Author Archives: Ivan

Fun Facets of Food Science

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The last Becker-Rose cafe was one of my favorites. It provided a valuable insight into what drives our food choices, and how we can affect our food choices. I am going to look at some of the best tips they gave.

They told us how we can use our food impulses to guide us. For example, putting healthy snacks like fruits in easy to reach places while putting high calorie snacks in far to reach places. The difference may seem small, but that small increase in effort necessary will cut your snacking on high sugar/high fat snacks by a lot.

Another tip is not to fall for those “low calorie” snacks. Yes, buy the lower fat/sodium alternatives, but don’t think that provides you a license to increase your snack portions. Often, you may end up in taking in the same amount of fat/sugar, or maybe even more than you would’ve with the original snack.

We also discussed the smaller plate initiative. You have most likely already heard of this as it has become quite popular. Very often, we aim to finish all the food on our plates as though we are completing an objective. Using the common large plates this can lead to overeating. If you grab a smaller plate, you will still have a filling meal, but you won’t feel groggy afterwards.

Using these tips, you can sharpen your diet to lead a healthier life.

 

Cornell Dining: Moving Forward

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It was really interesting to hear about how the dining system functions here at Cornell. The cafe gave me a better perspective on the decisions that the chefs make and why.

The talk helped highlight what makes the dining system great. The most important aspect to me is that each chef is able to prepare his own menu for each day which gives students a lot of variety day in and day out. Also, the chefs show their appreciation by making specialty days and creating amazing house dinners for us. Another aspect that sets our dining apart is the chef’s responding and adding in what student’s want.

The chefs also highlighted some of the health initiatives they have such as limiting the amount of protein (even though you can ask for more). There have been very displeased reactions to this. Some of the complaints have a basis and other don’t.

One thing I think  being lost is a sense of personal responsibility in your health and what you eat. Putting deserts in low traffic areas and limiting the number of deserts are great ideas because they will almost surely help improve the diets of Cornell students. I feel like the focus on these things is justified even if it can feel like they are coddling us. In the end, choices aren’t being taken way. The dining room should be set up in a way that emphasizes healthier diet options without forcing certain diets.

Unique art with a function

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I really enjoyed Professor Harvell’s presentation about the Blaschka glass models and marine life. I can’t wait to attend the show in the Spring to see them in person. The glass models provide a representation of marine life that can’t be captured in any other art medium. The film also showed some beautiful and unique creatures that I haven’t seen before. Marine life can sometimes look other wordily, and it is always a great experience to see a new species.

The history behind the pieces was also very interesting from their creators to how the pieces ended up with Cornell. Drew Harvell has done a great service for everyone by finding these hidden away pieces and leading an effort to restore them. She is doing an even greater service by leading efforts to better understand Coral Reef ecosystems and how to preserve them.

 

A varied perspective

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The documentary by Marshall Curry did a great job of presenting both views of the topic. He was able to trace the beginnings of ELF and examine their motivations. He found great examples of where members in the group felt that the peaceful process had failed them. Curry allowed Daniel to speak freely which allowed to viewer to peer into Daniel’s viewpoint, but it also showed contradictions in some of Daniel’s views.

Curry’s take on whether the word terrorist was appropriate for ELF members was very balanced. He was able to show why the government thought the word to be appropriate, and why Daniel revolted against the word.  The word arsonist really fails to describe what the ELF was doing. They weren’t burning down property for enjoyment or for monetary gain. They were destroying property to achieve a political goal. They probably lie closer to terrorists than arsonists; however, the fact that no one lost their life during one of their attacks does matter a lot. That isn’t enough to clear them from the label Eco-terrorists because, in the end, these weren’t victim less crimes.

Overall, Curry was able to weave together a story that sometimes spanned over the entire USA into a very well paced film with very intriguing characters. He was able to do it without getting lost in one side’s perspective. It was refreshing to learn about an issue from a format different from the news where everything was presented in a more calm way.

Limit of justice on the international level

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I found Professor Ohlin’s talk really interesting, especially the discussion we had about the recent incident in Afghanistan involving Doctor’s without borders. It became very clear that serving justice on the international state was both slow and ineffective.

It really is a battle between sovereignty of individual states vs justice. Not many countries want to give some international body the ability to persecute its citizens. However, I find that the current system of international justice leaves a lot to be desired.

The ICC has no authority to pursue charges against the citizens of countries that have strong military and economic might like the US, Russia, and China. These larger countries have had questionable incidents in the last decade or so. The counter would be that the worst crimes have occurred in less developed countries, and at least the ICC provides justice for those crimes. However, the people that have committed these crimes aren’t prosecuted equally, but instead it depends on whether a large country has interests in those countries. These shortcomings of the ICC don’t sound like justice to me.

Clearly, we are far away from equal justice for all entities on the international level

Economic Realities

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Professor Cheyfitz talked about the myriad of issues facing Native Americans today. One of them was the high rates of unemployment faced by Native Americans on reservations. I don’t know the economic situation of any specific reservation. I will discuss the cycle of poverty, that Cheyfitz mentioned, that exists on many of these reservations.

The main question at hand is how to bring a downtrodden community out of poverty. It is apparent from the multitude of economic situations that exist in the United States today that the government has no sure fire way to relieve poverty in a specific city. That’s because it is an incredibly difficult task. Certain ways to bring a community out of poverty is to increase lines of credit into the community or create economic incentives for companies to move to those communities. These approaches most likely won’t work, and in some sense aren’t exactly possible. Lets instead look to the individual level as the institution of the Federal government has failed  and betrayed Native Americans countless times.

In economics, individuals have to go to economic opportunities, not the other way around. A majority of these opportunities exist in urban centers. Individuals or family units living in poverty on a reservation are unlikely to see their situation improve without leaving the reservation to go live in a strong economic center.

Cheyfitz discussed that many Native Americans do work off the reservation. This brings up the issue that the Native American population will become dispersed. Many other groups of people are able to preserve their culture whilst living in America mixed in with other ethnic groups, but a big part of Native American culture is the community aspect. I can’t offer a solution for that issue.

To sum up, for Native Americans to get access to better economic opportunities they need to move to urban centers where these opportunities exist.  The US government doesn’t have the ability to turn reservations into booming economic towns.

Stepping out of “The Handbook”

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During orientation week, every student in the college of Engineering receives a handbook that’s about 150 pages. The handbook is your key to graduation. It contains requirements and flow charts for every major in the college. Everything from transfer credits to minors are inside the handbook.

At some point in the first year, students look through and gaze upon the liberal distribution requirements. Every engineer is required to take six liberal arts classes in order to graduate. The classes are all pre-selected and posted on a website that might actually be harder to understand than the handbook itself.

Professor Schwarz spoke about taking arts and music appreciation classes in college. He described them as “being friends that will walk with you through life.” In the 8th grade, I remember my music teacher telling our class that for some of us were taking our last music class. She was correct. I haven’t taken an art or music class since middle school. Between all the AP sciences and history classes in high school, I never had space for either.

Picking your liberal distributions can a little a tricky. Certain things are often emphasized to freshmen and sophomores about them. First, they should be classes where you get an A to help boost that ever so precious GPA. Secondly, that they shouldn’t be huge time sinks.

With these two criteria, it is easy to see why introductory economics and networks are usually chosen instead of arts and music courses.  Much easier to guarantee yourself a higher grade in a more traditional class than in a possibly subjective class. The same thing can be said about time needed for each class.

When deciding my final few liberal course, I am going to take the Professors advice, so that I can better appreciate some of the best creations in the world.