Food as Medicine

I really enjoyed doing the cooking class at HyVee.  It was a nice prelude to my 3 week free online course through Future Learn on Food as Medicine.  The last email from Future Learn had the Course philosophy listed and I thought I'd share this with you.   I put a link at the bottom of this post in case you are interested in learning more about Future Learn.  I have taken around 6 courses through them.  They vary in length and time but I like to keep my brain busy learning new things and this is a great way to do it.

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We hope that the areas of foods and nutrition we have chosen will be useful to the majority of learners and their families, and that you can start using foods as medicine.

Course philosophy

In this course we can only provide a taster of the exciting world of nutrition science. We have tried to pick areas of greatest interest as well as areas applicable to the majority of learners, and as ‘food’ is such a large area, we unfortunately will not be able to cover all diseases, symptoms and foods that potentially can be used as medicine.

Things to do before the course starts

To get you thinking about using foods as medicine, I’ve created a list of foods that have been investigated for their potential role in keeping us healthy.

Chocolate

Cocoa, cacao and even the ever popular food chocolate, have been investigated for their potential health benefits.

Curcumin

Curcumin is the active ingredient and bright yellow pigment found in the spice turmeric, and more recently in some supplements.

Green tea

Green tea, a drink enjoyed by many people around the world, contains numerous components with antioxidant activity.

Garlic

The smell of cooked garlic is enough to make many people’s mouth water, yet we are learning more about the potential role of garlic and health.

Seaweed (Wakame and Mekabu)

Brown seaweeds such as Wakame and Mekabu contain many bioactive compounds, such as omega-3 fatty acids which have been associated with having cardio protective effects.

Ginger

Ginger has been associated with reducing nausea in both pregnancy and chemotherapy induced nausea, when compared with a placebo. This may be a helpful strategy in reducing nausea in some people as there are also initial reports that ginger may not have many side effects. It is important to understand that further research still needs to be conducted to understand the best form and dose of taking ginger to reduce nausea.

If you would like to use it more for its potential anti-nausea properties speak with your healthcare professional who will advise on dose and source of ginger to try.

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To learn more about FutureLearn go to:

https://www.futurelearn.com/