Farming for Health Podcast #32: Kevin Boehm

When James Beard Foundation Award-winning restaurateur Kevin Boehm is asked to describe BIÂN—the private club where he serves as chairman—he shares that it’s hard to capture its essence in just a couple of sentences. That’s because there really isn’t anything else quite like BIÂN. 

A club in Chicago that focuses on wellness, work, and connectivity, the goal is to provide physical, emotional, medical, and social health in hyper individualized ways to members: wellness for mind, body, and soul. Kevin says that people have joked that he’s created something that he wanted for himself but couldn’t find—and that’s actually true.

In their center for holistic health, BIÂN Medical is overseen by a medical director and features doctors that specialize in Chinese medicine, naturopathy, Ayurveda medicine, and more. There’s a psychologist as well. As far as BIÂN’s health club aspects, there’s a yoga room, a Pilates room, a gym, an outdoor gym, steam rooms, nap rooms, and more. In the area for BIÂN Beauty, members can have access to luxurious skincare treatments as well as medical grade aesthetics such as injectables.

Then there’s the restaurant at BIÂN. For a club setting, it’s important to have a broad menu for each of the three meal times, one that aligns with health goals but is still quite “craveable.” To make that happen, restaurant offerings have been designed with intention using quality ingredient sourcing. Kevin notes that eating at this restaurant is one of the components of his own wellness journey. 

To find out more about Kevin’s adventures, listen to “BIÂN, Holistic Health, and Filling Your Tank.”

Past Episodes of our Farming for Health Podcast

If you’ve missed any of our previous episodes, you can find them here:

• Episode One: Keto, Cruciferous Vegetables, Salt and Your Mindset
• Episode Two: Cooking, Conviviality, and Preserving the Harvest
• Episode Three: Ferments, Food Insecurity, and Wasted Food
• Episode Four: Anti-Cancer Diet, Food as Medicine, and Vegetables
• Episode Five: Plants, Happiness and Mindful Neglect.
• Episode Six: Whole 30, Sustainable Habits, and Loving Vegetables
• Episode Seven: Iodine, Egg Yolk Enzymes, and Miso
• Episode Eight: Fungi, Bitter Foods, and Food Extinction
• Episode Nine: Understanding Food, Nutritional Healing and Farming
• Episode Ten: Enjoying the Process, Connection and Soup
• Episode Eleven: Monica Geller, Community and Limiting Salads 
• Episode Twelve: Nourishment, Creativity, and Full-Spectrum Health
• Episode Thirteen: The Joy of Cooking, Fermentation, and Seasonality 
• Episode Fourteen: Cauliflower, Potlucks, and the Joy of Food
• Episode Fifteen: Time Savers, Pickled Raisins and Cooking With Creativity
• Episode Sixteen: Romanticizing Food, Seasonal Eating, and Shamed Spinach
• Episode Seventeen: Being Present, The Eat In Method and Food as Fuel
• Episode Eighteen: Regenerative Grazing, Monarchs and Voting with Your Dollar 
• Episode Nineteen: Childhood Injustice, Soil Health, and Relationship with Nature
• Episode Twenty: Yoga, Climate Changes, and Creating a Livable Future
• Episode Twenty-One: Understanding the Soul, Flow State, and Finding Your Purpose
• Episode Twenty-Two: Regenerative Food Systems, Food Sheds, and Resiliency 
• Episode Twenty-Three: Leaning In: Culinary Trends and the Power of Teaching
• Episode Twenty-Four: Mentorship, Self-Care, and Hospitality
• Episode Twenty-Five: Community, Self-Care, and Mindset Tools
• Episode Twenty-Six: Sustainability, Koji Coffee, Being Intentional 
• Episode Twenty-Seven: Finding Your Passion, Picky Eaters, and Cooking for Levi
• Episode Twenty-Eight: Creativity. Brining Vegetables and Family Pasta Night
• Episode Twenty-Nine: Triathlons, Eat to Nourish, and Be Bold With Your Cooking
• Episode Thirty: Ben’s Friends, Community “WE,” and Taking Action
• Episode Thirty-One: Bread, Celebrating Community, and the California Approach