About Food and mood
Many people seek to take control of their mental health using self-help, and to find approaches they can use alongside, or even instead of, prescribed medication. One self-help strategy is to make changes to what we eat, and there is a growing interest in how food and nutrition can affect emotional and mental health.
We hope that this will be a useful resource for anyone who is interested in how diet may affect mental and emotional health.
The information below was moved over to Mind's website from the Food and Mood Project website when the project closed in January 2009.
This section of the website is currently under development, with more information and features coming soon.
'Food and Mood' is the name given to a community project founded in 1998 by Amanda Geary. The Food and Mood Project delivered a series of workshops around the UK, aimed at exploring the links between diet and mental and emotional health. The workshops arose from Amanda's first-hand experience of recovery from ill health using a dietary self-help approach, as well as her professional expertise as a nutritional therapist.
Initially, a Mind millennium award funded the Food and Mood Project. It continued as a social enterprise receiving further grants for specific activities from The Cyril Corden Trust and UnLtd. The project eventually became an internet-based community interest company selling dietary self-help resources based on Amanda's book, The food and mood handbook. The website and trading name transferred to Mind, in January 2009, pending closure of the CIC.
"I hope 'Food and mood' at Mind will continue to mean 'dietary self-help for mental and emotional health'. The aim of this work is to encourage service users, mental health professionals and related organisations to apply a safe and low-cost complementary approach for improving and maintaining mental and emotional health."
--Amanda Geary, BSc(Hons), PGCE, MSc.