Healthy Cooking Made Easy with BBC Good Food (FutureLearn)

This course will take you on a food-first journey towards understanding what nutrition is, why it matters and how to apply its basic principles to your cooking.
Guided by our health and cooking experts at BBC Good Food, you’ll learn how to plan, devise, and master nutritious, everyday meals.

Explore the components of a balanced diet and discover how to apply these principles to your cooking
What you eat affects your mind, your body and your energy – but you shouldn’t need a degree in nutrition in order to eat well!
This course begins by introducing you to basic concepts such as nutrients, ingredient benefits and key equipment you might find useful in supporting your healthy cooking journey.
You’ll be empowered to make informed decisions about the type of meals and recipes you choose to support your long-term wellbeing.

Discover new flavours and cooking methods to support your healthy eating plans
Each week, you’ll master a new healthy dish to add to your recipe repertoire, learn how to identify food groups, plan your meals, and create healthy balanced meals in minutes.
You’ll also discover how to anticipate, eliminate and troubleshoot potential failure points like recipe mishaps, planning and food storage.

Step into healthy cooking with experts at BBC Good Food
BBC Good Food has over 30 years of culinary teaching experience and this course offers a wealth of knowledge to any aspiring healthy cook.
Developed in collaboration with our health and nutrition experts, you’ll be inspired to have fun with cooking while also discovering healthy dishes that make you feel great in the process.

What topics will you cover?
Healthy cooking made easy covers nutrition basics such as nutrients and calories, health benefits of key ingredients and equipment required to create simple healthy meals in just five weeks - including a stir-fry, curry, traybake, pasta and fish dish.
Each week, you’ll learn how to master a new healthy meal to add to your kitchen repertoire. The classes start with the very fundamentals of healthy eating, including understanding and identifying the key foods that support your health and why. As you work your way through the course, you’ll build on this knowledge, learning how to easily identify food groups, plan ahead and create delicious, balanced meals in minutes.
Each class involves an investigation into your ingredient benefits and their purpose in your meal; an exploration of what learners already know, kitchen equipment and ingredient know-how, as well as how to anticipate, eliminate and troubleshoot potential failure points i.e. food storage, equipment and leftovers. Each class ends with a new recipe to make and a supplemental recipe to experiment with further, plus links to a collection of recipes that might prove useful in the future.
This course also includes:

• How to properly identify macronutrients i.e. protein, fats, carbs
• Understanding micronutrients and their sources
• Creative ways to achieve your 5-a-day
• The benefits of colour and savvy seasonings in your meals
• How to achieve balance in meals
• The kitchen equipment basics
• Our favourite cooking techniques for preparing healthy meals

Learning on this course
You can take this self-guided course and learn at your own pace. On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

• Discuss key nutrition terms such as calories and nutrient-density
• Classify micro- and macronutrients
• Explore how nourishing ingredients will help you to achieve nutritional balance in your meals
• Identify useful kitchen equipment for easy meal preparation
• Create five healthy recipes and attempt variations to suit your tastes

Who is the course for?
This course is for anyone who wants to learn how to regularly cook healthy meals.
This may include:

• Healthy eating enthusiasts: you love healthy foods and cooking regular meals but want to achieve better balance in your eating habits.
• Family cooks: you want to know how to nourish your family with balanced meals, and get tips for simplifying healthy cooking.
• The nutrition-curious: you want a deeper understanding of how food impacts the body and our overall wellbeing. You’re excited by health trends, but want to better understand the fundamental elements of nutrition and diet.
• Home cooks in training: you’ve mastered the basic cooking skills like boiling pasta and preparing meat and vegetables but you want to create new healthy and balanced meals.
• Students: You want to go beyond pot noodles to support your health and energy. With tight budgets and limited equipment, you need simple techniques and fool-proof meals that you can turn to again and again.