Author Archives: Rachel Giorgio

Food on the Brain

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Last Wednesday, I attended the Becker/Rose talk given by faculty members of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, where I learned a great deal about the thought processes people have when making food choices. Being a very indecisive human being, I found it fascinating to learn just how much thought actually goes into each decision we make. We make thousands of decisions a day, and if I only struggle with one or two, I’d say that’s a pretty good track record…

While I found everything to be incredibly interesting (and validating), I couldn’t help but wonder whether such research was doing more harm than good. No doubt, we’re facing an obesity epidemic, and it’s important that we understand our thoughts around food if we want to change that. We must remember, however, that we are also facing an epidemic of eating disorders. Lying on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, ED’s stem from a desire for control which manifests itself as an obsession with food. For those suffering from ED’s, it is often a case of overthinking, and such research merely encourages that overly-analytical behavior. The speakers talked about how they use the results of their studies to influence consumers, but I think they would do well to look further into the effects of their work on those with eating disorders.

I know we can’t realistically shelter everyone from each new study comes out… But I do think we can be more careful about how we present the information.

Spoiler Alert!

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Last week, I went to watch Dope, an incredible film providing insight into just how difficult it can be to rise above the gangs and drugs of a bad neighborhood.

Malcolm and his two friends are 90s geeks with big dreams and a low risk of getting involved in any questionable activities. Still, through no fault of their own, they get stuck with a bag of drugs, and, too afraid to go to the police, are forced to come up with a safe way to get rid of it. They ultimately turn to the internet, setting up an E-shop and selling the drugs bit by bit. As Malcolm becomes increasingly invested in the project, it seems clear to me that it’s going to be yet another movie about kids that gradually cast their aspirations to the wayside in favor of the highly lucrative drug market. What we don’t know, however, is that Malcolm has other things in mind. We discover that, after learning that his Harvard alumni interviewer is secretly a drug lord, Malcolm had created the E-shop not only to dispose of the drugs, but also to leave a trail back to the interviewer, to be used as leverage in the college admissions process. Genius.

What made this movie so great was not just the surprise ending, but the fact that it was kept a secret so well for so long. I was convinced that Malcolm had given up on his dreams, and the sad part about it was that I wasn’t terribly surprised.  We have heard so many stories of  promising individuals succumbing to the temptations of drug culture, that the incredibly pessimistic “bad things happen to good people” stereotype was almost reflexive. I’m sure this is exactly what the director was going for and it made the take-away message all the more triumphant. Against all odds, Malcolm succeeded, and is proof that anything is possible with a little hard work and perseverance.

Truly a beautiful film. Incredibly well-written, and a great satire of America’s racial biases.

Would recommend.

 

Not Your Average Cup of Joe

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Coffee. The lifeblood of the American undergrad. Seeing as I drink it every morning without fail, I thought it was only fitting for me to go to this Saturday’s Gimme! Coffee presentation.

What I found most interesting about this presentation was how they described their work with growers to be relationship-based as opposed to Fair Trade or Certified Organic. This structure stems from the idea that many small growers simply do not have the resources to  get certified, putting them at a disadvantage when marketing to potential buyers.

I personally really, really like this idea. Just as “organic” is putting small farms out of business, “Fair Trade Certified” can easily result in the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. I believe that there is more going into a product than just time and money, and that we need to make more conscious decisions about who we support when consuming goods. It has no real effect on the quality of the product, but at the same time, our money should be going to someone who we know is going to do good things with it. As we would say in my economics class, we vote with our dollars, and I want to vote for the upstanding individuals who put in the extra effort to be decent human beings.

In the meantime, I guess we can just keep enjoying really good cups of coffee. 🙂

 

Three Little Words

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At this past week’s “How Do We Love?” seminar, I got to discuss with my fellow Rose Scholars our personal definitions of three little words with a BIG social and emotional impact.

“I love you.”

At the center of the issue is the fact that “love”, although one of the most commonly used words, is one of the most infrequently recognized. How many times do we say, “I’d love to” or “I love…[random object or activity]”? The answer is….a lot. And yet there is an implicit difference in meaning depending upon what we are referring to. Romantic love, for example, feels and looks very different from how we may feel about, say,  pizza, despite our identical word choice in describing each. With such a discrepancy of meanings, we have no choice but to fall back on a very watered-down definition of the word, amounting to something along the lines of “to have a very strong preference for something”. In my personal opinion, I find this definition to be very shallow and it fails to capture what some people may call the “magic of falling in love”. Quite frankly, I’d be insulted if that’s all my significant other meant when he told me he loved me. I mean…wow, thanks. I prefer you too.

I know we’re never going to eradicate this loose definition from our vocabularies, but at the same time I think we need to clarify the dictionary meaning such that the emotion behind a heart-felt “I love you” can be maintained. My personal favorite definition right now is that to love is to will the good of another. I’ve been spoon-fed that definition all my life, and for good reason. I think it’s more than sufficient to describe our human relationships. When we love love someone (i.e. romantic love), we care about them, and if we care about them, we want what’s best for them. The reverse is true as well. If we want what’s best for someone, we care about them, and, therefore, it’s not a huge jump to say we love them. Under this definition we can accurately describe how we feel, not only about our significant others, but also about our friends and family. There are no romantic undertones in this definition, and yet it still does a much better job capturing the emotions felt in such a relationship than the weak definition we have now.

Lmk whatcha think!

A Fragile Balance

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As a biology major, I really, really enjoyed professor Harvell’s talk at this week’s Becker/Rose Cafe. With nothing but glass figurines as her guide, she travelled the world in hopes of identifying the organisms that served as models for Cornell’s breath-taking Blaschka glass collection, and learning more about the changes in marine biodiversity over the last century.

