Theorizing the Art and Science of Therapeutic Eating – How Nutritional Psychiatry Translates into Real-World Practice – TASTE

Addressing mental health challenges through prevention-oriented, cross-sector, and multi-stakeholder approaches is one of the key European priorities. Nutritional psychiatry, an emerging field that links diet and mental health, offers promising solutions for transforming mental health care though evidence-based dietary interventions. Despite its potential, methodological inconsistencies, limited patient-reported outcomes, and a lack of social, cultural, and sensory perspectives hinder its real-world application.

The TASTE Project, which I aim to develop for an ERC Starting Grant, explores the place of food and eating in a comprehensive, multi-level and socially relevant mental health framework. It is centered around three objectives:

O1.Understanding current practices: How do stakeholders (patients, professionals, community actors) implement therapeutic eating in mental health care? What social determinants (e.g., food insecurity, traditions) and sensory factors shape dietary changes?
O2.Developing a multi-level ecosystem of food care: How do grassroots food practices (peer support, communal cooking, urban gardening) complement formal mental healthcare?
O3.Co-designing policies and guidelines: How can nutritional psychiatry be context-sensitive and inclusive? What ethical concerns arise in co-designing research and interventions in nutritional psychiatry? How can patient-reported outcomes (PROs) inform public mental health policies?

The project will be designed as participatory research in France, Spain, and Denmark, focusing on depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorders. TASTE will be structured into three interconnected subprojects (SPs), each aligned with one objective:

SP1: Everyday Therapeutic Eating – Examines how stakeholders adapt and experiment with dietary recommendations, considering self-experimentation, family influence, financial constraints, and cultural norms. Methods: Focus groups, sensory ethnography (diaries, digital storytelling).
SP2: Community-Driven Food Care – Investigates grassroots and community-based food initiatives for mental health and their interaction with institutional barriers. Methods: Situational analysis, in-depth interviews, comparative study of institutions.
SP3: Theorizing & Scaling Food Care Ecologies – Develops a conceptual framework and co-designs scalable intervention guidelines for inclusion in European Commission’s Best Practices Portal. Methods: Collaborative framework development, stakeholder workshops.

The methodological plan and specific objectives of the project will be refined during the Access ERC fellowship through collaboration building and co-design sessions with PROQOL (Patient-Reported Outcomes & Quality of Life) at URC ECO, my host laboratory. They will also be revised based on conference presentations, position paper publications, and a stakeholder workshop, which I plan to organize during the fellowship.

TASTE takes an innovative stance in articulating food interventions with mental health management and prevention, grounding its approach in real-world practices across different European contexts and stakeholder groups. Leveraging interdisciplinary expertise—including my extensive research network and the PROQOL team at URC ECO—and a participatory research framework, the project adopts a high-risk, high-gain approach to develop actionable insights and evidence-based policies.