Intro Lecture

Lecture 1: Introduction

Announcements

Saturday, September

7th, 2013

Cayu

ga

Lake

$1

David A. LevitskySteven H. Weiss Presidential Fellow

Professor of Nutrition and Psychology

112 Savage Hall

Office: 5-3263

Home: 272-5122

[email protected]

Course Coordinator and Instructor

Mary Beth TierneyPh.D.

Dietician206 Savage Hall

[email protected]

Grace Lauren Altamura [email protected]

Hannah M Beer [email protected]

Zoe Rebecca Begun [email protected]

Andrea Laura Bejarano [email protected]

Frankie Chan [email protected]

Anca Dogaroiu [email protected]

David John Foy [email protected]

Jonathan Stephen Galati [email protected]

Josef Kushner [email protected]

Joo Won Lee [email protected]

Katerina Lembrikova [email protected]

Michelle T Leonetti [email protected]

Rebecca Liu [email protected]

Christine Mathew [email protected]

Joyce Mathew [email protected]

Zoe Nicole Memel [email protected]

Paige Jaclyn Mintz [email protected]

Emily Christine Murphy [email protected]

Molly Olivia Nolan [email protected]

Sheryl Elizabeth Quock [email protected]

Aimee R Takamura art67@cornell. edu

Irene Tsai [email protected]

Alice Wang [email protected]

Emma Hoehn Waugh [email protected]

Undergraduate TA’s

Grace Altamura [email protected]

Molly Nolan [email protected]

Sheryl Quock [email protected]

70’s Club Undergraduate TA’s

Eunice Awuah [email protected]

Hey Jun Park [email protected]

Stephanie Lee [email protected]

Sarah Pedersen [email protected]

Zhen Xue [email protected]

Ruoyu Zhang [email protected]

NS1150 Graduate TA’s

What it’s all about?

1. Health

Will answer the second most

important question:

How can I live the

healthiest life possible?

Most Important Question:

Why should I live at all?

What is all about?

1. Health

A. Nutrition

What should I eat?

fatsnutraceuticals

How little should I eat?

What is all about?

1. Health

A. Nutrition

GI Disorders

Stomach

What is all about?

1. Health

A. Nutrition

Weight Control

What is all about?

1. Health

A. Nutrition

Heart Disease

What is all about?

1. Health

A. Nutrition

Cancer

What is all about?

1. Health

A. Nutrition

B. Physical Activity

What is all about?

1. Health

A. Nutrition

B. Physical Activity

Food Supplement

What is all about?

1. Health

A. Nutrition

B. Physical Activity

2. Thinking about Health

What is all about?

1.Health

A. Nutrition

B. Physical Activity

2.Thinking about

Health

Beauty and Wisdom of the Body

GRADES

Midterm 1 (25%)

Midterm 2 (25%)

Final Exam (25%)

Term Paper (20%)

Food Record (5%)

=

Exam

Review

Rebuttal

Paper

1. Pick any controversy in health

Paper

1. Pick any controversy in health

2. Find four “peer-reviewed” journal articles

- ideally, two on one side, two on the other

3. Discuss strengths of each study

4. Discuss the weaknesses of each study

5. Arrive at a Conclusion

Paper

Papers will be Peer-Graded

Extra Goodies

Cooking with Dave

Dave’s Dietary Delusions

(1% added to grade)

Extra Credit for Participating in a study

(1% added to grade)

Coffee with Dave

Savage Hall Lobby – 2:30 – 3:00

My Passion for Nutrition

I love Nutrition

I know it is not a tradition

For a professor to confess his passion

For a subject, for a discipline, for an area, for a

course

As broad and complete and diverse and as practical

as Nutrition

But, I have to tell you,

I love Nutrition.

My Passion for Nutrition

Nutrition is about science

Science is thinking in public.

Public thinking means that to convince you

What I say is not good enough

What I claim as truth is not good enough

What I believe to be true is not good enough

But I must show you, and that is not good enough

You can only believe what I say is true

When my observations are repeated by others with

no connection or financial interests or personal

attachments to me.

.

Then you may take my findings as true

But always with skepticism.

A skepticism that insists that there just might be

another interpretation,

Another way of thinking about the facts, about the

data, about the study, about the truth.

There are no secrets in science.

Nutrition is about food,

Food is about giving

About giving food to small hungry mouths whose

only sin was

Being caught between warring political parties

More concerned about dominating

Than feeling the suffering of the innocent.

Nutrition is providing food to people

Who cannot feed themselves

Because the burden of poverty and discrimination

Forces them to live in poor housing,

Send their children to poor schools,

Suffer illness because of poor diets,

And are too poor to seek medical care,

Always living with the uncertainty of their next meal.

Food is a collection of molecules

That form coalitions that seduce me to take

Them into my vulnerable inner sanctuary

Where my body will disassemble, reassemble,

rearrange, and convert those molecules

Into substances so vital to my existence that

if I don’t receive my regular supply,

I will descend into pain, distortion, dysfunction, and

maybe die.

Nutrition is about systems.

Systems that make love to each other,

As in the sweet kiss of glucose upon my waiting

beta cells

Arousing it from its sleep into an eruption of insulin

molecules

Each searching my body for that unique receptor

waiting to bind their bodies together.

Coupled, they produce a flow of sustenance into my

hungry cells, providing them with the fuel

That will sustain them and nourish them and heal

them,

And enable them to continue their struggle against

entropy and death.

Nutrition is about knowledge.

Knowledge is about predicting.

Predicting the future on the basis of information.

Knowledge is more powerful that the mythical

crystal ball

For unlike the myth, I can change my future

Not with certainty, but with sufficient confidence to

Believe that I am not a leaf being blown by the

winds of fate

But rather the captain of my own ship

Steering my passage through the uncertain sea of

life.

Nutrition is about pleasure

The pleasure of tasting flavors

Produced by melodic combinations

Of foods and spices and sundry cooking methods

Into a such a glorious symphonic dish where a mere

whiff of its fragrance

Make me close my eyes and bring a smile to my lips

Taking me far away from the reality of daily

existence.

That is why I love Nutrition.

FOR NUTRITION ISK

O

W

L

E

D

G

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L

V

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That’s all folks