Net Impact has a mission “to mobilize a new generation to use their careers to drive transformational change in their workplaces and the world.” Not bad. Not bad at all and I am excited to be a member and somewhat shocked (but not really) that the world needs a conference like this and that it is not the way that business has always been done. The conference just happened this past weekend in Portland, OR. It was really great to be around more than 2500 MBA candidates and professionals that believe in sustainability and systems that support this. It was also shocking at how little health, healing, and personal sustainability existed at the conference. Not only were there not scheduled events that addressed this, but the food we were served was mostly wheat, sugar, cow dairy, and meats that did not ring of Portland and its incredible local, organic, food efforts.
I could comment on all of my favorite speakers (there were quite a number of them like REI's Chief Executive Sally Jewel, Hanah Jones from Nike or Vail Horten – yes, I did get teary a few times while he spoke), but really I want to focus in just a little on food and health.
There were two sessions directed at local Portland businesses. I had the opportunity to participate in both of these as a co-presenter with Laura Weiss and GO Box (her rocking start up that I interned with this summer) along with 4 other local companies. One of these companies was Up Stream Public Health. The question they were creatively crowd-sourcing was related to the dangers of sugar consumption while exploring creative solutions. They shared a number of impressive stats. One of my favorites was that, “Every year most Americans eat their body weight in sugar.”
It was such an amazing visual, emotional moment for everyone in the room as we all started picturing our own sticky, sweet life-sized statues. One of the heftier men in the room just started chuckling, pointing at his body, and nodding. Yes, I had a really good time helping to facilitate the questions for GO Box and creating solutions to lessen waste both locally and nationally, and I was excited to learn about a local organization tackling a problem that in some ways seems harder to approach than physical waste. Sugar is so prevalent in our culture and especially our holidays that it is hard for most people, including myself to switch to not only seeing it as an addiction, but an addiction that is worth fighting against.
In Wikipedia, sugar addiction is still sited as being addiction-like. It is very hard to fight something that has not been named. At least on CNN Health it is being addressed as a real, difficult and dangerous obstacle.
Fulmar, David. "Sweet Statue of Liberty" Sugar Statue Flickr. 2011. 31/10/11 [http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveynin/6081411610/]
As Octobe 31st ticks by, I cant help wondering, how many little heroes, tigers, princesses and turtles will be filling themselves with a poison potentially just as dangerous as the razor blades that I used to be warned about as a child. Funny that as an adult I get all the access I want to both razor blades and sugar.
Hi Liz. Thanks for highlighting the complicated messages our culture gives us about sugar. It's a socially accepted addiction which creates all sorts of problems: is it addiction or fun? I think there are ways to build body awareness and appreciation for natural "highs" that don't involve sugar. But it takes a lot of work to get off the sugar train.
ReplyDeleteI know. Its so hard. While giving out candy last night, dressed like Little Bo Peep, I ended up eating a piece of candy even though I generally dont eat sugar, honey or even agave. That sugar train is just soo strong.
ReplyDeleteI would be interested in learning more about how our "taste" changes over time. How we can acquire an interest in certain foods and lose interest in others. Do you know much about this?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHere is my first response (without doing much extra research while trying to pull from my Biology background and personal experience). I know that we have four different types of taste buds and they are in specific places on our tongues. I can still remember being in 8th grade and touching Q-tips to my classmates tongues to test this out. The tip of the tongue tastes sweet and then moving back towards the throat it goes from salty to sour, to bitter. I know that bitter was/is the hardest flavor for me to embrace and that sweet was/is the easiest. I wonder how placement of taste buds plays into the answer to your question. (If you search "taste tongue map" you can find some nice tongue diagrams.)
ReplyDeleteSometimes I also wonder how much knowledge of "healthy benefits" of food plays into preferences. As a kid that didn't matter to me at all. I was such a picky eater. But now, I find myself liking things that I know are healthy that I could not stand as a kid. It almost seems like my body tells my mouth to like certain foods so that it can be nourished by them
First time reading your blog, and you have me laughing out loud. Its going to be hard for me to avoid lots of food and digestion puns for the rest of the day. ;)
ReplyDeleteI noticed all the unhealthy food at Net Impact too. I was struck that even in a LEED-certified conference center filled with people talking about sustainability, the event was still a junk food-consuming and trash-producing event similar to every other conference I've attended. One of my proudest moments of the conference was upon leaving, when I stopped and realized I had avoided eating a single donut. Huge personal victory for me.