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Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ offers its students a range of food-related courses. If you are a UU-student, you can find the courses below in OSIRIS and contact the course coordinator if you are interested in taking a course. If you are teaching a course that is not on the list below, please get in touch with us. If you have any ideas for new courses or educational programmes, please send us an email as well. 

Food Forward: innovations that will feed the world

This multi-disciplinary course offers students a broad view of how scientific innovations are feeding the world. It examines the challenges of achieving greater food production for a growing population in the face of climate change, food wastage, and public mistrust of science. The course is organized into four broad themes, 1) improving crop stress tolerance, 2) alternatives to plant-based foods, 3) technical innovations boosting food production/improved nutrition, and 4) food policy, safety and societal implications. 

Course coordinator: Prof. Dr. Rashmi Sasidharan

BA Global Sustainability Sciences – Sustainable & Healthy Food Systems Track

Within this special track, part of the BA program ‘Global Sustainability Sciences’, students develop a systemic view of the food system. For example, in the first year course, ’The Science of Food Systems’, students explore the history of food and how our current complex food system came into being. Students gain insight into food production but also delve into the consumption side. They look into agroecological agriculture and how we can produce more sustainable food in collaboration with nature. They also discover how sustainable and healthy food can be made attractive and accessible. A common thread running through the track is justice. In the final course, students investigate how we can achieve a sustainable food system in which farmers receive a fair price and all consumers have the right to healthy and sustainable food.

Courses include:

• The Science of Food Systems
• Agroecology
• Sustainable and Healthy Food Consumption
• Transforming Food Systems

Nutrition (in Dutch)

In deze cursus is de rode draad de behoefte van het lichaam aan bouwstenen en energie voor het handhaven van structuur en functie. Naast uitgebreide kennis over het koolhydraat, eiwit en vetmetabolisme, wordt er aandacht besteed aan de wijze waarop verschillende macronutriënten (koolhydraten, vetten, eiwitten), micronutriënten (vitamines, mineralen) en phytochemicals in de voeding de lichaamsfunctie bij ziekte en gezondheid kunnen beïnvloeden. Hierbij komt ook het gebruik van voeding en voedingssupplementen als ondersteuning of als alternatief voor farmacotherapie aan bod als mede eventuele relevante voeding en geneesmiddelinteracties. Tenslotte worden de regulatiemechanismen m.b.t. de voedselinname en de bloedsuikerspiegel bestudeerd.

Course coordinator: Dr. Karin Slot

Geographies of Food

Food is eminently geographical. Not only do food systems link widely scattered parts of the world closely together in functionally integrated food (value) chains. It also matters how different parts of food systems link together in a particular locality – or fail to produce a local foodscape that meets the needs of people living there, as in the food deserts of some urban areas. The course integrates these major dimensions of contemporary food systems from the perspective of geography. It analyses economic organization, political arrangements, and social justice dimensions of food, linking these to natural resource use and sustainability, as well as to nutrition and health outcomes. The human geography perspective considers the position of different places in the global food system and how they are connected. It shows that food systems need to be seen in the framework of specific places, scales, and actors, and the exchanges (flows) between them, thus reinforcing the role of systems thinking.

Course coordinator: Dr. Sara Brouwer  

Pharma and nutrition: advances in specialized clinical nutrition

This course focuses on specialized clinical nutrition and its application in prevention and disease management and prepares graduate students for practice in later clinical, consulting and industry settings. The course module studies how disease processes may lead to changed nutritional requirements and/of deficiencies in acute and chronic illness. Furthermore, it examines the recent advances in specific nutrition therapies for several disease categories. As the field of nutritional sciences continues to be changing and develops at a rapid speed the key skills to interpret and critically evaluate current literature are integral to this module.

Course coordinator: Dr. Linette Willemsen

Gezonde omgeving (in Dutch)

In deze cursus ga je aan de slag met brede reflecties op de vraag ‘Wat is een gezonde leef- en werkomgeving’? Belangrijke vragen die hierbij aan bod komen zijn: hoe heeft de omgeving invloed op de gezondheid van mens en dier, hoe kan je die effecten meten en hoe kan je daarin (noodzakelijke) veranderingen aan brengen? De doelstelling is tweeledig, namelijk inhoudelijk en didactisch.

Ethics, Globalization and Sustainability

On a global scale, wealth, health and life opportunities are unfairly distributed. Several philosophers have emphasised that this unfairness gives the affluent a moral duty to help the worst-off, others have tried to formulate basic principles for a fair society. Whereas political philosophers of the past mainly focused on these issues through the lens of the nation state, contemporary thinkers argue that globalisation processes force us to approach themes like sustainability, justice and equality on an international level, for example by constructing international institutions or by rethinking ideas about national sovereignty.

In this course, we will discuss a wide range of analyses of these issues by visiting core political theories of past and present and coupling these with debates on specific (applied) questions. We will focus on values as diverse as liberty, equality, (international) justice, sovereignty, sustainability and more, and critically discuss issues arising from phenomena like migration, climate change and poverty.

Course coordinator: Dr. Naomi van Steenbergen

Ethology and Welfare

The course focuses at behavioural and welfare problems in animals. It addresses the (neuro)ethological basis, the implications for science and society, and clinical aspects (causes, diagnostics, prevention, treatment). In terms of food system challenges, the course looks at animal welfare and production animals, behaviour and welfare of chickens, and recent developments in farm animal husbandry systems.

Course coordinator: Dr. Mona Giersberg