| Annemarie Colbin, PhD, CHES, founder of the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts?, New York, NY
Why we need an expressed theoretical framework?
Because we don’t have one! In order to ascertain the value of any dietary system, we need two things: the theoretical framework and the scientific data. Data in and of itself is confusing; we need the theory in order to interpret it. Current nutritional theory is not expressed -- it is assumed. This creates confusion and lack of clarity, as demonstrated by the number of people who are confused about what to eat, because studies often contradict each other. This presentation will describe the current theory, then look at paradigms in health care and biomedicine, as well as traditional medicines such as Chinese and Ayurveda. In addition, there will be a discussion of new scientific paradigms such as systems, chaos, and complexity theories, and how they can be applied to the practice and study of nutrition. There will be a user-friendly example of a nutrition paradigm that helps people make health-supportive dietary choices at all times; this paradigm can be used easily by any practitioner who includes dietary counseling. |