In the Mood for Food - November!

Hey y'all! November was "eating on a budget" for In the Mood for Food.

Our goal this month was to explore the correlation between budgeting and our food choices. This is definitely relevant for us because we've been working on the issue of how to use our budget to feed 24 people a meal every month, which definitely has not been easy!

There's a lot of research that supports the correlation between poverty and obesity. Why is this? Often processed foods, foods high in fats and carbohydrates, and fast foods are much less expensive than healthier options. Vegetables and fruits are fairly expensive, as are high quality meats, fish, and specialty foods. This means that a vegetarian, gluten free, or lean diet is almost impossible.

Restaurants like McDonalds can offer a meal for $4-5 a person, so we've decided to use McDonalds as our group meal this month. Because of Thanksgiving break, our meal is scheduled for next week - but we'll keep you posted on how this goes. The topics of our meal discussion will be:

Why is fast food so much cheaper than other options? (Information from Fast Food Nation, a book detailing the history and practices of the fast food industry will be discussed.)

How can we personally make choices to eat healthy while on a budget?

How can we as a community, state, and nation work to eliminate the correlation between obesity and poverty?

Here is an example of a low cost, delicious recipe! While it isn't as healthy as a salad, it includes 5 out of the six major food groups and is easy and tasty!

Chicken Pot Pie

1 can diced white chicken breast - $3.50
1 can Veg-all (or frozen vegetables) - $0.75
1 can cream of mushroom soup - $1.75
1 can cream of potato soup - $1.75
1 box of frozen pie crusts - $2.50
milk, flour, seasonings to taste (these things are minimal)

1. Line pie plate with crust. Mix ingredients together and pour into crust. Add milk and flour to your preferred consistency. Cover and crimp edges. Line edges with aluminum foil.
2. Bake at 425 for about an hour. Let stand to cool for around 10 minutes.

This is a picture of a pot pie I made. The crust fell apart but it was sooo good!

Here are some links for more information!

http://www.docshop.com/2007/11/20/obesity-and-poverty-examining-the-link

http://www.globalissues.org/article/558/obesity

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and I hope you all will think about the fiscal, social, and health costs of your food this month!

 - Ellen and the rest of In the Mood for Food

Filming the Commercial -- Asian Voice

Hello everyone,

This is Asian Voice group! October has been a great month. We did our filming about some of our group members. We went to different places around campus and enjoyed it a lot!! We found it is so interesting that we have similar yet different backgrounds and interests. Besides the filming, we are currently busy preparing to present us to the Commons students in November!! Since one of our group member- Tina, is an RA in the Commons, we get the chance to present ourselves as well as VIP group as a whole to the freshman! We will serve our favorite Asian style food—dumplings. We hope through our little effort, more and more freshman will apply to VIP! Midterm week is out there and our Asian Voice is out there as well!!

--- Asian Voice

Dumplings...Yum!

Beyond Tutoring

*sigh* It seems that we underestimated how long the paperwork and other bureaucratic hurdles can take. In late September, we supplied the Reverend with the permission forms and our finalized (but not anymore…) schedule. However, there was a massive delay because the Reverend wanted to talk to the parents about it, which probably took some time because he’s a busy guy. We also need an adult from the church to be present during the Saturday sessions, a requirement that is rather difficult to fulfill. In hindsight, we probably should have started the negotiations during the summer…

As a result, we probably won’t be able to start the Saturday sessions until next semester…  However, it’s probably not entirely a bad thing, because some of us are going to the Wednesday tutoring sessions hosted by the Black Cultural Center and several Commons houses. The same kids who are attending the Wednesday sessions will be attending our Saturday activities, so it’s good to get to know them beforehand. This is especially important for our group, because many of us are inexplicably shy around kids!

We’ve also started to read books to educate ourselves about poverty. One of the books we’re reading is called “When Helping Hurts.” A main points of this book is that anti-poverty efforts must be sustainable (i.e. not die off when the planners leave) and involve the community that is being helped. However, it seems that these conditions are rather difficult to fulfill. When our VIP project ends, the Saturday activities we’re trying to do will be discontinued. Also, it is difficult to get community involvement, because the parents of the kids are often busy. So our project is not actually “sustainable”…

On a brighter note, the kids painted pumpkins for Halloween last week!

Hard at work.

A vampire pumpkin!

