Designed for African Americans and other individuals looking to prevent or overcome lifestyle-related chronic diseases by exploring plant-based versions of dishes commonly found on African American dining tables.

This six-week series is designed to honor and explore the history of African American Culinary traditions.

The series recognizes the ancestral ties of West African foodways that were brought to the United States through the Middle Passage and the culinary traditions, such as soul food, developed by African Americans throughout their history in the United States.

Classes will also help participants seeking to prevent or overcome high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and other health conditions that disproportionately affect African Americans

Featured Class Topics
• The Power of Your Plate
• Foods for a Healthy Heart
• Introduction to How Foods Fight Diabetes
• Introduction to How Foods Fight Cancer
• Designing a Diet for Maximum Weight Control
• Making It Work for You

Learn about a variety of cancer-related nutrition topics that will show you how to prepare several healthy and delicious meals loaded with antioxidants, phytochemicals, fiber, and low-fat and dairy-free foods.

This seven-class series guides participants to make the critical connection between diet and the risk of developing various forms of cancer. With a focus on low-fat plant-based nutrition, participants develop an understanding of specific foods and nutrients that either promote or discourage cancer development.

The program includes optional bonus content addressing breast cancer and prostate cancer specifically. The intended audience for this series includes cancer survivors and their family and friends as well as individuals looking to prevent cancer. Classes are not meant for individuals currently undergoing cancer treatment.

Featured Class Topics
• Introduction: How Foods Fight Cancer
• Fueling Up on Low-Fat Foods
• Favoring Fiber
• Discovering Dairy Alternatives
• Replacing Meat
• Cancer-Fighting Compounds and Immune-Boosting Foods
• Maintaining a Healthy Weight

Supplemental Classes
• Foods and Breast Cancer Survival
• Foods and Prostate Cancer Survival

Encouraging people who are interested in using a new dietary approach to prevent, reverse, and manage diabetes.

The eight-class Diabetes Initiative series provides the knowledge, tools, and lifestyle strategies to help individuals reduce the risk of developing diabetes, and to manage and even reverse the disease. Classes are intended for those with diabetes, prediabetes, or a family history or risk factors for developing diabetes, and their adult family members and loved ones.

Featured Class Topics
• Introduction to How Foods Fight Diabetes
• The Power of Your Plate and Grocery Cart

• Understanding Type 2 Diabetes
• Designing a Diet for Maximum Weight Control
• The Glycemic Index
• Keeping a Healthy Heart
• Diabetes Care from Head to Toe
• Making It Work for You

Creating healthier and more productive employees through providing evidence-based nutrition education.

The Employee Wellness Program is a nine-week workplace class series intended to guide staff members as they work to unlock the role of food choices for better health. Through the introduction of plant-based nutrition education, cooking demonstrations, and supportive group discussion, employees will take away the learning and tools they apply practically for improving overall health and reducing chronic disease risk. Additional and significant benefits to employees include lowered health care costs, fewer sick days, and improved energy and moods. Notable benefits to employers include reduced absenteeism, reduction of health care costs, and improved staff productivity.

Featured Class Topics
• Power of Your Plate
• Let’s Go!
• Getting in Gear
• Breaking the Food Seduction
• Keys for Natural Appetite Control
• Digestive Health
• Introduction to How Foods Fight Cancer
• Introduction to How Foods Fight Diabetes
• Healthy Blood Pressure

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and around the world. Eating habits and other lifestyle factors play a key role in determining the risk of heart disease. Pioneering studies by Dean Ornish, MD, Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., MD, and others have shown a low-fat, plant-based diet, combined with regular exercise and a healthy overall lifestyle, can prevent, delay, and even reverse heart disease and other cardiovascular events.

Plant-based diets benefit heart health because they contain no dietary cholesterol, very little saturated fat, and lots of fiber. Meat, cheese, and eggs, on the other hand, are packed with cholesterol and saturated fat, which cause plaque buildup in the arteries, eventually leading to heart disease.

Come learn how a plant-based diet can help improve your heart health.

This class will arm participants with the knowledge and practical skills to take action to bolster heart health through simple diet and lifestyle changes. Topics addressed focus in on cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol, with recipes and nutrition strategies for improving or reversing these conditions. The intended outcome is to guide class participants toward healthier low-fat plant-based diets that reduce incidence of cardiovascular disease.

Featured Class Topics
• High blood pressure: A plant-based diet, rich in potassium, improves blood pressure.
• High cholesterol: Aim for high-fiber foods, which can help to lower
cholesterol.
• Atherosclerosis: Diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol reduce plaque build-up in the arteries and improve blood flow.

Class 1: The Power of Your Plate. The first class in this series will focus on the general concepts behind healthy eating habits by providing knowledge and resources for trying out a new way of eating. The Power Plate is a diagram that illustrates the essential food groups: vegetables, grains, legumes, and fruits. From these groups, you will be able to think about different foods and meals you can eat to best promote your health and the health of your family.

Class 2: How Foods Fight Diabetes The road to diabetes does not have to be a one-way street. There is reason for hope! People who eat plant-based meals are less likely to ever develop diabetes, and for those who have diabetes, plant-based meals can help to improve blood sugar levels and prevent complications.

Class 3: Foods for a Healthy Weight Eating plant-based is not a “diet” that leads to feeling hungry or deprived. Believe it or not, when you change the quality of your diet, you don’t need to think about counting calories or measuring portions. The focus is on quality not quantity!

