Author Archives: Batya Zamansky

Food and Brand at Rose Cafe

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This week, the guests at the Rose/Becker cafe were three gentlemen from the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.  The talk began with the three of them giving a brief overview of what they do and how they started doing it.  All three of them had different backgrounds, but they all had very interesting stories of their job.  The first speaker started off by saying that he did behavioral economics, summarizing it as how people make mistakes and do things that are not in their best interests.  I thought that this was a very interesting way of putting it.  People make mistakes and do things not in their best interests all the time, and the fact that people study this and can affect it is really interesting.  We then went on to learn that behavioral economics is very important in food choice.  Choosing what to and to not eat is a big part of our daily lives, and there are lots of factors that can affect it.

The hook that was given at the beginning was regarding the Bloomberg Soda policy that went in effect in New York City in the recent past.  Sodas of 20 liters in size were not allowed to be sold in certain locations, to try to combat obesity.  However, it did not work as well as anticipated, and actually more soda was sold in the NYC area after the law went into effect, due to some anger at Bloomberg.  We learned about a study that had been done about this law and how it effected people.  Just seeing a picture of Bloomberg in a survey led people to drink more soda during the survey.  It’s really interesting how much our subconscious plays into our actions regarding food and drink and how much different things can effect it.

When the next speaker on the panel began introducing himself, he also told us a small anecdote, this one regarding buffets.  Apparently, people usually fill their plates up to 60% with the first three items on a buffet table.  Rose house, for example, has lots of salads and vegetables at the starting end of the buffet for house dinner, leading us to fill our plates with vegetables and salad before getting to the meats and starches.  This is a very useful trick to encourage people to eat healthier.  This was just one example of some of the so many environmental factors affecting what we eat.  A question that was posed by one of the panelists was how much of our food choices are really conscious decisions?  The buffet example is one that shows that we have make fewer conscious food decisions at some times than we would expect.

Two more anecdotes that were mentioned to us, both of which I thought were very interesting, have to do with our perception of food.  The first example was regarding strawberry yogurt.  People were given yogurt with chocolate in it, with a label that said strawberry yogurt.  When asked how much strawberries were in the yogurt, all answered that there were some in it, even though there were actually none.  This showed how just seeing a label affects how we taste food and what we think about it.  The second anecdote was regarding choice of foods.  Children, when given carrots as their vegetable at a meal, had a 70% rate of eating it.  However, when given a choice of celery or carrots, 90% of the children ate their chosen vegetable (mainly carrots).  This was because of the subconscious need to prove that the right choice had been made.

At this point in the session, the floor was opened up to questions.  I appreciated the slightly personal questions that were asked, about how much their work affected how they eat and the decisions they make in their eating and buying of food.  One of the changes one of the panelists admitted to making in his daily life because of his studies was keeping healthier snacks out on a table, while the less healthy snacks were in a cabinet and harder to get.  This takes advantage of our general laziness as humans.  Another way to take advantage of laziness is to keep the low calorie, high nutrient food on the table during dinner (fruit, salad, etc), and leave the meat and lasagna stuff in the kitchen, where you have to get up to get it.

Near the end of the talk (I had to leave 15 minutes early, so didn’t catch the end), a question was asked about whether the panelists had ever done a study on blind people.  This question was particularly interesting, because one of the biggest things we learned over the course of this talk was that visual cues are very important in food.  It would be very interesting to see how blind people are affected by these studies.  Overall, I was very interested by this talk and felt that I learned a lot.  I will try to take some of the anecdotes I heard tonight from their various studies and apply them to my life to help me eat healthier.

Hungary and Refugees

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This week, the guest was Holly Case, and she spoke to us about refugees and the situation in Hungary.  She spoke about how many people crossed the border, went through Hungary, and to other places.  She also mentioned the political parties in Hungary and how their views were so extreme from one another, resulting in no change in the status quo.

It surprised me that there didn’t seem to be much of a majority between the parties.  Neither one had a clear advantage over the other in power.  And what surprised me about that was the sheer number of people who seemed to be helping the refugees.  In my mind, helping people is what is important, and the fact that other people don’t necessarily see that bothers me.

This talk really engaged me and made me very interested in what I could do as an individual person to help refugees wherever I can.  They deserve our help.

Food on West Campus – Rose Cafe

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This week, the guests at the Rose-Becker cafe were Paul Muscente and Chef Daniel.  They came to talk to us about food on West Campus.  I hadn’t known much about how food was dealt with on west campus before, or on campus in general, so this talk was very enlightening for me.  I learned that all of the dining facilities are looking to reduce waste and to increase nutrition for students.  One of the things mentioned was the new initiative to have people specifically serving meat, so that students will only get a small portion to start with.  I think this is a good idea, because I might occasionally take more meat, thinking I would really enjoy it, and then end up not liking it as much as I thought I would and having it be wasted.  It also encourages eating more vegetables and fruits and grains, which helps support a more healthy lifestyle.

