food and health has taught me how i can eat healthy in the aspect of eating quality food in small quantity ,it also taught how to take in foods with nutritional values(less calories and fat)am so glade am part of this class because my knowledge foe health has really increase

I expected more depth in the nutrition side, like meals and drink that prevent some nutrients absortion and shouldn't be mixed with the meals providing those nutrients. But I guess it's ok for introduction.

The course is essentially a self-help guide focusing on the idea that cooking real food promotes health. This is certainly a message that many people need to hear.

Unfortunately, the advice concerning what to eat is less sound. Let me illustrate this with a historical counterexample.

Around 75 years ago, a Canadian dentist visited my home country of Switzerland, where he examined the health and diet of a population in a secluded mountain valley. He found them to be of exceptional health. Their diet?

breakfast: rye sourdough bread, butter and cheese

lunch: rye sourdough bread, butter and cheese

dinner: rye sourdough bread, butter, cheese and potatoes, along with some vegetables in the warmer half of the year, and small amounts of meat on Sundays

Contrary to four fundamental recommendations in the course, these people ate a lot of saturated fat (butter) and animal protein (cheese), but few vegetables and had hardly any variation in their diet.

They did prepare their own food, grown or pastured locally, in very mineral-rich soil, which imparted their butter and cheese with very high amounts of fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K2. Perhaps animal foods are not as unhealthy as the course suggests, and food (and soil) quality is paramount.

Instead of taking this course, watch Maya Adam's TEDx talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-gyIkA-crM) and browse the recommendations of the Weston A. Price Foundation (http://www.westonaprice.org/) to learn what to cook, in particular their Healthy4Life dietary guidelines (http://www.westonaprice.org/wp-content/uploads/Healthy4LifeEnglish.pdf). If you still need a self-help guide to actually start cooking your own food then by all means, take this course. It'll only take you about an hour.

The course, unfortunately, was rather disappointing. It is super basic and superficial (only week 1 and half of week 2 were actually useful), and looks rather like a cooking course then nutrition (week 5 is purely cooking recipes and week 4 is supermarket shopping advices). It doesn't cover anything beyond carbs-fats-proteins on the most basic level. In other words, there will be no explanation of the difference between cooking oils or why we actually need different-coloured veggies, nothing about fruits or other nutrients. I didn't really understand the target auditory, cause there is an example case of middle-aged pre-diabetic man, while at the same time a whole week is dedicated to shopping and cooking advices for dummies who have never cooked pasta and cannot manage supermarket shopping. Lastly, the term "western diet" is often used, though the course is focused on the US only and not Europe, not to confuse. Same applies to statistics provided in the course, trends and eating habits (e.g. US people are eating non-home cooked meals more often compared to rest of the world, which entangles whole set of issues and ways to fix them).

Hi everyone! I respect the work behind this course, but I feel it is very basic and superficial. I used to cook everyday and most of the things that were mentioned I read them on short articles. I believe that the course may be good for people with unhealthy habits or limited knowledge about food.

Honestly, I was expecting deeper scientific-related information with information that could teach me to calculate portions according my weight or body shape and understand the effects of certain proteins, carbs, fats, vitamins, etc. on my body.

Do to my extensive research with my family on food and what we eat, i found this course to have a little bit of unhealthy advice. however it is a good start, but our food system is falling apart and sooner or later the world will have a real food problem. this course does not have the answer but points somewhat in the wright direction. Go to the source, the supermarket is not the source the farmer is.

additional follow up information can be found on amazon prime(Food INC. GMO OMG, ect.) and books written by Joel Salitin.

Very light on information, targeted towards weight loss. A few useful points, but the entire course can basically be boiled down to "cook your own food, not too much, mostly plants."

Do not watch if you're bulimic or anorexic as they don't seem to understand that the maxim should actually be "cook your own food, not too much *or too little*, mostly plants"

Oh and it's quite twee and middle class - quite a few "simple" recipes involving flax seeds, that kind of shit.

Very, very basic. Already knew everything they talked about. Chances are you've heard a lot of the adages and advice included in this course. Felt more like a self-help "how to eat better" course and less of a course on actual nutrition. Was hoping for a bit more depth. Like when you say "Different color vegetables have different nutrients" - spell those out. Disappointed. I'm surprised this is considered a college level course.

This is not really an online course on food an health but a series on videos on eating and cooking. Interesting, but nothing new. And very much only US centered (e.g. supersize etc.). Living and eating in Europe this was not targeted. I liked the videos but it was way too basic (move more, eat less processed foods). I was expecting more from Stanford. This was a level which should be tought starting elementary school.

Had some helpful insights but very U.S.-centric and very heavy focus on eliminating processed foods instead of talking about general nutrition/health. Should not be labeled as a course on "health and nutrition", as you don't really learn a lot about either. Instead 80% of the course is spend emphasising the importance of substituting processed food with fresh ingredients without actually going into very much detail.

unscientific - almost purely motivational videos without any scientific basis or theory behind them. Professor of journalism as an expert - even more questionable. Lack of specifics - even list of products that are compared by amino acids so it's clear how to get all 9 essential from plant-based food. Finally, glycemic index doesn't lead to hunger - there are studies that prove that. Shouldn't be mentioned here.

Probably my delusion has been caused by different kind of expectation: nothing about this course is "wrong" I just found it excessively simple and basic, perhaps directed to a public that never took a knife and cut some vegetables before. I was hoping in some more technical information, and nutritional biology.. it looked more like a well made commercial for a healthy life stile.

Perhaps helpful for someone looking to change their western diet for health reasons. However, I wouldn't recommend this course for anyone feeling like they will gain a dense (even introductory) knowledge of the science within nutrition. The first week has some insight that was new to me, but everything after was just about how to change your diet, shop and eventually recipes.

They talked a little about LDL and HDL which is good.

But the rest was just a summary of avoid processed foods, eat less and eat less meat and ways to do it. It is important, but I thought the course lacked science and it was very very short.

Pleasant and informative but VERY simplistic which was surprising for a Stanford course; I was expecting more on the bio/chemistry of nutrition and digestion, but this was more of a cooking show...

Did not go into enough detail, reiterated home cooking and spoil rate but did not get into specifics. Perhaps another class on what foods do what in your body would be beneficial.

Seemed more geared toward people planning to change their eating habits. Also did not consider barriers to eating balanced meals like not having access to a nearby grocery store.

Extremely basic in content but professional in presentation. Frankly, I'm surprised that this is a Stanford course. I expected something less elementary.

A very general information is given. I was expecting to have more information on how to divide my protein in take or carbs throughout everyday meals.

very basic and obvious content

The course does not challenge the student, especially if you already have some prior knowledge to nutrition and health

Though this course was informative, I was hoping it would focus more on the biology and chemistry of foods, why they would be beneficial etc.

This is ok if you know absolutely nothing about nutrition. Otherwise, it's basically information I'd expect to be relayed to kindergarteners.

rather than teaching how to cook, the teaching should be about the nutritional value of a particular food item.

Started off promising, then took a dive. A deep dive into the sea of useless information and irrelevance.

I was expecting a little more focus on the chemicals and the nutrients that we use to cook