Meet your new best friends. They go by Lactobacillus GG, L. casei, B. bifidum and S. thermophilus. They’re the cool kids on the street. Have you heard about ‘em yet?
Those goofy names are actually the most common types of probiotics, a term you probably have heard by now. We’re going to discuss what they are, what they can do for you, and where to find them (you’ll be excited to see some of the places they’re found!) Read the rest of this entry »
This post is about dirt.
Dirt is where food starts and ends, so I think it’s fitting that this post follow the same pattern. But I’m actually going to talk about more than just dirt.
I’ve spoken about the importance of soil health in several previous blog posts (see here and here). The chemical composition of soil is crucial to a healthy crop, if my hammering away on the subject weren’t a dead giveaway. So just in case you weren’t informed enough about the Duke Campus Farm’s dirt, you’re about to learn more.
Campus Wide Fast: Tuesday, November 29th, 6pm, Scharf Hall
Join the Duke Faith Council and Undergraduate Faith Council for a day of fasting followed by a vegetarian dinner at 6pm in Scharf Hall. During dinner Dr. Laurie Patton will moderate an interfaith panel on food, faith and fasting. Other panelists include: Jeremy Yoskowitz (Jewish Life at Duke), Usha Rajagopalan (Hindu Student Association), John Stonestreet (Orthodox Christian Student Association) and Mona Hassan (Religion Dept). FLEX and cash donations will be collected at the event to help purchase meals for the Stop Hunger Now meal packaging event taking place on MLK-Day, January 16th in partnership with Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnerships. This event is part of Duke’s “Interfaith Community Service Challenge“.
If you’re vegetarian, you’ll want to check out this great blog, The Vegetarian Durhamite, complete with local food reviews.
“The straight story on vegetarian eating in Durham – no bull.”
http://www.thevegetariandurhamite.com
It’s mid-November – chances are you’ve adapted pretty well to your school eating routines by now – meeting your friends at the Great Hall at 5:45, stopping by Blue Express as you leave your 11 AM class, packing snacks for that long chemistry lab. Just when you thought you’ve nailed down a good routine, it all changes – The Holidays. Maybe you find this time of year to be joyous, or maybe overwhelmingly stressful. Read the rest of this entry »
Balance Your Plate
Who taught you about good nutrition and healthy eating? Was it your parents? Grandparents?
Did you grow up learning about the four food groups, the USDA Food Guide Pyramid or My Pyramid the second version of the pyramid?
In August of this year the USDA unveiled My Plate the latest tool for teaching healthy eating. It just makes sense to use a plate to teach nutrition – after all you eat from a plate not a pyramid. The plate is used as a guide to teach you how much of each food to eat in a very practical way— it literally shows you how much of your plate should hold vegetables and fruits (about ½) how much should hold foods high in protein like meats, poultry, fish or plant based proteins like soy or beans (about ¼), and how much should hold grains like rice pasta, breads etc. (about ¼). Read the rest of this entry »
Duke is pleased to announce for Spring 2012 the inaugural “University Course” at Duke, hosted by Trinity College of Arts and Sciences.
Open university-wide to ALL undergraduate, graduate, and professional students and taught by professors across the university.
Food Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Why, What, and How We Eat
DOCST 190.05 / WOMENST 150.01 / CULANTH 180.08
CZ, SS, CCI, EI
Convened by Laurie Patton, Dean of Arts and Sciences
Co-Professors: Kathy Rudy (Associate Professor of Women’s Studies) & Charles D. Thompson (Lecturer in Cultural Anthropology, Adjunct Professor of Religion, and Curriculum and Education Director, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University)
Tuesdays, 4:25 – 7:30 pm
Plans are underway to offer meals in conjunction with the course (details to follow). The evening fare will exemplify specific themes and subjects of the course.
This innovative University Course will bring together faculty and students from different disciplines and different schools at Duke to explore an issue of common concern. In this first “pilot” course we will focus on Food Studies.
Some of the questions this course will explore include, where does industrial food come from? Why is it so inadequate? Who sells it to us, and what is their stake in the growth and manufacturing? What kinds of farming practices have changed over the last half-century and why? What cultural processes have shaped the planting, harvesting, cooking, packaging, shipping, advertising, selling, and buying of our food? What do these shifts mean for us humans, for farmers, for farm workers, for farm animals, and for the greater environment? What is the role of chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, hormones), genetic modifications, and cloning in this new world of food? Can we really produce enough food without them?
We hope you join us in a critical examination of food, from production to consumption.
Are Your “Food Rules” Ruling You?
Eating right is actually quite simple. Remember back when you were a kid? You ate when you felt like it. You felt hunger, you ate, and then you felt full. It was simple. Yet as you’ve gotten older, chances are you’ve been bombarded with contradictory messages about healthy eating (what to eat, what not to eat, when and where). Truth is, nutrition is an evolving field and there are an infinite number of fad diets with fad claims that further confuse us. Read the rest of this entry »