Celebrity chefs and reality cooking shows have been raising awareness for charities and causes in popular television cooking competitions like Chopped! All Stars on the Food Network, and Top Chef Masters on Bravo TV. In Bravo's third season of Top Chef Masters, two chefs are competing to benefit cancer research charities. During April 7th's premiere, Chef Alessandro “Alex” Strata revealed on air that he's a colon cancer survivor.
In one of his profile segments, Chef Stratta, a former Iron Chef Italian on the old Iron Chef USA show, James Beard award winner and the chef-owner of Stratta in Las Vegas, explained that he is competing for the charity Faster Cures because he is a colon cancer survivor. He said on air that he was attracted to the charity because their emphasis on research could get the same quality of care to others that he experienced. This season, Top Chef Masters contestant Floyd Cardoz is also competing for a cancer research charity, the Young Scientist Cancer Research Fund at Mt. Sinai Medical School.
In the Top Chef Masters format, even departing chefs receive a donation to their charities. Quickfire challenge wins also earn $5000 for the charities, and elimination challenge wins not only keep the chef in the game, but award $10,000 to the winning chef's charity each week. The grand prize for which each chef is competing is $100,000 awarded to their designated charities.
Stratta won the series' first elimination challenge, Restaurant Wars, for a fricasee judge Ruth Reichl described in her blog as “perfectly executed...chef’s food, done by a Master.”
Born in 1964 in Wisconsin, 47-year-old Stratta is one of a growing number of U.S. adults being diagnosed with colorectal cancer before they reach the recommended screening age of 50. Since the colorectal cancer screening guidelines don't reflect the rise in diagnoses of rectal cancer in patients under 40, young adults and their physicians need to be especially vigilant about earlier screening when they have a family history of colorectal cancer, or if they notice symptoms which could indicate colorectal cancer.
Faster Cures, a division of the Milken Prostate Cancer Foundation, earned $10,000 from Stratta's first Top Chef Masters elimination challenge win. After winning, Chef Stratta commented, “This is huge. I am a survivor of cancer and it makes a great deal of difference to me that there is [sic] funds out there for people to receive the kind of care I had.” Hear more from Chef Stratta in Bravo TV's “Meet Alex Stratta” video.
Follow colorectal cancer survivor and chef-testant Stratta's progress through the Top Chef Masters gauntlet each week on Bravo, Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET.
Sources:
- Bravo premiere episode, Top Chef Masters season three
- Bios, Top Chef Masters, Bravo
- Increased incidence of rectal cancer in patients aged younger than 40 years, J. Meyer, et. al., Cancer, DOI: 10.1002/cncr.25432, © 2010 American Cancer Society
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