From Pennington's Metabolic Kitchen

For almost four decades, Louisiana State University’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center has been at the forefront of nutrition and health research. A core component of the Center’s work takes place in the Metabolic Kitchen, which supports nutritional research by creating and serving specialized meals to support various studies.

For this special segment of our 2022 Health & Wellness Section, we reached out to the Director of the Metabolic Kitchen, Registered Dietitian Renée Puyau, to learn more about this research, as well as to get her suggestions for healthy eating in the new year. 

Q: Tell me about your background as a dietitian. 

A: So, I actually grew up very heavy into classical ballet. I grew up in Baton Rouge, and then started out as a dance major at the University of Alabama. Shortly thereafter, I thought, “This isn’t what I want to do with my life.” I developed an interest in nutrition and switched my major. And that ended up being something I stuck with. I became a Registered Dietitian (RD), moved back home to Baton Rouge, and then started working at Pennington as a dietician in the kitchen. Almost fifteen years later, here I am. 

Q: Can you describe your role in the kitchen at Pennington? 

A: Our main job in the kitchen is to support the studies at Pennington, where the participants need to receive certain types of food. This could be a feeding study, where we are feeding participants a very specific diet anywhere from a few days, to a few weeks, to a few months. Or it could be that we’re just giving the participants individual food items to incorporate into their regular diet. Maybe we’re looking at some investigational herb that’s supposed to have a beneficial effect on something like insulin sensitivity or blood sugar. We’ll incorporate that into a food and ask the participant to add it to their regular diet either just once along with some testing that we’re doing, or maybe every day for a week or a couple of weeks. 

The biggest thing that sets us apart from a regular food service operation like a school or restaurant or hospital is that we prepare the diets in a very specific way. We weigh out all of the foods for the participants to a tenth of a gram. And the foods that we use are chosen very specifically to match our menu planning software. So that way we know that our study participants are receiving exactly what we need them to receive in terms of calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates—sometimes even minerals or macronutrients. And that they are receiving the same thing every time we give that to them. 

Q: What do you love most about your job? 

A: It’s always changing. There will be a new challenge, and a study will start, and we’ll think “Oh goodness, how are we going to make this work?” There are a lot of opportunities for problem solving and working out systems that are specific to each study. And then that study lasts for a year or two, and we get our system down and feel really good about it, and then the study ends. And a new one starts, so we start all over again. It keeps it fresh, for sure. 

Q: What is an example of a study that is currently taking place at Pennington? 

A: We have one that’s ongoing on soy fiber, where we are incorporating a dietary fiber source based on soybeans into foods that we send home with participants. The dose of the fiber escalates—so they start at a low dose for a week, and the next week it’s a little bit higher, and the next week it’s the highest dose. They incorporate the food into their regular diet, and they just give us feedback on if they are tolerating the amount of soy that we’re giving them.

Q: What advice would you offer to someone who was interested in making changes toward having a healthier diet?   

A: My favorite advice is, number one:  just add in more fruits and vegetables. Even if you don’t take anything out—it’s always easier to add than take away. Just think about adding in a serving of fruits and veggies every day. And it doesn’t even have to be like raw broccoli. It can be something delicious; you’re still getting something good. 

The other thing I would say is take more time to sit down and have a meal with your friends or family, if you can, especially the people you live at home with. You know life gets busy and stressful, but taking the time to just sit down and have a meal together is so important. 

Q: What are some ways that you are able to share your experiences and expertise into the community?

A: We just ended a big project earlier this year called The Rolling Store, funded by The Wilson Foundation. We were able to go to around fifteen community centers. Before COVID, we were doing recipe demonstrations on site. But since then, we’ve offered virtual recipe demonstrations on YouTube. But then we’d actually give the people in attendance a big bag of fresh fruits and vegetables so that they could go home and make the recipes. 

Find two recipes from Puyau's Metabolic Kitchen on the following pages, and see her video demonstrations for recipes like Crunchy Chicken Slaw Wraps, Spring Rolls, Veggie Pasta Salad, and more on YouTube by searching for "Pennington Rolling Store".