Professional Chef Created Meals Featured at the Pasadena Recovery Center

Chef Eric Swab

The Pasadena Recovery Center(PRC) takes great pride in providing three excellent meals a day for our residents. The kitchen has been run by professional chef, Eric Swab, for the past two years. Eric trained at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Pasadena and has worked as the private chef for Brake Media, the sous chef at 300 Pasadena, and held many positions in various Italian restaurants. While Eric has created a seven day meal plan with different daily offerings for lunch and dinner, he prides himself in continuously mixing it up by adding new dishes to his repertoire. He also makes sure that there are always vegan and vegetarian options.

Breakfast

Breakfast is generally the same every morning and consists of bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, pancakes, oatmeal, cereal, and fresh fruit. But Chef Eric will also throw French Toast, quiche and waffles into the mix.

Lunch

All lunches have fresh fruit, salad and mixed vegetable options. Some of the main course offerings include lasagna, grilled fish, cheeseburgers, spaghetti in marinara sauce and fish tacos.

Dinner

Chef Eric usually devotes one night to Mexican cuisine. Another night features Striped Pangasius – a close relative of catfish – which Eric will grill, fry, bake, blacken or create a roulade. Other typical offerings include Chinese food, yankee pot roast, meat loaf and pasta.


Columbia University Study on Addiction Medicine: Closing the Gap Between Science and Practice

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (NCASA) at Columbia University has just released an important must-read five year national study – Addiction Medicine: Closing the Gap between Science and Practice – that finds that only one in 10 people with addiction to drug and/or alcohol reports receiving any treatment at all. That is a travesty.

Other highlights from the report:

  • Forty million Americans ages 12 and older (16 percent) have the disease of addiction involving nicotine, alcohol or other drugs, a disease affecting more Americans than heart conditions, diabetes or cancer; another 80 million people are risky substance users – using tobacco, alcohol and other drugs in ways that threaten health and safety.
  • About 7 in 10 people with diseases like hypertension, major depression and diabetes receive treatment; only about 1 in 10 people who need treatment for addiction involving alcohol or other drugs receive it while the number receiving treatment for nicotine is not even known.
  • Addiction treatment facilities and programs are not adequately regulated or held accountable for providing treatment consistent with medical standards and proven treatment practices.
  • In 2010 only $28 billion was spent to treat the 40 million people with addiction.  In comparison, the United States spent:
    • $44 billion to treat diabetes which affects 26 million people;
    • $87 billion to treat cancer which affects 19 million people;
    • $107 billion to treat heart conditions which affect 27 million people.

Read the entire report