good stuff, but a bit preachy

Achei um tanto superficial

I expected to learn more.

Good for healthy living

basic but interesting

Needs more content/

Very basic stuff

it was alright

Not much depth

Very basic

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.

While the information provided was helpful in some cases, I highly disagree with the staff behind this writing that veganism is, quote, "the least sustainable method" as a food solution. That's simply untrue to say; that spreads misinformation about the lifestyle choice, and only further encourages people to not consider it for themselves. I understand trying to be reasonable, as the common western citizen consumes meat and dairy and God forbid you hurt anyone's feelings, but there is no need to spread mistruths for the sake of saving someone's feelings. Overall it was a good course, and I'm grateful to have learned something through Stanford, I just disagree with a lot of the information presented within the course (namely, that veganism is unsustainable and that fish is safe, and furthermore nutritious to eat - spoiler, it really isn't, and overfishing is a serious issue that this course seems to mention nothing of at all when discussing it as a food choice). Plus, a lot of what was discussed, I was already educated on. So I sincerely wish it was more in-depth, thorough, and more respectful to dietary/lifestyle choices outside of the omnivore perspective. Thank you to both the Stanford and Coursera communities for providing this course as a tool to better health and wellness in this world that often makes it feel almost impossible.

The very first lesson implies that sufficient quantities of micronutrients can't be obtained from a diet high in animal-based proteins and fats. In reality, organ meats and egg yolks are higher in micronutrients than many fruits and vegetables, and only small amounts of dark-colored veggies and fruits are required to balance a diet that already contains a variety of meats (as far as both species and cut). The body is also better able to synthesize glucose (or utilize ketones instead of glucose to fuel cell function) than to synthesize amino acids, which are more easily obtained in the correct amounts from animal sources. Plant-based diets work for some people, but if blood sugar levels, chronic inflammation and/or amino acid intake are issues that an individual needs to take into careful consideration, a high-fat, low-carb, diet with a variety of animal products is more likely to meet their needs.

If you know literally NOTHING about nutrition this is a good place to start, if you however have any sort of understanding of fats, protein and carbs, even the knowledge of what they are, on a broad scale, then you probably already know more than this course will teach you.

It was a good reminder of healthy eating nonetheless.

The recipes in the last module were good, but as someone who doesn't care much for sweet stuff it left me kinda bummed. I wished there were more main meal recipes rather than recipes to cook all your favorite desserts in a gluten free way. I know they had to plug Grokker and get that shameless self-promotion, I am not opposed to that, but they could have chosen more diverse recipes.

If you are trying to get people to eat healthier you should give them something quick and easy, not a recipe for pancakes that takes 4 different kinds of flours.

I live in the Czech republic (central Europe) and I didn't learn anything new about nutrition in this course. I know it all, from my mother and my grandmother and, well, we all know it should by like this, not saying it IS like this :-) but for me this course was very interesting as a "sociological research". Are there really people who don't know that home cooking is healthier than highly processed fast food? Are there people who don't know how important vegetable is? Very often I was just thinking "are you kidding me or is this the real life in the US?"

Great, but takes much more time, than could be.

It would be the same to find 20-min recording of a good educational TV-channel programme.

Stanford in title doesn't refer to any academical sense, but to time relevance and confidence (and activity of Stanford food policy institute).

Has regional specifics (fats, obesity, how to use (keep in hand) knife).

Recommend only if you like to take a brake learning engineering or linear models on coursera.

Very well made, but waaaaay too easy, not enough information and more of a first session at your nutritionist without the personalised information - for someone who has never ever showed an interest in nutrition before. Especially the choice as Michael Pollan as the only "expert" invited by the main host to join is very questionable. I would have liked to have more detailed information and real experts of nutrition and not writing.

This is, indeed, a very basic, introductory course. There are the usual misconceptions, e.g. low-fat is good, saturated fats are bad, and the gluten-free recipe made me laugh. This is coming from someone who has been on a 100% gluten-free diet, including what I put on my skin.

If you, like me, have been doing a Paleo, Whole Food or AIP diet and know that animal fats are actually good for you, this course will be a waste of time.

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.

The course is very clear, has really good information, in general everything was great until I finished the week 4, then the next day I wanted to follow with week 5 "cooking workshop" but I couldn't because the course was labeled as "finished" and now I cannot see the cooking videos, I can only see the videos for week 1 and the others are not available.

This is less of a university level course and more of a long infomercial for Michael Pollen books with a cooking show at the end.

There is no interviews with nutritionists or scientists. In fact, there really isn't much here in the way of science at all.

The cooking videos are fun with some good recipes.

It is a kind of introduction course as it was mentioned on course info, however it is very basic.

If there would be follow up courses about the same topic it is a good start, otherwise that is not a learning based lecture.

Thank you for your understanding.

Deniz Ozalp

Aside from the recipes presented in Week 5, the course is very general and in my opinion does not teach valuable information about nutrition.

The advices that were given concerning choices in nutrition are very basic and in my opinion they are common knowledge.

Weak courses, information very obvious. You don´t even need to watch the videos to pass the assignments. Maybe American lifestyle is not so healthy, but I thought it was a waste of time and money. It is indeed just an introduction. I wouldn't recommend it