Need to Know
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Who is this course for?Students of the Holistic Nutrition online program -
Course length (start & watch when you want)2.5 hours of video content -
ExtrasLifetime access · Certificate of completion
Meet your course instructor
Angeli Chitale
Angeli Chitale is a Queen’s University Graduate in Molecular Biology and Genetics. During her final year of post-grad level work in genetic research at the Department of Pathology, she treated her chronic knee injury with natural medicine - nutrition, herbs and supplements. The impact was so life changing, it inspired her to pursue formal studies and training in Naturopathic Medicine. While a student at The Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (CCNM), Angeli pursued further hands-on training in botanical medicine with the Ontario Herbalists Association. Upon graduation, she obtained further qualification in Restorative Medicine for the treatment of Thyroid, Adrenal and other endocrine/metabolic conditions. Angeli believes in contributing to the profession and has served as an Executive Board Member, Medical Editor for the LAND (Ontario Association of Naturopathic Doctors), Chair of the Naturopathic Legacy Committee and has worked overseas with NGOs such as Naturopathic Doctors International who provides natural medical care to patients in remote and isolated areas of Central America. Here, Angeli supervised clinical care in Women’s Clinics, taught Global Health, Botanical Medicine and Clinical skills to prospective ND candidates from all over North America. Angeli is a professional member of the AARM (Association for the Advancement of Restorative Medicine) and continues to remain politically active in enabling access to natural health for the Canadian public. Angeli views health as maintaining balance within all aspects of a person: emotional, mental, spiritual, environmental, social, physical - and that healing happens on all levels. When not consulting, Angeli enjoys learning, teaching, writing articles for publication, growing food, hiking, kayaking and landscape painting.
Course description
Throughout human evolution, what we ate shaped our digestive physiology, social interactions, psyche, and spirituality through connections with each other and the natural world. One could say that we’ve shaped our food as much as our food has shaped us.
Early Homo sapiens were mostly foragers who roamed. For them, food and medicine came from the same source—the natural world. Living in nature, our distant ancestors practiced food-as-medicine, and this way of being is alive today in many traditional foodways.
It was not until modern times that food and medicine became separate, and new concepts of health and disease emerged. In the past 200 years, industrialized agriculture, globalization, food processing, and nutritional science have further transformed everything about what we eat—and consequently, our health.
Today as always, our socio-politico-cultural identities and values are intimately tied to the food we eat and are reflected in the diseases we carry. No other basic human need has transformed human health and life on this planet as much as food. As we seek to reclaim our health, we must ask ourselves, can we come full circle and rekindle our relationship to food? Can we again use food as medicine to heal individuals and communities?
This course will explore how and why food-as-medicine changed to food and medicine.
We will examine how food, nutrition, and health has been shaped by:
- The Agricultural Revolution.
- Knowledge transfer, cultural exchange, and technology.
- Wealth, social status, medicine, sickness, and disease.
Lastly, we will examine how we can practice food-as-medicine to prevent illness and heal ourselves and our communities.
Upon completion of this course, you will have the ability to:
- Understand the history and cultural roots of food as medicine.
- Use your lived experiences with food as a starting point to deconstruct old beliefs and understand health choices more deeply.
- Use holistic nutrition as a therapeutic tool for empowered eating.
- Examine food choices and what constitutes “good food” as a cultural construct.
- Recognize your “food voice” as a part of personal and social relations and identity.
