Preparing Healthy Meals for Dietary Requirements with BBC Good Food
Gain the skills to prepare healthy, balanced, and delicious meals for special dietary needs including vegan and food allergens.
Duration
Approx 15 weeks3-4 hrs per week
Improve your cooking skills and approach special dietary needs with confidence
Health is a vital life currency. What you eat affects not just your weight, but your energy, your mind, and your susceptibility to certain health conditions. However, you shouldn’t require a degree in nutrition to navigate how to eat well and nourish your body in a simple way.
On this ExpertTrack, you’ll be introduced to the idea of personalisation in the kitchen by exploring four areas of special dietary needs; low sugar or sugar conscious, gut supportive, free-from, and vegan.
You’ll go on a food-first journey to understand why these requirements are important, and how to maintain nutritional balance and taste in your meals.
Learn how to make healthy meals for dietary preferences
Throughout the ExpertTrack, you’ll not only develop an understanding of the most common dietary preferences but you’ll also learn how to cater to these diets with delicious and nutritious food.
You’ll discover new, healthy ingredients as well as creative ways to use them as you collect tasty recipes and build your repertoire of dishes in the kitchen.
Explore the importance of gut health
As well as providing nutrition, gut-healthy food can also improve our mental and physical wellbeing.
You’ll examine the role of fibre, probiotics, and prebiotics in gut health and learn gut-healthy techniques to cook nutritious food.
Learn more about the vegan diet
You’ll explore vegan diets and how to create delicious, nutritious, and healthy vegan meals.
Whether you’re a new or existing vegan, or simply looking to include more plant-based meals, you’ll learn how to easily maintain nutritional balance on a vegan diet.
Approach food allergies and intolerances with confidence
You’ll be guided through the most common food allergens and learn the difference between allergies and food intolerances to help you create safe meals.
You’ll explore ingredient alternatives to help you choose nutritious and tasty food to support your health.
Explore sugar-free and low-sugar diets
Taking a deep dive into the effects of sugar on the body, you’ll learn tips and tricks to help you reduce sugar and create tasty sugar-free and low-sugar recipes.
By the end of this ExpertTrack, you’ll have the knowledge and confidence to navigate special dietary requirements with ease. With tasty recipes and new cooking skills under your belt, you can impress your friends and family with delicious meals.
Key skills you will learn
- choose recipes
- choose ingredients
- cook healthy
- understand nutritional balance
- dietary preferences
- baking
- vegan cooking
- prepare fibre-rich meals
- create low sugar recipes
- identify prebiotics
- identify probiotic rich foods
- cooking
Experience required
This ExpertTrack will arm you with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to prepare meals for dietary requirements.
You don’t need any prior knowledge but should have basic cooking skills such as being able to follow a recipe.
Getting started
Whether you’re a healthy eating enthusiast, a family cook, a nutrition-curious learner, or you simply want to know more about creating balanced meals, this ExpertTrack will benefit you.
ExpertTrack course overview
Course 1
Sweet Tooth: Understanding Sugar and the Body with BBC Good Food
Learn the difference between good and bad sugars, how to manage cravings, as well as tasty sugar-free and low-sugar recipes.
1 test
4 weeks
4 hours per week
Week 1
Sugar basics
- Welcome to the course
- Sugar essentials
- Digestion and 'healthier' sugars
- What's next?
Week 2
Sugar and the body
- Welcome to Week 2
- Getting the balance right
- Sugar and the brain
- Wrapping up Week 2
Week 3
Sugar substitutes
- Welcome to Week 3
- What’s the natural alternative?
- Synthetic substitutes
- Week 3 wrap up
Week 4
Take it to the kitchen
- Welcome to Week 4
- Cooking and baking with sugar
- Replacing sugar
- What's next?
Course 2
Fibre, Fermentation & the Gut with BBC Good Food
Learn the importance of gut health and how to use more gut-friendly ingredients in your diet with tasty and nutritious recipes.
1 test
3 weeks
3 hours per week
Week 1
Fibre basics
- Welcome to the course
- Fibre basics
- Gut health supporters
- What’s next?
Week 2
Fibre and the body
- Welcome to Week 2
- Benefits for health
- Gut health, immunity and mood
- What’s next?
Week 3
Take it to the kitchen
- Welcome to Week 3
- Getting the day off to a good start
- Kitchen secrets
- What’s next?
Course 3
Special Diets: Cooking for Allergies and Intolerances with BBC Good Food
Approach dietary requirements with confidence as you learn to identify allergens and intolerances to create safe, delicious meals.
1 test
4 weeks
4 hours per week
Week 1
What is a special diet?
- Welcome
- Are you allergic?
- What else could it be?
- What’s next?
Week 2
Food safety
- Welcome
- Common allergens
- Food safety
- What’s next?
Week 3
Alternatives
- Welcome
- Which substitute?
- Tricky substitutes
- What’s next?
Week 4
Take it to the kitchen
- Welcome
- Let’s get cooking
- Taking it to the next level
- What’s next?
Course 4
Healthy Vegan Cooking with BBC Good Food
Learn more about vegan diets as you discover how to cook and eat in a nutritionally balanced way while maintaining one.
2 tests
4 weeks
3 hours per week
Week 1
Vegan basics
- Welcome
- Different diets
- Why vegan?
- What’s next?
Week 2
The vegan plate
- Welcome
- The macros
- The finer detail - micronutrients
- What’s next?
Week 3
Ingredient substitutes
- Welcome
- Which substitute?
- Main meals
- What’s next?
Week 4
Take it to the kitchen
- Welcome
- Let’s get cooking
- Take it up a level
- What’s next?
Prove you're job ready
Highlight the new, job-relevant skills you’ve gained and supplement existing qualifications with a hard-earned, industry-specific digital certificate – plus one for every course within your ExpertTrack.
- Learn the latest in your chosen industry or subject.
- Complete each course and pass assessments.
- Receive certificates validated by the educating organisation.
- Impress employers with learning outcomes you can add to your CV.
- Make your career dreams a reality.
Download a PDF
How ExpertTracks work
Join an ExpertTrack to master new skills in your chosen specialist area. Work through a series of topic-focused courses at your own pace, and pass the final assessment to earn a digital certificate award which proves your expertise.
Decide if the ExpertTrack is right for you with free access to the full suite of courses and assessments for a week.
Pay a monthly subscription fee of $39 for as long as it takes you to complete the ExpertTrack. You can learn at your own pace and cancel at any time.
Receive a certificate for every completed course and pass the final assessment to earn a digital certificate.
Use your specialist training to progress further in your career or build expertise in areas you’re passionate about.
World-class learning with BBC Good Food
BBC Good Food is the no 1. food media brand in the UK comprising the monthly food magazine launched in 1987, leading food website, and bi-annual BBC Good Food Shows.
Meet your instructor
Tracey is the Health Editor at BBC Good Food. She is a registered nutritionist, holding an MSc in Personalised Nutrition and further qualifications in Psychology & Philosophy. Follow her @traceyraye
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ExpertTracks are a series of online courses designed to help you master new skills in specialist areas. You pay a monthly subscription fee which includes access to all courses within the ExpertTrack, as well as assessments and the final digital certificate.
Each ExpertTrack comes with a 7-day free trial period. You may cancel your subscription at any time and your subscription will automatically cancel when you finish the courses and assessments in your chosen ExpertTrack.
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