Class 4: How Foods Fight Heart Disease Certain diet patterns seem to have a major effect in helping people avoid heart disease, or if they already have heart disease, in reversing it. It takes a powerful diet to actually remove the hard plaque forming in the arterial walls after years of eating high-fat diets. But research has shown it can be done! This class will show you how.

Let’s talk about which foods are most advantageous for weight management and the prevention of various health complications, such as high blood pressure and poor digestion.

Based on the Physicians Committee’s successful 21-Day Vegan Kickstart book, this seven-class series guides participants on a journey toward healthy weight loss, healthy weight maintenance, and an overall healthful and sustainable diet. For some participants, this may be the first time that food choice is prioritized over restricting food amounts as a guiding principle to support long-term health. This is a lifesaving learning experience bolstered by delicious plant-based recipes that help to lower cholesterol, control diabetes, lower blood pressure, and even boost energy and mood.

Featured Class Topics
• Power of Your Plate
• Let’s Go!
• Getting in Gear
• Breaking the Food Seduction
• Keys for Natural Appetite Control
• Digestive Health
• Healthy Blood Pressure

Children ages 9–12 learn about the four food groups on the power plate (whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables) and the benefits of eating plants while preparing kid-friendly, tasty recipes.

This four-class series is designed to be a fun and engaging learning experience for kids between the ages of 9 and 12 and in grades 4-6. The program accentuates the positives of healthy foods (whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables) found on the Power Plate. As the children are exposed to the benefits of consuming a healthful diet, they are also tasting delicious foods prepared during a live cooking demonstration. Kids will participate in games and activities to cement their learning, and they will be provided with handouts of the recipes so they can share and prepare them at home. The goal of this series is to provide foundational knowledge and skills to children early in life to set them up for success well into adulthood.

Featured Class Topics
• Breakfast
• Snacks
• Lunch
• Dinner

The first four Let’s Beat Breast Cancer classes include information about how certain foods and nutrients work to promote or discourage the growth of cancers of all types (including breast cancer), along with demonstrations of simple recipes that can be easily recreated at home.

The final class focuses specifically on foods relevant to breast cancer risk reduction and survival. The intended audience of the Food for Life: Let’s Beat Breast Cancer classes are cancer survivors and their families and friends, as well as those looking to prevent the disease.

These classes are not intended for individuals currently going through cancer treatment.

Topics ranging from planning meals to reading food labels are covered in an interactive, lecture-style series (cooking demos are not a regular part of this series).

The classes in this series will bring into focus the undeniable connection between diet and cancer risk. Based on the Physicians Committee’s groundbreaking Cancer Project curriculum, the first four classes will focus on the role of different foods and nutrients in either promoting or discouraging growth of different cancers, including breast cancer. The last class will focus more specifically on foods that have been shown to directly reduce breast cancer risk and support survival.The intended audience of the Food for Life: Let’s Beat Breast Cancer classes are cancer survivors and their family and friends, as well as those looking to prevent the disease. These classes are not intended for individuals currently undergoing breast cancer treatment.

Featured Class Topics
• Introduction: How Foods Fight Cancer
• Fueling Up on Low-Fat, High-Fiber Foods
• Discovering Meat and Dairy Alternatives
• Cancer-Fighting Compounds and Healthy Weight Control
• Food for Breast Cancer Prevention and Survival
• Inflammation: Plant-based diets help reduce inflammation, which can lead to heart disease.

Power Foods for the Brain: learn strategies for maintaining memory and improving brain function, including how to prepare brain health-promoting meals.

Power Foods for a Healthy Heart: Learn how a plant-based diet can help improve several risk factors for heart disease.

This class will shine a light on the foods and nutrients to prioritize for optimal brain health. Drawing from the book Power Foods for the Brain by Neal Barnard, MD, FACC, the class will guide participants through the research supporting a low-fat plant-based diet for maintaining brain function and minimizing risk for cognitive decline.

Featured Class Topics
• Learn foods and ingredients to prioritize, and those to limit.
• Explore vitamins and nutrients that support brain health.
• Examine supplements to add to your daily routine and those to avoid.

Early in the pandemic, research found that people catching the coronavirus were much more likely to succumb to it if they had an underlying health condition, such as diabetes, obesity, or hypertension. However, the role of a plant-based diet in preventing and reversing these underlying conditions was largely absent from virus mitigation discussions. Food for Life’s Cooking to Combat COVID-19 delivers important nutrition information for optimal health to people who need it most during the pandemic and beyond.

Four-Class Series:

Class 1: Cancer-Fighting Compounds and Immune Boosting Foods

Class 2: Foods for a Healthy Heart

Class 3: Introduction to How Foods Fight Diabetes

Class 4: Foods and Mood

This nine-class series draws from the popular book Your Body in Balance: The New Science of Food, Hormones, and Health by Neal Barnard, MD, FACC. Focusing on a variety of hormone-related conditions that impact women and men of all ages and life stages, class content in this series examines how specific dietary changes work to bring hormone levels into balance. From infertility and thyroid function to toxic chemicals in the environment, participants will learn strategies they can apply in their daily lives to prevent, manage, or even reverse hormone-related conditions.

Featured Class Topics
• Foods for Fertility
• Curing Cramps and Premenstrual Syndrome
• Tackling Hormone-Related Cancers
• Reversing Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and Conquering Diabetes
• Tackling Menopause
• Curing Erectile Dysfunction and Saving Your Life
• A Healthy Thyroid
• Foods and Mood
• Avoiding Environmental Chemicals