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This is a guest post from Nico Dingemans, the owner of Hospitality Perspectives and Hospitality in Health, who has recently embarked on a career as an author and, together with  fellow Dutch foodie Jan Bartelsman, is behind “Health Cuisine”, a luxury cookbook-in-the-making about healthy gastronomy. 

I spent more than 10 years working in 5-star hotels in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the United States, mainly in F&B management, before becoming an executive search consultant for the luxury hospitality and, increasingly, the growing luxury health industry in the Middle East and Europe a couple of years ago.

I always felt that ‘healthy gastronomy’ has a huge public significance, because we all want a healthier lifestyle, while continuing to eat delicious food and my involvement in the health sector mean that I often discussed the necessity for creative and healthy food in today’s society with my many contacts in the industry. I found that, in the past, many people linked “healthy food” to “boring” and “bland”, which I knew not to be true and which got me thinking about ways to promote the benefits of healthy gastronomy to a wider audience. That’s how the idea for “Health Cuisine”, the luxury cookbook-in-the-making about healthy gastronomy featuring 12 chefs in 12 destinations, was conceived. The book is based on a sophisticated approach towards signature recipes with health benefits and represents an innovative approach to healthy eating.

An innovative cookbook, in my opinion, deserves a novel way of funding and that’s why fellow foodie & renowned food photographer Jan Bartelsman and I decided to launch a crowdsourcing campaign with the award-winning Dutch crowdfunder symbid.com. Symbid enables investors to become micro-owners of innovative start-ups and enterprises with special ideas. Investors not only actively help projects/companies to reach their financial targets, but also assist hugely with word-of-mouth-marketing during the creation process, thanks to crowdsourcing’s links with social media and online networks. It’s a very “social” way to fund a project.

For us, the decision to crowdfund our project was ultimately about engaging the public/the crowd – a process that starts with getting your idea ‘out there’. Crowdfunding seemed like the perfect medium to build an involved reader-audience before the publication of the book and also allows us to incentivize micro-investors (our readers) with a special edition of the book at a special price.

The cookbook will showcase 12 top chefs from 12 countries throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Each participating chef contributes 3 or 4 signature recipes to promote a healthy lifestyle. Signature recipes will complement the cultural context of the destination and each recipe highlights the health benefits of 1 or 2 specific ingredients. In addition, two pages are dedicated to each chef with a bio and a short-form interview about healthy food. Two more pages are dedicated to the each chef’s luxury hotel/resort work environment and the destination. Together with Jan, who’s contributing captivating photography of the different dishes, chefs, and destinations, I will travel to all 12 locations to supervise the photo-shootings and personally experience the different cuisines. We blog about our culinary journey on www.facebook.com/healthcuisinebook.

We want “Health Cuisine” to not just be a book, but a mindset and are keen to use a sophisticated multimedia approach to encourage and promote well-being and a healthy lifestyle through conscious choices regarding healthy foods. We are not the health food expert – the chefs are! What we want to do is to connect the chefs, share their culinary visions, and showcase their creations. We do this by driving user engagement. Thanks to the input of crowdfunding investors and our social media followers, the book is indirectly evolving into a luxury wellness destination guide.

I invite you to join us on our journey and look forward to seeing you follow us during our travels in the coming months on our venture to promote Health Cuisine and the chefs.

For more information about “Health Cuisine” visit http://symbid.com/ideas/1320-health-cuisine-luxury-cookbook or https://www.facebook.com/healthcuisinebook/info. The book is scheduled for publication on 12^th December 2012 (12/12/12) and will be available online via amazon.com, as well as via the book’s Facebook Page, selected hotels worldwide, and boutique bookstores throughout Europe.