Plant-Based Food Course Offered in Spanish for Health Professionals
By Odette Olivares, MSN
In October and November 2021, Alimentando El Mañana offered
its first 40 hour-professional –course in
Spanish geared towards Latin American health professionals: Plant-Based Food:
Health, Culture, and Sustainability. The course provided an update on whole
food, plant-based nutrition and food preparation. A whole food, plant-based
diet can be a vegan diet, mainly composed of whole foods. The course took place
online in three hour-long, weekly sessions for 7 weeks, reaching around 200
participants. It covered the public health and ecological benefits, nutritional
approach, and cooking recommendations for whole food, plant-based diets. The
course consisted of 5 modules based on scientific evidence: 1. Food and Public
Health; 2. Food and Culture; 3. Food and Socio-environmental Impact; 4.
Plant-Based Food and Clinical Nutrition Approach; and 5. Plant-Based
Cooking.
Classes were dynamic since most of them contained activities that permitted interactions between numerous participants. At the end of every lecture, there was a question section of about 15 minutes. If necessary, you could contact the lecturers by email and receive a prompt answer.
Alimentando El Mañana selected lecturers from South America who are recognized as experts in the topics that they taught. An attempt was made to include diverse lecturers in order to fulfill policies of inclusiveness from Sinergia Animal. They could not have chosen a better team.
Constanza Romero Waldhorn brilliantly explained the first part of module 1. Dietary Patterns and Non-Communicable Diseases, and all of module 4. Plant-Based Food and Clinical Nutrition Approach. A nutritionist since 2017, Constanza is the president of the Chilean Association of Vegetarian Nutritionists.
Lecturer Romero Waldhorn clearly and dynamically explained remarkable epidemiological studies, such as EPIC (European Prospective Investigation of Cancer and Nutrition)-Oxford, and the Adventist Health Study-2. Because of their large sample sizes of thousands of participants, these studies allow significant comparisons in their level of risk of developing non-communicable chronic diseases to be made between omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans. Lecturer Romero Waldhorn also shared position statements from official nutrition associations around the world regarding plant-based diets, such as the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) from the United States, the British Dietetic Association (BDA), the Italian Society of Human Nutrition (SINU), the Argentine Society of Nutrition, the Ministry of Health of New Zealand, and Dietitians of Canada. All these associations strongly state that vegetarian diets are healthy and nutritionally adequate. Some associations stress the benefits of these diets for the treatment and prevention of non-communicable chronic diseases and also highlight their ecological superiority.
Cynthia Schuck-Paim, PhD, was the lecturer for the second part of module 1. Food Production Systems: Impacts on Global Health, Epidemics, and Other Epidemiological Risk. She is a remarkable researcher with more than 50 published scientific articles in international peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Schuck-Paim’s research focuses on epidemiology, respiratory diseases, and pandemics, and her latest work is on health and wellness in farm animals.
Her presentation led us to the origins of many food-derived pandemics such as the coronavirus, SARS, chicken-flu, and pork-flu pandemics. She taught us how a plant-based diet can decrease the risks of the next pandemic outbreak.
In module 2. Food and Culture, we had the pleasure to work with Dr. Alexandra Navarro, one of the two managers of Food Policies for Argentina, together with Dr. María Marta Andreatta. Dr. Navarro’s doctoral research focused on representations, culture, and identities that sustain the consumption of animal food products in Argentina. Her objective was to understand which elements were fundamental to creating a positive change in the cultural perceptions of plant-based diets.
An example of an obstinate barrier was Speciesism-based education. Speciesism is the discriminatory ideology in which some species are more important than others. Speciesism-based education continues with the violence towards farm animals by making them invisible, degrading them to things, and creating a fiction where they voluntarily give up their meat. Anthropocentrism was at the center of her model; therefore, this was the hardest barrier to overcome.
Lia Alviar Ramírez, MEM, and Dr. Paula Mira Bohorquez taught module 3. Food and Socio-environmental Impact. Lecturer Alviar Ramírez is an experienced professor in agricultural sciences, who has received multiple awards throughout her career. Dr. Mira Bohorquez obtained her PhD at Mannheim University and has published five scientific articles and one book, among other publications. She has been a professor at Antioquia University since 2005.
Lecturer Alviar Ramírez and Dr. Mira Bohorquez easily and passionately explained how current food and economic systems are unsustainable. Lecturer Alviar Ramírez concentrated on the advantages of traditional cultivation methods, used by indigenous people, and the disadvantages and hazards of continuing with conventional methods. Dr. Mira Bohorquez clearly exposed the topic of climate change along with the weaknesses of the current economic systems, arguing that it should be regulated according to human health and world limits, food sovereignty of nations, and the basic human rights every person deserves.
Lecturer Romero Waldhorn came back in module 4 to present the latest scientific evidence related to plant-based diets and the life cycle, illustrating that it is completely possible and healthy to follow a plant-based diet in all life stages, including pregnancy. In addition, she shared with us recommendations for treatment adherence and the consultation process.
Finally, Chef Maria Camila Mosos, also known as Maca Bites, kindly guided us throughout a culinary journey. She has conducted personalized cooking workshops since 2019. Her passion is inspiring other people through her plant-based culinary creations while at the same time showing the great diversity of Latin American foods and highlighting the valuable work of farmers.
In module 5, Maca encouraged us to confidently create tasty and healthy plant-based meals. From simple changes to incredibly inspiring transitions, she debunked the myth that plant-based food is boring and tasteless.
During the course, participants were granted access to books, scientific articles, and other virtual resources to prepare for every lecture or for further study. Additionally, one week before the online exam, access was granted to the recorded lectures. A satisfactory grade in the online exam led to an international certification.
The next course geared towards nutritionists and health professionals will take place in April and September 2022. Institutions can participate by enrolling their nutritionists in the course on its website https://www.alimentandoelmanana.org/ or they can visit its Facebook page Alimentando El Mañana. To participate, institutions need to have a cafeteria where employees eat at least once a day, and they have to commit to offering one plant-based menu once a week. Alimentando El Mañana is conscious that every institution has its own needs and requirements, so negotiations are possible provided the objective of one plant-based menu per week is accomplished in the long term.
Alimentando El Mañana (Feeding Tomorrow) is one of the programs of Sinergia Animal, an international non-governmental organization. The young program, founded in 2019, aims to promote the reduction of animal food product consumption by teaching how to create healthier, more sustainable, and affordable menus, to ensure that future generations inherit a habitable and just planet. Despite being quite a young program, Alimentando El Mañana has already convinced nine institutions in Colombia to offer plant-based menus once a week, and at least nine institutions in Argentina are interested in the program.
These countries are not the only ones where Alimentando El Mañana is working. Two culinary demonstrations have taken place in a monastery in Thailand, and 19 schools and six companies have also been informed about the program. Furthermore, 50 institutions have been reached in Indonesia.
In the future, Alimentando El Mañana plans to train the maximum possible number of nutritionists, health professionals, and public and private institutions in Argentina, Colombia, Indonesia, and Thailand. However, after attending their professional updating course for health professionals, I believe they will soon reach other countries wherever there are Spanish speakers, since many students, including me, expressed our great satisfaction with the course.
Odette is from Mexico and recently completed her master’s in nutrition and health at Wageningen University, The Netherlands. She completed an internship with The Vegetarian Resource Group under the supervision of Reed Mangels, PhD, RD and wrote these articles:
https://www.vrg.org/nutrition/foods_calcium.htm
https://www.vrg.org/nutrition/best_latin_american_websites.htm
