About Karen

Karen Gros is a chef, retreat host, and travel guide — and the founder of Karen Gros Wellness Cooking School and Travel. For over 20 years, she taught French cooking classes in her Provençal-style home in Northwest Arkansas, drawing on organic ingredients sourced from local farms.

Everything changed after she watched The Game Changers and faced health challenges of her own. She shifted her diet and lifestyle completely — and discovered firsthand just how much of our health is within our control. That discovery reshaped her cooking, her teaching, and eventually her whole career.

Karen holds a Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and eCornell, a Wellness Counseling Certificate from eCornell, and is a Certified Nutrition & Lifestyle Coach and Plant-Based Coach through the Food Revolution Network. Today, she leads hands-on Wellness Culinary Experiences, 5-day immersive wellness retreats, and free community potlucks — always with the same goal: give people real knowledge and real skills, then trust them to choose their own path. She also serves as Executive Director of the nonprofit Ozark Center for Lifestyle Medicine.

As a French-speaking dual citizen, Karen also designs small-group "insider" travel experiences to Europe that nourish body, mind, and spirit.

Outside of work, Karen enjoys time with family and friends, yoga on her back deck, hiking, dancing, reading, and being in nature.