On-Demand Presentations

Can We Feed the Planet Without Destroying It?

Jackie Maahs, sustainability coordinator, Concordia College

This session explores the struggle of feeding the world and caring for the environment. During the Green Revolution, using GMOs became common practice globally. Countries struggling to feed growing populations were introduced to farming practices that altered the environment but allowed for populations to receive desperately needed food. We’ll learn about the man behind the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, who received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his agricultural efforts that saved millions of lives. The genetically modified varieties of seed he developed led to issues with reduced soil nutrients, crop pests, and soil erosion. The resulting agricultural practices require us to explore how we balance the resulting ethical dilemma of needing more food but harming the environment to grow it.

Consider the Gumbo

Kevin Baggett, librarian, Concordia College

Jay Kirkland ’22

Perhaps no other region’s identity is as strongly tied to food as southern Louisiana’s and the state’s official signature dish – gumbo. Gumbo is emblematic of the way cuisine has developed in the state over the last three hundred years as it combines African, German, French, Spanish, and Native American culinary practices and ingredients to create a locally sourced and globally inspired dish. During a mock cooking demonstration, native Louisianans Kevin Baggett and Jay Kirkland will trace the historical and cultural beginnings of gumbo.

Delicious, Delightful, Disgusting – Carolyn Korsmeyer on “Terrible Eating”

Dr. George Connell, professor of philosophy, Concordia College

Human food preferences are surprisingly paradoxical. A simple view of food preferences is that we seek appealing, pleasant, good tasting foods and avoid foods that have the opposite characteristics. Carolyn Korsmeyer, a philosopher specializing in issues of aesthetics, food, taste, and smell, notes that most world cuisines prize foods that are, at least initially, quite off-putting, even disgusting. She explores and tries to make sense of "terrible eating," the cultivation of taste preferences for difficult, challenging, and initially unpleasant foods. In the process, she shows that human food preferences are more complex, multifaceted, and surprising than we initially take them to be.  

Foods from God: Biblical foods and the Holy Eucharist

Dr. Mark Krejci, professor of psychology, Concordia College

Theresa Borchert, electronic resources librarian, Concordia College

Rick Melbye ’84, Pharm.D., R.Ph.

God has always provided us with food to eat for bodily nourishment, foods that fuel our physical bodies: fruits, vegetables, grains, oils, meat, and water. God has also given us the Holy Eucharist to sustain our body and soul for eternal life. Jesus tells us‚ "For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink‚" John 6:55. During this concurrent session, we will talk about the foods God has given us and how they compare and contrast with our diets today. We will be sharing, from a Catholic perspective, what we believe, practice, and experience with food as our, "daily bread‚" at our family tables, and with the Holy Eucharist at Mass and in Adoration.