The healthy eating experience

From Hippocrates to Kennedy, not forgetting Churchill and Edison, many of the most brilliant minds in history recognized that eating well is an essential building block for successful outcomes. 

The words of Winston Churchill, J. F. Kennedy and Thomas Edison remind us why eating well, along with all the associated personal, social and corporate benefits, brings an element of luxury into our lives. Winston Churchill, one of the greatest strategists in modern history, wrote in the twentieth century that it is well to remember that the stomach governs the world. John F. Kennedy once said that physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity. Thomas Edison predicted that in the future doctors would not treat the human body with medication, but would rather cure and prevent illness by means of nutrition. Such beliefs give food for thought when talking about the importance of knowing how to eat well, and share the same basis as an initiative focused on gastronomy, nutrition and wellbeing recently launched by IE.

The new project is designed to transmit gastronomic experiences and the benefits they bring on both a personal and professional level to all members of the IE community, including its students, more than 50,000 alumni and collaborating firms. The idea is to provide an integral knowledge of gastronomy that provides a differentiating factor and affords a healthful and creative experience, rounding off IE’s academic offerings with a range of activities while creating a new gastronomic collective.

Being able to increase your skills with workshops and practical exercises is always welcome, as is the idea of establishing a healthy lifestyle through, for example, neuro-nutrition and creative processes. In order to promote the initiative IE has recruited the help of international experts in the sector, including chefs Ferran Adrià and Mario Sandoval, cardiologist Valentín Fuster, and nutritionists of world renown, José María Ordovás and Gregorio Varela, as well as signing agreements with companies like Banco Popular and Telefónica in order to develop the project in multiple directions.

Such is the importance of taking care of body and mind!

The world of gastronomy is adopting an increasingly prominent role from a management and economy perspective. “We are talking about a sector that is strategic for international promotion of countries, and one in which Spain heads international rankings. Of the more than 60 million international tourists that visit Spain each year, some 7.6 million of whom are attracted by Spain’s gastronomic offerings. Hence the importance that IE attaches to conveying the importance of these gastronomic experiences and the role they play in Spanish society to its students and alumni, along with the tourist experience and creativity”, says Rafael Anson, IE professor and head of the project.

The need to introduce changes forms part of our day to day. It is just a question of wanting to do it – that and feeling good enough to do it. Food plays a fundamental role given that eating badly saps the energy we need for our personal and professional lives. Eating a range of healthy food and seeing the results it brings in terms of wellbeing is a luxury that keeps on giving, because we should not forget that in order to innovate we need joined up knowledge and plenty of experiences to draw on. We should all be rich in experiences.

Writing this makes me think about how my tastes and the way I eat have changed over the last few years thanks to the knowledge and enjoyment gained from such experiences. For example, learning about the nutritional benefits of eating products like ecological vegetables, which have between 18 % and 69 % more antioxidants, according to the British Journal of Nutrition of Cambridge University.

 

Hippocrates said: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”. We all have to make a commitment to food and health, because eating when you are hungry and knowing what you eat and the benefits it brings is the height of luxury.

Yolanda Regodón. Associate Director of Communications. IE Business School