Then, they went trick-or-treating at the Commons last Friday. Too bad we couldn’t join them, because we were too busy cramming for exams…

October for the Global Perspectives team

Hello esteemed readers! (Above are two of our speakers: Henri Benaim and Evelyn Hu)

I, Aaron Landis, have been charged with delivering this month's update, and a busy month it has been. Our group, Global Perspectives has been busy planning our recently held Speakers Panel along with several upcoming events you will certainly hear more about in the coming weeks. Our speakers' panel turned out very well. Roughly 30 people attended our conference on Chinese culture and economic opportunities. Our three speakers Evelyn Hu, Henri Benaim and Tommy Obenchain (who is a senior here at Vandy) gave excellent presentations and participated in a very stimulating question and answer session. We here at Global Perspectives extend our sincere gratitude to them and all of the people who made our event possible.



Until next month,
Global Perspectives (half of us pictured to the right)

Building an Ethical Identity

With all the tests the past few weeks, and just big workloads for all of us, we're surprised and glad that we've been able to find the time to invest into VIP that we have. Our group dinners have been particularly productive. They've given us a static time every week to meet, talk about the project, and discuss recent news in bioethics. I'm sad that we are unable to report on as many 'big events' as some of our peers, but as for internal development, which was our goal for the first semester, we've made some major headway. It's very gratifying to see the project take form so we will be ready to look outwards and deliver the final product next semester. We are all particularly excited to start interviews this next month. I wish I had more to report, but hopefully our work will reflect come spring!

-Nelson

Everything Will Be Revealed

The leaves are falling, the temperatures are dropping, and the myths are ripe for busting. Our project is rolling right along. We are still in a mostly research phase, but we've uncovered a lot of fascinating, shocking, and sometimes hilarious Vanderbilt lore and legend. We're all very eager to begin putting our findings into video format and begin posting to our YouTube Channel. The commercial gave us an opportunity to test our film-making skills and provided some valuable experience for when we begin to assemble our final video. Because our final project is a video, we decided a "trailer", rather than a commercial, would be more fitting. And my God: it's the cinematic experience of a lifetime. As we gear up to film our myth segments, we've been searching for campus resources to use. We're hoping to use a/v equipment from the Learning Resource Center, however, this may require some arm twisting. Once we get our equipment situation sorted out, things will start to heat up. BAM!

Daniel

 A scene from our dramatic trailer. It'll all make sense, I promise.

October Rowing

This month the Vanderbilt Rowing Club attended two away regattas. Hobb’s Island Regatta was in Huntsville, AL and Secret City Head Race was in Oak Ridge, TN. Both events were successful for our team. The Varsity Men’s 8+ and Women’s 8+ both took first at Hobb’s Island. The Men’s A 4+ and 8+ also took first at Secret City, the Women’s varsity 8+ took second at Secret City. At Hobb’s we raced (and beat) Alabama’s freshman team. This was a big victory for us because they are a NCAA sanctioned Division 1 team. They are comprised of recruits who are payed to row. Because we beat them by 22 seconds, Bama’s coaches decided not to be so embarrassed again and instead raced their varsity boat against us at Secret City. We lost there by a minute and a half. We were sort of disappointed and sort of flattered by this decision on the part of the Bama coaches. I have a friend on the Bama women’s team that told me they were jogging the other day and talked about how Vanderbilt’s Women’s team should start the road to becoming D1 because we are good competition for them. This was another flattering thing to hear.

We were all a little disappointed with our performance in the fours. Mainly this is because we didn’t have time to seat race for them so we can make an A and B. Instead we spilt up our eight by stern four rowers and bow four rowers. This made it hard for us to row well together and we didn’t medal in either boat at either race.

We had a morning practice last week for the first time this year. I actually love practicing in the morning. For some reason, when I wake up very early in the morning, I have more energy during my day. Especially when the first thing I do is work out. The row we had that morning in our 8 was the best we had had all fall. There is something magical about that early morning lake, watching the sun rise, going to breakfast with the girls when we get back to campus, I loved it. I was probably the only one, however.

As we move into November, we are looking at Head of the Hooch, our biggest race of the Fall season. The training is getting harder, and after the Hooch, we will move indoors for winter training, which is even harder. This is the time of the year I start to question why I row. Putting myself through physical agony every day for several hours certainly doesn’t seem like something I would want to do. But this time of year also reminds me why I row. I look around as the sun sets on the lake during practice, I remember laughing with my teammates while we stay overnight at regattas playing games and eating good food, I continue to see the reasons that I stay on the team, and the reasons I joined to begin with. I love rowing, and as much as it stinks to have to come off the water, I have been happy with our success this season, and look forward to the Spring Sprints more than you can possibly imagine.

Anna

Exploring Country Music in October

Hey y'all!

So October has been a pretty busy month for us as a group getting everything together, but in the past four weeks I have had some pretty spectacular opportunities (along with some of my group members) to begin to experience what living in Nashville and understanding country music really looks like.

