Bristol medics win top prize at BBC Food and Farming Awards

By Benjamin Salmon, Deputy News Editor

Two Bristol students have been recognised with a prestigious award for their efforts in bringing nutritional training to the forefront of medical education.

Iain Broadley and Ally Jaffee, Bristol Medical School students and co-founders of Nutritank, a nutritional education campaign group and think tank aimed at improving lifestyle and dietary instruction in medical education, won the prestigious Pat Llewellyn New Talent Prize at this year’s BBC Food and Farming Awards.

Broadley and Jaffee founded Nutritank after learning that medical students received as little as eight hours of nutritional training over their six-year medical training career, leaving many students and doctors feeling under-qualified to provide nutritional advice for health concerns.

The organisation aims to change that by gaining commitments from all 33 UK medical schools to increase nutrition and lifestyle education for their medical programmes by the end of 2019. So far, 23 schools have seen Nutritank societies set up in the two years since its launch.

The prize itself, added this year to the BBC Food and Farming Awards roster, recognises the endeavours of those under 30 in improving food or farming in the UK.

After receiving the award from celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, Broadley and Jaffee said: ‘We are so humbled and thrilled to receive this prestigious award and the recognition that it brings to our work.

‘This award is especially amazing as Pat had done so much to revolutionise good food on the TV, working with Jamie Oliver in creating ‘the naked chef,’ which was at the very beginning of his career.

‘Jamie has now gone onto do so much fantastic work with food and social change and it feels so special to have worked with him last year.

‘We feel so thankful for the support he has shown us as well as the BBC and the judges Ben and Barney. Jamie was also the individual who announced us as the winners for the Pat Llewellyn prize at the BBC Food Awards.’

Featured Image credit: University of Bristol / BBC Food and Farming Awards

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