Healthy eating makes a healthy body & mind

This course teaches you how to develop a well balanced diet. Topics covered include how cooking and food processing affect nutrition, recommended nutrient intakes, assessing nutritional needs, planning a balanced diet, timing of meals, needs for special people/groups.

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Cooking and its Effect on Nutrition
2. Food Processing and its Effect on Nutrition
3. Recommended Daily Intake of Nutrients
4. Vitamins
5. Minerals
6. Planning a Balanced Diet
7. Assessing Nutritional Status and Needs
8. Diet Planning for Special Needs

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

• Determine appropriate food preparation for different foods, in relation to value for human health.
• Explain the characteristics of food processing techniques and their implications for human health.
• Understand the minimum and maximum safe intake for macronutrients, vitamins and minerals.
• Manage dietary intake of more significant vitamins including fat soluble, B and C complex vitamins for good health.
• Manage dietary requirements of significant minerals including calcium & iron for good health.
• Plan in detail, an appropriate seven day diet plan, for an "average" adult.
• Determine dietary needs of different individuals and sub-populations
• Plan diets to achieve different, specific purposes and to plan diets for specific needs for people at different stages of life.

• Determine the reasons for cooking food and compare different methods of cooking food in terms of their effect on both health and nutrition.
• Explain how meat can be ensured to be fit for human consumption in a raw state, such as in sushi
• Distinguish between function, effects, and chemistry of different types of food additives, in food preparation, including: Colours, Preservatives, Antioxidants, Vegetable gums, Flavourings, Thickeners, Anti caking agents, Bleaches, Emulsifiers, Humectants, Food Acids, Mineral salts
• Evaluate taste and nutritional effects of adding different specified flavourings to five different specified food dishes, including: *Salt *Sugar *Herbs *Wines
• Explain, giving examples of specific foods, how "freshness" of different specified foods, impacts upon nutrient status of those foods
• Explain how physical treatment of different specified foods (eg. cutting or crushing), may affect the food benefit of that food, including: *digestibility *keeping quality *nutrient status
• Explain different heat treatments for food preservation; in terms of the process, function and affects; including: *drying *canning *bottling *pasteurisation
• Explain freezing of food, in terms of the process, function and affects
• Define examples of each of the following types of food additives:*Colours *Preservatives *Antioxidants *Vegetable gums *Flavourings *Thickeners *Anti caking agents *Bleaches *Emulsifiers *Humectants *Food acids *Mineral salts
• Distinguish between function, effects, and chemistry of different types of food additives, in food preservation, including: *Colours *Preservatives *Antioxidants *Vegetable gums *Flavourings *Thickeners *Anti caking agents *Bleaches *Emulsifiers *Humectants *Food acids *Mineral salts
• Analyse in a report, the effects of food additives found in different supermarket food items