission. Kitchen Monk is simply the trail guide.
Stream One · Science · 🟢 Free public resource
🔬 NutritionFacts.org
Free, non-commercial videos, articles, podcasts, and guides on nutrition research, in English and Spanish. Best for: everyone.
Stream Two · Community · Free & member resources
🌿 National Health Association
Recipes made without added salt, oil, or sugar, the National Health Association Today podcast, Health Science magazine, and an annual conference where clinicians and community learn together. Best for: patients, families, caregivers, and clinicians with the people they love.
Stream Three · Education + Changemakers · Free & paid
🎓 The Plantrician Project + Plantrician University
Free Quick Start Guides, free webinars, an open-access journal, Plantrician University, and the Power of the Plate conference. Best for: clinicians, students, educators, and changemakers.
🌱 The Plantrician Project — Thank You for Lighting Our Lamp
Power of the Plate helped light a new lamp for Kitchen Monk™ and Flourishing Nursing™. From San Diego, we brought home more than education: we brought home belonging, interdisciplinary friendship, practical tools, and a renewed commitment to move nursing forward.
🎓 Plantrician education led by Jill Edwards, MS, CEP, DipACLM, Director of Education. Explore free Quick Start Guides, Plantrician University, open-access science, Plantrician Providers, Power of the Plate, scholarships, culinary education and systems-change resources.
💃 Dedicated to Jill Edwards — our Chief Flourishing Educator™. 🌱🩺 Scott Stoll, MD — Co-founder & Board Chairman of The Plantrician Project and our Chief Plantrician Guardian. These are honorary titles created by our organizations.
Moving Nursing Forward: Read the science → Learn the practice → Connect with support → Bring it home.
Kitchen Monk™ and Flourishing Nursing™ independently recommend educational resources from The Plantrician Project. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, this does not indicate sponsorship, partnership, endorsement, or organizational affiliation. Honorary titles are ours, not Plantrician Project positions.
🌿 Leadership lesson from TrueNorth: founder Alan Goldhamer, DC leads an organization whose public team includes clinicians, nurses, kitchen staff, administration, housekeeping, facilities, concierge and scheduling. Health-promoting work is carried by whole teams. That same principle guides our conviction that the people doing the caring must be able to flourish, too.
🪔 Why this matters to Nathanael: he honors The Plantrician Project for helping keep the heart in medicine—bringing evidence, food, human connection, and interdisciplinary care back together. That vision resonates deeply with the nursing leadership Nathanael has followed throughout his professional life, including the work of 🥷 Dr. Karen Laing, whom Flourishing Nursing™ honors for carrying forward a modern nursing tradition of whole-person care inspired by 🥷 Florence Nightingale.
Our gratitude is wholehearted: The Plantrician Project has spent years helping clinicians and communities imagine healthcare that nourishes people, relationships, and the systems around them. We want nursing to stand beside that work, strengthen it, and help carry it farther.
Stream Four · Lifestyle Medicine · Free and paid learning
🩺 American College of Lifestyle Medicine
Explore official videos, learning resources, the annual conference and current online attendance information. Continue with 🥷 Dr. Karen Laing’s Lifestyle Nursing course through the Integrative Nurse Coach Academy when that education fits your role and goals. 🌱 #LifestyleMedicine #NursesLead
🌿 National Health Association: our primary educational resource
Explore plant-based health education, credited recipes, publications, videos, community and events. Some offerings require membership or payment. For professional credentials and accredited continuing education, check the relevant provider’s eligibility and accreditation separately.
🍲 The Culinary Stream: Teaching Kitchens
Where knowing becomes knowing how. The Teaching Kitchen Collaborative connects teaching kitchens in hospitals, schools, workplaces, and communities, and builds the research showing what hands-on cooking education can do. Pair it with Food for Life classes from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine Culinary Medicine Curriculum.
🚪 Choose Your Door
🏡 For Everyone
Patients, families, caregivers, friends, and the newly curious: start here.
🩺 For Healthcare Professionals
Registered nurses, advanced practice registered nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians, physician assistants, registered dietitian nutritionists, pharmacists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, behavioral health, health coaches, public health, and faculty: build your practice here.
🤝 Clinicians + Friends + Family
Health knowledge should not stop at the clinician’s office door. The nurse and her spouse, the nurse practitioner and her parent, the physician and his best friend: learn together at the National Health Association Conference and Power of the Plate, which offers a Health Enthusiast Pass for non-clinicians.
👩⚕️ For Nurses
Move nursing forward with National Health Association education, Plantrician University, NutritionFacts.org, National Health Association community learning, and the Flourishing Care Ecosystem, where Nurse Coaches are the water and Flourishing Certified Nursing Assistants are the roots.
🎒 For Students
Nursing, medical, physician assistant, dietetic, pharmacy, public-health, and Certified Nursing Assistant students: start earlier with National Health Association education, Plantrician University, free Quick Start Guides, and NutritionFacts.org.
👪 For Families
Bring flourishing home with National Health Association recipes, Plantrician pediatric Quick Start material, NutritionFacts.org, shared meals, family walks, gardening, and good sleep routines.
🪔 A Moment by the Lamp
Where does your life need a little more light right now?
🗺️ Sample Journeys
🩸 “I was just told I have prediabetes.”
NutritionFacts.org research → National Health Association education → Plantrician Quick Start Guide → National Health Association recipes → talk with your healthcare team about an individualized plan.
