Colloquia Abstracts
Obesity - Evolutionary Advantage but Cultural Casualty
T.W. Parker, Ph.D.
The problem of obesity is reaching ever-increasing proportions, so to speak. It is particularly serious for our children, who face strong inducements for sedentary lifestyles and a steady erosion of the importance attached to physical fitness in our school systems. It is clear that obesity would be a useful survival advantage in times when food was scarce or available only intermittently. Thus we can characterize obesity as one of those diseases that is due to the incompatibility between our evolved body systems and our radically changed lifestyle. We need to discover what problems occur in our weight control system that ultimately lead to obesity. We will see that “cafeteria” diets can induce obesity in rats and humans, yet the mechanisms underlying this obesity are not the same in both cases.
This talk will investigate the biological basis of obesity. This will involve discussing the addiction aspects of obesity. We will look at how eating activates the same pleasure response that accompanies other forms of substance abuse. We will also look at the complex interaction of neurotransmitters and hormones that regulate our normal eating behaviours, to see how they might be subverted in people who suffer from obesity.
Bio-fuels and Food Prices: How Government Policy Mucked up a Perfectly Sensible Market Allocation
Neil Hepburn
Recent events have caused concern about food prices around the world and the effect that bio-fuel production is having on those prices. While the media coverage has largely died down, the problem still exists. And while some have argued that this crisis is the result of an ineffective market place and that government action is needed to correct the problem, this paper examines the problem and finds that the current situation is in fact the result of government policy working against the market mechanism. In the absence of government subsidies to promote bio-fuel production, the market mechanism would never have allowed such a trend to occur due to the costs of producing bio-fuels.
Governments may have been well intentioned when establishing these policies, but they were certainly ill-informed. These policies have had the effect of altering costs faced by bio-fuel producers to the extent that their costs do not truly reflect the cost of production and this has resulted in the production of bio-fuels in ways that would never have occurred in the absence of government policy. Because of this resource allocation, food prices have risen while net supplies of fuels are unchanged.
From Field to Fork and Dessert
Kathleen Corcoran
A concert celebrating field and food by Soprano Kathleen Corcoran assisted by Roger Admiral pianist, the voices of Sangkor, the Men’s choir, Milton Schlosser and the Mocha Joe Jazz Trio.
An eclectic program of field and food songs composed by Schumann, Bernstein, Finzi, Delius, Poulenc , Vaughan Williams, and topped off with a swirl of dessert music featuring jazz and broadway selections.
You Are What Your Mother Ate
Neil Haave, PhD
In our current Genetic Age it is common to hear or read in the media the discovery of some new gene that is the root cause of disease or ability. With current genetic recombination techniques it makes it seem that we should be able to engineer the perfect steak, the perfect fruit, the perfect individual. This thinking arises from the assumption that DNA, the chemical constituent of genes, is the master controller of biology. However, DNA is a dead molecule. Isolated in a test tube it cannot do anything. Its power stems from its cellular
context.
We know that our diet can influence how we live. Too much sugar gives us a sugar high followed by a crash. This influence of food is not limited to postnatal life but has been documented to begin before birth. Maternal diet can impact the offspring. What is very interesting is that this influence of maternal diet has been documented to continue after the maternal influence has ceased. It seems that maternal diet can metabolically imprint the offspring.
How does this happen? Ironically, recent advances in genetics suggest that the influence of genes is not unidirectional. Genes do profoundly impact cells, tissues, organs and organisms, but that the cellular environment can influence which genes are turned off or on. And that this influence is not necessarily transient. The structure of the DNA is altered which affects the expression of its genes. It is possible that maternal diet impacts the structure and expression of their offspring’s genes well after maternal diet has ceased being the direct source of nutrition for her offspring.
We are what we eat. We are also what our mothers ate.
Food, Community, and Spirituality: Confessions of an Eater
Craig Wentland
Food is far more than just fuel for our bodies. Food is also a window into human spirituality. By examining how people deal with food, insights can be gained about the deep truths and myths that shape life. In this talk, Craig Wentland, the Augustana Chaplain, will explore how food is both expresses and molds the spiritual landscape.
Gone Bananas! The Costa Rican Banana Industry and Engagement of Globalized Food Systems
Kierstin Hatt
If we are what we eat, then what is the stuff that we are made of? The Costa Rican banana industry was a prototype for the development of large-scale food production, and Costa Rica was the original 'Banana Republic'. Understanding banana production in Costa Rica allows us to see patterns of food production as linked to globalized consumption, of power relations, and of socio-cultural and environmental impact. Through the extension of banana production to a model for globalized food production, many of our food systems have literally, 'gone bananas'. We are connected to our food through several interlinked systems. Understanding how these operate in the Costa Rican banana industry can be a basis for tools for understanding the complexity of the issues associated with food production and consumption, and as a basis for tools for making more informed choices about our own food consumption.
Microbes, Food and the Food Industry
Sheryl L. Gares, Ph.D.
The impact of the microbial world on our planet is so diverse it encompasses virtually every aspect of food and food production. Virtually all substances are potential sources of food to microbes, so how does this contribute to food stuffs in the human world? Photosynthetic microbes play a substantial role by harnessing light energy to power the conversion of carbon dioxide into the building blocks of carbohydrates. Microbes are the only organisms capable of fixing inorganic atmospheric nitrogen making it available to plants for growth and improving soil fertility. Microbial metabolisms are exploited to change the biochemical nature of food ingredients to yield a variety of fermented products including wine, beer, bread, cheese, yogurt, sauerkraut, etc. that many of us consume with enjoyment. Many microbes also play vital roles as decomposers; thus, their unique metabolisms can be exploited to produce biofuels from waste products and to de-toxify contaminated environments. Of less benefit to us, but no less important, food spoilage organisms cause serious health concerns within the food industry and many other species cause enormous agricultural losses when they feed on crops and deplete our food supply.
The Columbia Exchange
Rani-Villem Palo
Imagine North American menus without hamburgers, or Italy's cuisine minus tomatoes, the absence of potatoes from German cooking and from Irish history --- and no morning coffee jolt outside of Arabia. Imagine Florida without oranges.....
All of that, and much more, began to change in 1493 with Columbus' 2nd voyage. In less than a generation the agriculture and economies of the Old and New Worlds were turned upside down.
This reciprocal trans-oceanic invasion by animal, vegetable, mineral, and bacterial agents has been termed "The Columbian Exchange".
As part of Augustana's "Field to Fork" theme year, history professor Rani-Villem Palo will focus on the exchange and transplantation of foodstuffs that occurred with and after Columbus. How and why did this occur, what does it say about the nature of trade and what does it mean for our time?