Taste for Life: A New Resource on the Relationship Between HIV and Nutrition

Taste for Life, published in South Africa, is intended to look at way in which people who are living with HIV can change the quality of their lives by changing their nutrition. Its content includes the relationship between HIV and nutrition, antiretrovirals, supplements, traditional medicines, and substance use. Its purpose is to explore practical and accessible strategies for nutrition as a co-therapy for those on anti-retroviral therapy (ART) and a therapy alternative for those not eligible for ART.

It uses fictional characters in a lifestyle magazine format that "normalises positive living” and communicates the idea that "adapting your lifestyle to deal with HIV is like adapting to and living with any other chronic disease." The publication's development team introduces very specific profiles of characters in a support group in order to represent specific educational messages that include '...politicised “struggle”, ... critical insights into the way advertising messages are created, ...accessing good nutrition when you do not have a lot of money, ...the skill of planting their own food, ...traditional medicine and the role that culture plays in determining our choice, and ...support groups and some of the challenges of primary health care.'

In the publication, the author attempts to find the middle ground in the ART vs. nutrition debate by providing information about the relationship between nutrition, including medicinal and edible plants, and ART.

This publication is available through contacting the author at terrorjoy@icon.co.za