👩⚕️ “I’m a nurse who wants to teach nutrition.”
National Health Association education → Plantrician University → NutritionFacts.org science library → National Health Association community resources for patients → Flourishing Nursing Forward™.
🥬 “My family wants to eat more plants.”
Plantrician Quick Start Guide → National Health Association recipes → NutritionFacts.org → a shared family meal this week.
🧒 “I want my kids to love healthy food, without fights or shame.”
Dr. Yami Cazorla-Lancaster’s book A Parent’s Guide to Intuitive Eating and her podcast → family recipes from The Jaroudi Family → a Flourishing Guardians story at bedtime. In Yakima? Dr. Yami’s pediatric practice, Nourish Wellness, is one Nathanael personally recommends. (Independent; not affiliated with Kitchen Monk.)
⚖️ General education and individualized care are different
The resources on this page offer general education. Individualized nutrition care comes from a registered dietitian or another appropriately credentialed professional, and diagnosis and medication decisions belong with your clinician.
◐ IN DEVELOPMENT In the future, Kitchen Monk hopes Nurse Coaches (our Flourishing Care Connectors™) can help people set goals and connect with the right resources and care team. This is not available yet.
📰 Featured reading about Kitchen Monk: The Kitchen Monk: Reinventing Healthcare, One Meal at a Time, written by Robin Jeep for Women’s Wellness / OptiMYz (September 1, 2026). 🟢 Free.
🌱 Robin’s next chapter: Chief Flourishing Chef Robin Jeep is co-author, with Nathanael, of The Book of the Garden: The Cup of Flourishing.
🌲 Stacey Lynn — Chief Non-Clinical EVERgreen Guardian™ · Plant-based inspiration, culinary teaching & a standing invitation.
🎞 Historical Conversations & Mentorship
Two archived Chef AJ conversations featuring Dr. Ron Weiss, DipABLM, one of Nathanael’s earlier lifestyle medicine mentors, are preserved in the Kitchen Monk Mentorship Archive: an iodine discussion (March 2023) and a Lyme disease discussion (March 2024).
Included for their place in the founder story, not as current clinical guidance. Archived discussions may not reflect current evidence or Kitchen Monk™ recommendations and are not medical advice.
🪶 Mindfulness, calm & the whole toolbox
Mindfulness is one helpful tool among many, never a universal cure. See how it fits alongside food, movement, sleep, connection, and the wider care team in the Flourishing Nursing Coach Ninja™ toolbox, including the Mindfulness Feather, the Caregiver’s Calm Toolbox, and Nurse Blake’s Code Calm for nurses.
🤝 The Go-to-the-Source Promise
For every outside organization, we name it, describe it, attribute it, link to the original, and label access where we can. Link, don’t lift: we never copy another organization’s articles, handouts, recipes, courses, or recordings. Sometimes the best thing we can say is, “This organization explains it better. Go learn directly from them.”
Access labels: 🟢 Free · Free sample · 🔵 Free account required · 🟡 Membership required · 🟠 Paid or registration required · 🟣 Professional eligibility may apply · ⚪ Check current access
🦅 She does not build her nest on one leaf.
Momma Eagle builds where thousands of roots, drops of water, branches, seasons, and acts of care have made the tree strong. No single organization owns the orchard. No single profession owns flourishing. No single resource has every answer. But excellent science, education, community, nursing, culinary support, families, and compassionate connection can create stronger conditions for flourishing.
Grow the roots. Share the water. Strengthen the trunk. Open the branches. Cultivate the fruit. Build a place where the next generation can land.
Momma Eagle is a Kitchen Monk storytelling image and is not associated with any organization listed here.
🌿 Where to next?
📜 Independent Resource Disclosure
Kitchen Monk™ independently recommends selected organizations, educational resources, conferences, and learning opportunities that may be useful to patients, families, healthcare professionals, and communities. Inclusion in the Kitchen Monk™ Lifestyle Medicine Library does not imply sponsorship, partnership, affiliation, certification, approval, or endorsement of Kitchen Monk™, Flourishing Nursing, Flourishing Care Connectors™, Flourishing Certified Nursing Assistants™, or any other Kitchen Monk initiative by the referenced organization unless a formal relationship is expressly disclosed. All names, trademarks, educational materials, and intellectual property remain the property of their respective owners. Availability, eligibility, cost, content, and access requirements are determined by the originating organizations and may change. This includes NutritionFacts.org, the National Health Association, The Plantrician Project, Plantrician University, and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.
🩺 Medical Disclaimer
Educational information provided or linked through Kitchen Monk™ is for general education and is not a substitute for individualized medical assessment, diagnosis, treatment, or emergency care. Please consult your doctor or other healthcare provider before making any lifestyle changes. In an emergency, call 911.
🔗 External Content
Kitchen Monk™ does not control external websites and cannot guarantee that external content, pricing, availability, or policies will remain unchanged. Links are provided for educational convenience. Curated by Flourishing Nurse Ninja Nathanael Elijah Smith, FNP-C, DipACLM · Last updated October 2, 2026.
🌲 Stacey Lynn — Chief Non-Clinical EVERgreen Guardian™
Discover Stacey’s plant-based education, culinary conversations, and public work. This is an honorary, non-clinical recognition from Kitchen Monk™ and Flourishing Nursing™.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” 
