From Ethics to Science to Sustainability - Nobel Conference® Speakers To Answer the Question: What Makes Food Good?

46th Annual Event Set for October 5-6 at Gustavus Adolphus College

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Jul 12, 2010, 02:29 ET

ST. PETER, Minn., July 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Some of the world's top experts in issues surrounding food – ethical, scientific, and environmental – will keynote the 46th Annual Nobel Conference, "Making Food Good," Oct. 5-6 on the Gustavus Adolphus College campus in St. Peter, Minn.

For more than four decades, Gustavus has organized and hosted the two-day Nobel Conference that links a general audience with the world's foremost scholars and researchers.

"Walking down the aisles of a supermarket, scanning the menu in a restaurant, peering into our refrigerators, we find ourselves asking, 'Is it nutritious, ecologically sustainable, affordable, appropriate to my cultural and spiritual beliefs? And will it taste good?' Our panel of globally recognized speakers will illuminate the discussion with their uniquely personal perspective, research and hopes for the future," said Jack R. Ohle, president of Gustavus Adolphus College.

Among the brightest minds in the field of food and nutrition is Marion Nestle, Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health and Professor of Sociology at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. Nestle will address some of the more compelling areas of her research including how science, economics and politics interact to affect food choices. For Nestle, some of the biggest breakthroughs in her field have involved "the shift from viewing obesity as a matter strictly of personal responsibility to the view that obesity results from changes in the marketing environment that make it so difficult for people to make healthful food choices."

Addressing crop diversity is Cary Fowler, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, an organization based in Rome, Italy dedicated to promoting and preserving crop diversity through seed banks. The major work of the Trust, says Fowler, "is to help ensure consistent funding to keep this important work moving forward and ultimately be able to store seed for future use to deal with adaptation to climate change."

As a Presidential Endowed Professor of Community Dentistry and Behavioral Science at the University of Florida, Linda Bartoshuk will address one of food's most primal considerations – taste. "Foods do not taste the same to all of us. Some of the variation is genetic and some is due to common pathologies."

Taking a more conceptual approach to the Conference's featured topic, Frances Moore Lappe, co-founder of the Small Planet Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will share her journey in answering the question: Why are we as societies creating a world that we as individuals abhor? The answer, she says, "is in the power of our 'mental map'-- our core assumptions about how the world works. They determine, literally, what we can see and what we believe to be possible." With fresh insights, startling facts, and stirring vignettes, Lappe will focus on real solutions emerging worldwide.

Rounding out the panel of distinguished speakers are:

Bina Agarwal, Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute of Economic Growth at the University of Delhi, India
Jeffrey Friedman, Marilyn M. Simpson Professor and HHMI Investigator at the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Director of the Starr Center for Human Genetics at The Rockefeller University in New York
Paul Thompson, W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural Food and Community Ethics at Michigan State University, East Lansing

Beyond the keynote speakers, other events associated with the Nobel Conference include local speakers, a concert, an art museum opening, and theater and dance events. The entire event will be webcast live at gustavus.edu/nobelconference.

About Gustavus Adolphus College

Established in 1862 by Swedish Lutheran immigrants, Gustavus Adolphus College is a private liberal arts college that provides an undergraduate education of recognized excellence for more than 2,500 students. Following the dedication in 1963 of the Alfred Nobel Memorial Hall of Science at the College, the Nobel Conference was launched at the College, which continues to set a standard for timeliness, intellectual inquiry, and free debate of contemporary issues related to the natural and social sciences.

SOURCE Gustavus Adolphus College