Pollan discusses the importance of health in newest book
Friday, March 14, 2008, 12:06 EST
Article Tools
News
The artist that Concerts Committee has tried to get for some time, Common, was announced as the spring concert to Program Board on Monday, Feb. 25. The date for the concert is set for April 3 at 8:30 p.m. [following the Council on Presidential Affairs (CPA) rally] in Clowes Memorial Hall. The exterior doors will open at 7:30 p.m. and the concert hall doors will open at 8 p.m.
Between Fall 2007 and Feb. 18, BUPD gave out 3,091 parking tickets -- 1,129 were to commuters, 818 to residents, 387 to Greek residents, 410 to village residents and 362 were faculty and staff tickets.
These facts, along with more, were shared as Vice President of Operations Mike Gardner and Assistant Police Chief Andy Ryan held a parking forum on Feb. 28 at Atherton Union. Spring Sports Spectacular will be having two give-back nights near the end of March, it was announced at the March 5 SGA assembly meeting.
The annual 12-hour athletic event supporting Special Olympics Indiana will have a portion of the dining money spent on specific nights donated to the philanthropic event. The first give-back night will be March 20 at Mongolian Barbeque from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., and the second on March 24 at Bazbeaux Pizza. Terrance Hayes writes poems about being a young black boy or man, he said. While his theme stays the same, Hayes claimed one factor progresses among his first, second and third books.
"The poems get more and more strange," Hayes said. A large number of sorority women from all houses and grades were fortunate enough to hear Mari Ann Callais, Ph.D. speak on March 4. The topic of the event was “From Ritual to Reality,” and it was obvious that every sorority member in the room took to Callais’ message because of her unique methods of presentation.
Callais spoke of doing the best every Greek brother and sister can do to live the true meaning behind Greek rituals, objects and letters. Judging by the performances at Freshman Skits on the evening of Feb. 29, you might have thought the theme had something to do with ribbon dancing. The annual event, organized by Blue Key, gives the new members of every Greek house a chance to entertain.
Hosts Clark Taylor and Mackenzie Murnane, both seniors, presented the show as each new pledge class performed a 10-minute skit for a panel of judges and an audience full of students in the Health and Recreation Complex (HRC). Professor Aurelian Craiutu described the roots of democracy and the problems it has faced to an attentive crowd in the Reilly Room on Feb. 27.
Craiutu is an associate professor in the department of political science at Indiana University and said the subject of the lecture, “Dilemmas of Democracy,” held a very strong personal element for him.
Both locations were filled to the limits of their fire codes due to the fact that people from all over the state had come to hear Pollan’s thoughts on "The New York Times" and the "Washington Post" best-seller “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”
The book is a discussion on the roots and progression of the current public health crisis and what is truly healthy in today’s markets. Pollan, a nutritionist, researched the crisis to learn what he could about the links between diet and health because he noticed that people were becoming overfed yet undernourished.
He likened nutrition to religion when he said, “if what’s important is invisible, we need priests (or scientists) to help us be in-touch with what’s invisible.” He also went on to predict the “good and evil” of future dieting ideologies, identifying Omega-3 fatty acids as the “savior” and Omega-6 fatty acids as its opposite.
The end of the speech offered some well-phrased and humorous tips that could be realistically followed to properly adjust the Western diet:
“Don’t eat anything that won’t rot eventually.” Twinkies were given as an example.
“Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” Again giving an example, Go-GURT would not follow this rule.
“Avoid foods that make health claims.” Pollan’s reasoning for this tip was that if a product has the ability to market a health claim, it most likely has a bag or box to boast upon, which means that it is in some way processed (and thus not natural) and is “ballooned with additives.”
And finally, “eat slowly.” The human stomach requires 20 minutes to tell the brain that it is full. Eating slowly will avoid an over-filling of the stomach while it is attempting to communicate that it is no longer hungry.
Pollan was the fifth addition to this year’s J. James Woods Lecture Series. His book is highly recommended to those looking for a simpler and more fulfilling method of being healthy.
“The Extravagant Universe” is the title of the next lecture by Robert Kirshner. It will take place on April 14 in the Reilly Room.