I think it’s very important that we eat well at college.  I was a bit sad when I discovered that fewer desserts were being served at the dining halls, but I have noticed that it has prevented me from eating as much dessert as I might have before, which is good for me.  Cornell’s dining is one of the best in the country, and I am always happy to brag about the fact that the food is so varied and good here, while at most other universities, it is not.  It was very interesting to hear more about how this works and why we are as good as we are.

Into the streets

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This weekend, I participated in Into the Streets for the first time.  The team from Flora Rose went down to GIAC to do some yard work for them.  I did some raking of leaves and some pulling of weeds.

 

GIAC is a great organization in downtown Ithaca that I didn’t know about before.  I think it’s great what they bring to the community, and I was happy to be able to do some volunteer work for them.  I think it’s great to be able to get down into downtown Ithaca and do a good deed, and I thought it was great that I was able to do that with Rose house.

Rose Cafe 10/14 – Environmental Panel

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This week, our guests at the Rose Cafe were Shanjun Li, Greg Poe, and David Wolfe.  They came to speak to us about environmental issues and to clue us in more about what we can do about them.

The talk began with the panel addressing our first few questions about our concerns about the environment.  The first concern we raised was global warming, an issue that we are all somewhat familiar with.  I was informed that this year, in the presidential debates, is the first time that global warming was actually a debate topic, which shows some progress in our government dealing with the issue.  I doubt that any discussion during a debate will really end up aiding in the fight against global warming much because as we know, politicians tend to make promises that they cannot keep.

This subject segued into a discussion about nuclear power, and then about fracking, which I had not known much about prior to this talk.  But the biggest takeaway I got from this talk was learning how environmentally conscious Cornell is trying to be as a university.  I did not know that the dorms on West Campus are cooled by deep water cooling from Lake Cayuga, a much more environmentally friendly way to cool our dorms.  I didn’t realize that Cornell is aiming to be a coal free campus in the future.  All of these things gave me hope for our country, because if our universities are trying to become more environmentally friendly, then the students at these dorms will hopefully learn about it, as I did last night, and become more environmentally conscious themselves.  And if this works, eventually we get many, many more people aiding in the fight to help our environment.

Rose Cafe 9/30

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This week I didn’t arrive at the Rose Cafe until later, which meant that I missed some of the talk.  But I did get to hear some thoughts from both of our guests, Justine Vanden Heuvel and Mary Jo Dudely, in their talk about farming.  One of the topics discussed at length was migrant farm workers.  I hadn’t realized that there were migrant farm workers this far north.  I had assumed that most illegal immigrant workers would work closer to where they came from, or maybe just not as far north as New York.  And when I found out that the entire northern strip of NY bordering Canada and Lake Ontario was simultaneously a very fertile growing land and a place where border patrols could easily deport illegals, I was quite shocked.

As a person born and raised in the heart of Manhattan, I knew very little about what farm working actually entailed.  Every summer my family and I would go out to Lancaster, PA, but that just showed me what farms looked like, not how they worked.  At the very least I did know that my food did not come from the supermarket, but actually from some farm somewhere.  This talk was very enlightening as I learned more about how difficult it is to run a farm and to work on a farm, and what people work on farms.

Rose Cafe 9/23

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This week at the Rose Cafe our guest was Professor Cheyfitz, who came to speak to us about the current Native American experience in the United States.  I knew some of the things he told us about — how many Indians are in extreme poverty, that very few of them go to and graduate college, etc.  But he told us about the actual figures of poverty, education, death rates, and these figures were quite shocking, even with a small amount of background knowledge on the subject.  After attending this talk, I felt that my knowledge of American Indians was severely lacking, and that that lack of knowledge was unacceptable in this day and age.  I know that there are people with a similar lack of knowledge, but to realize how much is glossed over in our middle and high school educations is unbelievable.  I think that in my last 3 semesters at Cornell I definitely want to take a course about Native Americans to enrich my knowledge on the subject and to know more how I can help.

Rose Cafe with Daniel R. Schwarz

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This week, the guest at the Rose Cafe was Daniel R. Schwarz, author of several books.  He came to speak with us about how best to get through college with regards to preparing for our futures.  He highlighted things that we should each be thinking about in each of our four years here at Cornell, and then some overall things to keep in mind as we go through college.  One thing he mentioned at the end of his talk was the three R’s: Resistance, resourcefulness, resolve.  I thought these three things were very applicable to all of us here at Cornell, and probably to all students in college.  Being resistant when things get tough, being able to make it through difficult times.  Being resourceful when something is out of reach or otherwise unattainable easily.  And resolving to do something and actually doing it.

Some of the things he mentioned seemed to apply to me less because of the career path I currently find myself on.  I plan on entering the tech industry after graduation, and in that industry I don’t need recommendations or the specific interview skills mentioned in the talk.  But it was useful to hear about taking classes outside my major, and about some specific fields where I should absolutely have some expertise — writing, humanities, and computer skills.  I have the writing and computer skills, and I am trying to take one class per semester outside of my major to enrich my knowledge in the humanities.  This semester, for example, I’m taking a course in nautical archaeology.

I hope other people, especially sophomores, got as much out of this talk as I did.  Being a junior, I’ve already made it through half of my college career, and I wish I had heard some of this earlier on in my time at Cornell so I could have spent my time even better.