Professor Harvell also spoke a great deal about her efforts to identify the pathogen currently ravaging sea star populations up and down the west coast, which raised some good questions about our part in wildlife conservation.

It was suggested by a fellow student that perhaps it iss not our place to interfere with the plight of the sea stars, and the more I think about it, the more I think I agree with him. I have a feeling people are going to eat me alive for saying that, so let me clarify: The fact of the matter is that species have come and gone long before humans evolved on this Earth, and I’d venture to say that Mother Nature has been doing a pretty good job. Fighting against natural selection is an incredible uphill battle, and I think conservation efforts can turn into a money pit very, very quickly.

Let it be known that I am NOT saying that we should continue dumping raw sewage into the oceans, hunting endangered animals, and cutting down the rainforests – shame on us for letting that happen in the first place. If wildlife is suffering as a direct result of our actions, I believe we are obligated to to try to remedy the situation. BUT, while a noble thought, it’s very naïve to believe that we can save every animal, regardless of the source of their plight. As hard as it is, we need to pick our battles.

Let me know what you guys think, and, in the meantime, please enjoy this adorable picture of a nudibranch.

You’re welcome.

A Fall-Themed Stress Reliever

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This event was a nice opportunity for sit down and just take a breather in the midst of all the prelim craziness. While I must admit that it didn’t teach me much I didn’t already know about stress and taking care of myself, I did get to carve a pumpkin, which I found to be an excellent way to destress. It was also incredibly refreshing to sit with friends and NOT talk about school. I really don’t do that often enough, and this event was a reminder that I shouldn’t feel guilty about doing so in the future.

*Update* My pumpkin is dead. RIP.

 

 

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There’s More to Your Food than Meets the Eye

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At this week’s Becker-Rose Cafe, we got the opportunity to talk with Justine Vanden Heuvel & Mary Jo Dudley, two women dedicated to the betterment of agriculture. In particular, we spoke a great deal about the social and economic effects of undocumented immigrants in the workforce.

One statistic stands in my mind: at this current point in time, it is conservatively estimated that 50% of our nation’s farm workers are undocumented. Fifty. With that in mind, it’s not difficult to see how a mass deportation would devastate our economy and agriculture as we know it. It’s true that, in an ideal world, these jobs would be filled by American citizens, but the reality of the situation is that there is a nearly insurmountable stigma surrounding the farming. It’s often thought that agriculture is a waste of intellect, and that jobs in that field should be reserved for those individuals that lack the technical skill to do anything else. Of course this is nowhere near a fair assumption, but we must acknowledge that it remains the prevailing idea. We also need to realize that this isn’t going to change over night. Shifting this stereotype will take years and years of work, and as we stand right now, we would be hard-pressed to find replacements for the laborers that would be lost in a mass deportation.

Now I’m not saying that I condone illegal immigration. I don’t. But I also don’t condemn people for wanting a better life. Would I rather them take the necessary steps to citizenship? Of course. Do I understand the burden they place on the tax-paying citizens of America? Most definitely. But this talk made it very clear to me that, regardless of your political agenda, deporting every illegal immigrant is simply not economically feasible. They comprise the backbone of our society, and if we get rid of the immigrants, we ultimately get rid of our food.

And I like food..

Close to Home, But a World Away

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I’ve been looking for an excuse to take a hike for the longest time now, so the  decision between spending my Saturday morning studying and strolling through a scenic gorge was virtually non-existent.

Procrastination and natural beauty? I think, yes.

To start, we really couldn’t have asked for a better day, and while aesthetically the walk was all I could have asked for and more, the tour deviated significantly from what I expected. I’m thankful that it wasn’t a lecture on the flora and fauna (There’s a reason why I’m not in plant science….) and even more so that we weren’t turning over rocks to goggle at the creepy-crawlers underneath (ew). Instead, we focused on the big picture, discussing the plate tectonics that brought us such a structure, as well as the manner in which Cornell came to acquire and refurbish the trail. Walking down those stairs into the gorge was, literally, transformative, and I still find it hard to believe that all that is just a few feet away from the well-travelled road to Collegetown…..even if or entire walk was done to the tune of Lambda’s darty…..

When all is said and done, I learned a lot about our campus, and gained new respect for just how special Cornell truly is…

OH, and I got a killer Insta out of it, so there’s that.

Live a Little, Laugh a Little

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Going into this talk, knowing that it was going to be about life during and after college, I didn’t have very high expectations. Authority figures have been lecturing me about these things for as long as I can remember, and I wasn’t particularly thrilled to be going to another such talk… I was pleasantly surprised, however, by how blunt and relatable Dan Schwartz proved to be. The biggest thing I appreciated about Professor Schwartz was how candid he was about his own opinions. I’m sick of people beating around the bush, telling me that “it’s up to you” or “there’s no right answer.” While I do see value in figuring things out for yourself, I also think that hearing another’s opinions and weighing them against your own is equally beneficial.

With that in mind, I walked away with a few great life lessons….

  • “Time is time” – Time is and forever will be our most valuable commodity.
  • Make connections – Try to get to know at least one new professor every semester.
  • Success is contingent upon the 3 “R’s”: resilience, resourcefulness, and resolve.
  • You cannot change the past. Start from where you are, and move forward.

And finally, laugh 🙂

All in all, I left this talk with a greater appreciation for my time here at Cornell, and incredible respect for such an introspective, intelligent man. I’m very glad I went.