Care 2: Find Out About Nutrition

Finding dietary advice conflicting and contradictory? Is butter ok or not? This course will address the current advice and issues concerning what we should and shouldn't eat and explore some of the current research concerning diet.

We shall begin by looking at the micro and macronutrients necessary for a healthy nutritious diet: what they are, what foods contain them, what they do, how the requirements change over our lifetimes and what they do in our bodies.

We then identify different types of diet (not the slimming ones!), vegetarian, vegan, gluten/lactose free, flexitarian and so on, and identify the pros and cons of each of them. Your opinions and experiences will be a valued part of this.

During the course we will examine food labelling, identifying the different styles used in the UK, and discussing what we think works best, and how useful they are.

We shall see how you can adapt recipes to allow for dietary restrictions in a way that you are not cooking different foods for the family. We will look at requirements at different stages of life and will look at the current research into gut health. We shall investigate the current guidelines for diet and health conditions such as heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

There will be plenty of time for discussion and questions, and we will endeavour to address any particular interests you have.