In this last episode of series 6 of A Cup of TEA podcast, Catherine and Mike meet Joanne Black and James Bray both working in the Faculty of Health Sciences. Passionate about good health and well-being and doing something for our campus population, staff and students, they embarked on a collaborative project with catering staff to add nutritious, affordable and culture diverse menu options in our main restaurant! So came about Hull’thier Choices. Find out about their research outcomes. This spontaneous conversation unmissably leads to their teaching practice and we leave you to discover snippets of it.
So here is James, a Senior Lecturer in Sport Nutrition and Physiology.
\"Alongside my academic work, I am also a high-performing endurance athlete. Collectively, this has given me a deep appreciation for the importance of quality nutrition in supporting performance and recovery. While much of the focus is often on physical output, nutrition is equally vital for brain function and cognitive performance.\"
Here is Jo, Programme Director and Senior Lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics.
\"As a registered dietitian for almost 18 years, I’ve seen first‑hand the powerful role nutrition plays in health and wellbeing, both in prevention and treatment. I’m passionate about making sure our campus community has access to affordable, nutritious and inclusive food, helping staff and students thrive academically and in their health.\"
One of the biggest challenges to eating well, however, is the cost, which was a key consideration behind the Hull’thier Choices menu redesign in Canham Turner. This is where Jo and James stepped in to work closely with the chefs in Canham Turner to develop meals that are both nutritionally balanced and affordable.
Their goal was simple: to make high-quality, accessible nutrition available to students and staff, supporting both physical health and academic performance.
“One thing Jo and I are both really passionate about is giving students the best possible chance and we started looking at some of the literature, there are some quite alarming stats about how long students spend on campus per week so we thought that would be a really good opportunity if we could do something really strong with the menus […] so our thought was that if we could give them one decent quality meal per day, that is a nice place to start”
\"A big part of this is about the public health aspects which in clinical practice wasn't always at the forefront . We've always trained about it so it's really nice to actually be able to put that at the forefront of what we're doing and actually helping the population health, not just one individual patient. It's about helping the campus population: staff and student!\"
Relevant links
As mentioned in the podcast: https://www.menusofchange.org/about-moc
with another really useful resource Jo and James tried to base some of their work off: https://ciaprochef.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Menus-of-Change-Principles-Report.pdf
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Cup of TEA artwork created by Layla Jabbari
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