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NYU Food Lab

Nutrition and Food Studies

The NYU Food Lab serves as a hands-on classroom for many courses within the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies and across the University. It is also a food and nutrition idea incubator for our faculty and student body, where local and global issues pertaining to human and planetary health are considered and possible solutions are discussed and tested.

A cutting board with the elements of a recipe on top: shopped onions, carrot, garlic, herbs, grated cheese, oil, and spoons.

Learning in the Lab

The goal of the NYU Food Lab is to enable students to make sustainable personal food choices. You will learn the skills to make delicious, nutritious, and responsibly-sourced meals through hands-on explorations of culinary techniques.  

You will also be challenged to think about current issues pertaining to nutrition and sustainability from both an individual and global perspective.

For example, projects in the lab have included exploring the intersection of allergen-free cooking and minimizing food waste and designing culturally-appropriate menus for individuals with swallowing disorders.

A student wearing a purple NYU hat chopping vegetables on a cutting board.

Student Outcomes 

  • Learn, hone, and improve your culinary skills — such as knife skills, small animal butchery, and bread making

  • Gain hands-on experience in a commercial kitchen laboratory setting

  • Formulate and execute solutions pertaining to human and planetary health

  • Collaborate with peers to collectively address food and nutrition challenges

Photos from the Lab

Check out our Instagram to see our students in action in the Food Lab.

View Our Instagram Profile
A student posing with a raw shrimp.

News from the Food Lab

CSD and Nutrition Students Team Up for Iron Chef Competition

What do mashed potatoes, black bean soup, and coconut flan have in common? Not only are they foods easy for individuals with dysphagia, a swallowing disorder, to consume, but they are also dishes recently prepared by master’s students from the NYU Steinhardt Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders and Department of Nutrition and Food Studies taking “Interdisciplinary Case-Based Management in Dysphagia.”

Cool Course Dispatch: Culinary Physics in the NYU Food Lab

Students from the Steinhardt Food Studies program and Tisch's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) use physics to create culinary anomalies.

Fridays in the Food Lab: Cooking Competition Edition

A cooking competition hosted by the Food Lab featured student teams planning and executing menus in various culinary styles: gluten-free, vegan, locavore, kosher, and allergen-free.

The NYU Urban Farm Lab

Learn more about another lab in our department – a research and teaching farm located right in the heart of New York's Greenwich Village.

See What's Growing on the Farm
Student adjusting a stake at the Urban Farm Lab.