The first opportunity came when Live on the Green, a free, Nashville-sponsored concert series, brought Band of Horses downtown to play a concert outside on October 7. Being one of my favorite bands even before I got to Nashville, it was really exciting for me to see them live, and to understand a little bit more about them stylistically. Having just released a brand new album this May, Band of Horses now identifies themselves as a completely "folk" inspired ensemble, a movement that grew out of country music in America in the last century.

Alex, me, and Evyn at Band of Horses

The next concert that I was fortunate enough to experience was a name that all fans of country music will recognize: Carrie Underwood. Emerging onto the country music scene only five years ago after she won American Idol, Carrie has taken Nashville and the world by storm with her powerful voice, winning several CMA's and celebrating an induction into the renowned Grand Ole Opry in 2009. Not to mention the fact that Carrie is an INCREDIBLE entertainer. Her take on pop-country style is fresh and engaging, but she knew how to make all of her fans happy, performing a duet of one of her singles with Randy Travis in a tribute to her Opry membership during the show. Four words to describe the show: glitter, glamour, and steel guitar. It was such a fun experience!

A view of the stage from our seats

Liesel and I enjoying the show!

And while this last concert technically happened on November 1st, I had to include it in this blog post, because it blew me away. Last night at TPAC I got to go see Mumford & Sons, with openers King Charles and Cadillac Sky. Wow. Just wow. Their musicianship was unparalleled, their grasp on Americana style and folk influences in spite of their London roots was inspiring. In fact, the lead singer, Marcus Mumford, mentioned during their set that he bought his very first guitar that he ever played in Nashville three and a half years ago, and described how significant it felt to be back in this city performing where, in a sense, he got his first shot. Besides the use of steel guitar, which was an obvious country instrument, the technique of the upright bassist, the plucking of the back-up guitarist's banjo and the brief appearance of a mandolin during "Winter Winds" all signaled to the audience that Mumford & Sons were country at their core, and the crowd response confirmed that they will be on the music scene to stay for some time to come. I'm so excited to see what new directions they will take and understand their music more in the context of their history (they brought out one of their biggest influences, Old Crow Medicine Show, during their encore to play a cover of 'Wagon Wheel'!)

Only a month into the project, and we're learning so much! We hope you're having fun learning with us as we continue to explore this great city that we're living in.

Y'all come back now, you hear!

Abby

Bridging the Gap at Vandy...now on Facebook!

Guess what time it is?!

Yes. November has arrived! Which means that the Bridging the Gap: Part I THE SURVEY is just around the corner. Our group has been busy finalizing the list of panelists, choosing the menu (You’re in for a treat!), and nailing down other last minute details. We are so excited to find out what the Vanderbilt campus thinks…which is why we have a Facebook page! If you haven’t joined, please check out Bridging the Gap at Vandy and comment on our latest discussion question!! The goal is to take from the conversation that takes place in these discussion threads, only those topics that are sure to interest you: the Vanderbilt campus. We also want to construct our panel questions around the conversation taking place among the students so that the event is rewarding and fun for everyone involved. So in addition to visiting our Facebook page (shameless plugging, I know!), make sure to come out to Bridging the Gap: Part I THE SURVEY on November 17, 2010 and 7PM!!!!! See you there!!!!

Bridging the Gap

D.E.A.R. Vanderbilt -- October Journal

Dear Vanderbilt,

This month, we learned about yoga and meditation.  Not many of us had experience with these forms of relaxation so it was a learning experience for all of us.  I used to think that yoga was boring and served no purpose, but after attending classes at the rec, it is a better workout than I had imagined, and the stretching and deep breathing really does help manage one's stress. After yoga, we got together as a group and discussed the benefits of yoga, so we could have a better understanding of how yoga was helping our bodies and minds through increased flexibility, increased blood flow throughout the body, and harmonizing the mind and body.

After the yoga class, we decided to do yoga on our own, focusing on meditation while doing the various poses.  Our research told us that meditation during yoga would help us learn to focus our thoughts, and help us maintain focus while doing our work so we could be more efficient and productive while studying, thereby decreasing stress.  We didn't see any immediate effects after this, but of course, we weren't expecting to because this type of training takes time.  We'll keep trying and see if we can achieve this state of heightened focus.  We did decide that we felt refreshed and relaxed after yoga, though, which was  exactly what we had hoped.

Overall, in our first month of studying stress relaxation methods, we had a very successful time and we got to bond over yoga and meditation.

Next time you feel stressed, try some yoga and/or meditation and see you how you feel afterward!
Hope you had a great October and have an awesome November!