Martin Yan on Food and Wellbeing

Please Note: This live online conversation was recorded on our CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel. It is also available on our podcast. Explore the recipes of the meals Chef Yan prepared here.


Chef extraordinaire and popular TV host Martin Yan has spent decades promoting Chinese and pan-Asian cuisines on his popular TV show Yan Can Cook. Passionate about cooking as well as its benefits for health and wellbeing, Chef Yan is known world-wide for celebrating Chinese and Asian cuisines and cultures, encouraging home cooks to explore these important and delicious foodways. 
 
Important to Chef Yan and to Chinese cuisine is the interconnection between our wellbeing and the food we eat.  According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, foods and herbs alike can be selected and prepared appropriately to tonify, cleanse, and regulate the body. In a diet guided by Traditional Chinese Medicine, one looks not only for vitamins and minerals but also the energetic properties of food.

Join Dr. Meg Jordan Chair of Integrative Health Studies at CIIS for an entertaining and illuminating conversation with Martin exploring Traditional Chinese Medicine, food, and wellbeing. Discover insights on balance and understand important concepts of traditional Chinese food energetics including the five seasons of Traditional Chinese Medicine and how changing food choices based on the time of year can support your health and wellness.  

Please note that this conversation will be hosted live online and includes a live cooking demonstration. Instructions on how to join the conversation will be included in your event confirmation email. If you need additional assistance finding or joining the event, please email publicprograms@ciis.edu.  

“Yan Can Cook, So Can You!” has always been the motto of Martin Yan, chef extraordinaire and popular television host recognized from Shanghai to San Francisco. Promoting Chinese and Asian cuisine, making it easy for home cooks has been his life-long mission.

Born in Guangzhou in Southern China, Chef Yan is technically a second generation ‘culinarian,’ who was first inspired by his parents in the kitchen of their family restaurant.

After receiving his chef training in Hong Kong, Chef Yan immigrated to the U.S., receiving a master’s degree in Food Science from UC Davis.  Beginning in 1978, he began to host the now world-famous Yan Can Cook show, which grew to become one of the most popular and long-lasting cooking programs on television in its 40 years of worldwide broadcast.  It has won several James Beard Awards. 

Never one to rest on his laurels, Chef Yan has remained an active international food ambassador. He roams the world appearing at culinary institutes, food and wine events, and trade shows to entertain and educate the public, sharing with them his unique humor and passion for Chinese and Asian culture. 

Meg Jordan, PhD, RN, NBC-HWC is Chair of Integrative Health Studies masters program at the California Institute of Integral Studies for the past 13 years. Dr. Jordan is a clinical medical anthropologist, national board certified health and wellness coach, award-winning international health journalist, behavioral health specialist, RN, author, and President of Global Medicine Enterprises. She was founding editor in chief of American Fitness Magazine, and is emeritus board member of the National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching.  Her peer-reviewed journal articles on education and training of health coaches, coaching for diversity, and the difference between coaching and psychotherapy rank in the top tier of cited publications for coaching psychology. 

Dr. Jordan also served as Co-President of the National Wellness Institute board, the first woman leader in the Institute’s 40-year history, and received its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. She was among the first to receive Certified Wellness Professional credential from NWI. She serves as guest faculty for the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, University of Arizona, and the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. Her innovative model for teaching coaching to health care professionals has been adopted in India and China. 

As a medical anthropologist, she specializes in collaborative models for integrative medicine and the emergence of health coaches as novel agents in health behavior change. She received a grant from the Aetna Foundation to bring Integrative Wellness Coaching to public housing residents and street-dwelling adults. She is author of several journal articles five books, including The Fitness Instinct, and How to be a Health Coach: An Integrative Wellness Approach, and Integrative Health Coaching, and the forthcoming Adventures of a Global Medicine Hunter.

She has a clinical practice as a behavioral health specialist, advanced practice RN, and board certified health coach, and is the former director of Integrative Practice at the Health Medicine Center. She serves on numerous editorial and advisory boards. She is a recipient of various awards including Circle and Leadership Service Award, the Healthy American Fitness Leader Award from the White House and Jaycees, and AHA awards as a cardiac rehabilitation supervisor, contributing to the nation’s first hospital-based wellness center in Los Angeles. Dr. Jordan is former health commentator for NBC Today, West Coast CNN, KTVU-TV’s “Mornings on Two,” and acclaimed host of Global Medicine Hunter® radio and Global TV broadcast, Healthy Living with Dr Meg Jordan.”  She was on the first California Governor’s Council for Physical Fitness and Sports, and has written and produced over 22 platinum-selling health and wellness videos and TV shows. Her hobbies include racing sailboats, hiking and kayaking in San Francisco Bay, and living a wellness lifestyle with family, her adult children and grandchildren, friends and animal companions.