Food as Medicine: How What We Eat Influences How We Feel, Think, and Our Health Status

Catalog description

This course will discuss key aspects of the interplay between food and health/wellness and in particular food synergy - interactions among dietary components and the effects on health. What are "whole foods" vs. basic nutrients? Emphasis will be placed on evaluating human diets and dietary components that optimize health, minimize disease, across diverse cultures and groups as influenced by race, ethnicity, class, and age, to provide new understandings of ethno-cultural practices, variations. What are the most common nutrient deficiencies in men, women and children, including the elderly? Students will learn to interpret dietary recommendations/guidelines and which foods are used to improve digestion, optimize cardiovascular health and immune function, and help prevent cancer. Basic discussion of importance of gut micro-flora. Diet and body weight; also pros and cons of different dieting strategies. Increasing awareness of "culinary medicine" (i.e. how food acts as an integrated therapy). How what we eat influences how we feel, think and our general health status. There is an integrated culinary experience. Counts as a Human Diversity & Commonality course. Prereq: NTRN 201 or requisites not met permission.