CI Project Proposal

We would like to tackle the problem of maintaining a healthy, sustainable, affordable, and satisfying diet. As each of us is in or nearing middle-age, we recognize that our old eating habits are no longer good enough. But like most Americans, we find ourselves greatly challenged in doing something about it.

To varying degrees, we succumb to eating what is available and convenient rather than what is right. Breakfast, if we have time for it at all, is whatever we can grab running out the door, and is usually something bland and packaged (not to mention laden with fats, sugars, chemicals, and other stuff we need to cut out). Lunch might be spaced out among coffee breaks -- with each course costing $1.25 at a vending machine. Dinner is whatever we feel like microwaving, or perhaps a short sequence of 'stuff we know the kids will eat'. And whenever we are tired, it's fast food takeout -- and rarely from the healthier parts of the menu.

And we know better. Each time we see a doctor, we are reminded that we know better and can do better. We might even have watched Food Network competitions (where contestants turn the most mundane foodstuffs into culinary delights) while saying to ourselves, "I could do that," all the while munching on our Swanson salisbury steak dinner (i.e., mystery meat, gelatinous macaroni and cheese, rubber carrots, and apple crisp that contains more goop than apples). Then, as one of our cohort mates comes to us from afar bringing sweet potato dumplings and cashew cookies, we revel in the difference, ... but ultimately do little to change our habits -- after all, what are our options during cohort weekends. Actually plenty more than we realize, but in between classes its hard to avoid defaulting to pizza or the nearby Chick-fil-A. So on top of stress over assignments, presentations, and readings, we add guilt.

According to Dr. Marquardt, language and religion are the primary drivers of culture, but to use Schein's terminology, food is its most obvious artifact. We spend most of our time and our money dealing with food, but our experience with it is dissatisfying, and ultimately neither healthy nor sustainable.

So, to re-cast this beyond a simple logistics problem, we want to look at the broader picture of our diets and diet options, including cohort weekends. What can we try to improve the quality of what we eat and the satisfaction we gain from it? How can we address and overcome the barriers to change such as time and inconvenience? How do we get our kids to eat better with us? How do we spice up our foods, and thereby spice up our lives?