Laax. A beautiful mountain resort situated in the Swiss Canton of Graubünden. Best known as a freeride snowboarder's paradise, the village was host in September 2021 to the first ever gathering of the [y]our 2040 community, a coalition of the willing focused on "the world we want to co-create." Supported by ETH Zurich, the event included participants from diverse backgrounds, all connected by a common goal and shared values. Taking the opportunity of being onsite to talk to some of them, we want to make the link with our RETHINKING LIVING campaign, a virtual red-thread we have been running since the start of the pandemic.
From Laax to Davos: Reflections on RETHINKING LIVING, Ep. 9
Episode 9: TASTELAB, ETH Zurich Food Science Spin-offby Viktoria Ivarsson
Davos Beckons
RETHINKING LIVING invites us to consider the grand challenges and global issues of today through the lens of the latest science and knowledge. What is life? How do we live? What are the consequences of our lifestyle choices? We asked participants in Laax to tell us what are the questions that keep them up at night, and how they see the future evolving. This video series distills their reflections, to help us think about what could, and what should come next. ETH Zurich will take up these questions in its RETHINKING LIVING Pavilion, a space designed to promote dialogue and exchange with a broad audience during the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting 2022 in Davos. The programme of the ETH Pavilion, which will run from 23-25 May, is online.
The Great Food Challenge
Photo credit: Viktoria Ivarsson
Our final episode takes us right up to the start of the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos. For its food offering in the ETH Pavilion next week, ETH Zurich is proud to partner once more with TASTELAB, an ETH spin-off in the catering industry with a special message when it comes to the food choices we make. In this clip, the founders Remo Gisi and Sue Tobler, explain what they want the legacy of TASTELAB to be, and that great food doesn't need to be formal, but can be very much fun!
For additional resources and further information, visit:
https://your2040.com
https://ethz.ch/en/the-eth-zurich/global/events/rethinking-living.htm
https://www.tastelab.ch
For additional resources and further information, visit:
https://your2040.com
https://ethz.ch/en/the-eth-zurich/global/events/rethinking-living.htm
https://www.tastelab.ch
Sue:
I'm Sue Tobler, the Founder of TASTELAB, a spin-off of ETH Zurich, and we do everything about the future of food, and we’re here because it’s an event that people want to eat but also want some food for thought as a side.
Remo:
And I’m Remo Gisi, I’m Sue’s partner in crime. I studied Computer Science, and I met her when she studied Physics, and that's how we initially came to this whole science and food combination.
Sue:
In food terms, I think that there needs to be a big shift to more plant-based food. Not black and white, there's a mix; but I think the way it's structured right now is not the right priorities in the right amounts. And here we tried to really go to one extreme side, which is only plant-based because, if you like, we already know how to cook meat and animal products. So let's show what we can do with the remaining part that needs to take up a much bigger, bigger fraction. And we always try to do this in a very non-negative way, not saying don't eat this, or don't eat that, but tell, tell and show, and taste on the plate like, look, these are the amazing products and dishes you can eat.
Remo:
I think culture is the thing that makes people choose what they eat. And and we are also trying to create a bit of culture in a very sustainable way, so that we can slowly shift towards a more sustainable food future.
Sue:
I think especially here, we can see that in Central Europe, meat, but especially also dairy products are very, very predominant. So if you think about traditional Alpine cuisine, you can almost not get around cheese and cream and meat. So it's nice to combine food concepts of all the cultures of other areas because many of them are much more plant based because also normally people have less money. It's more plant based naturally. And to take these influences, take inspiration basically from the whole world and combine it, but then make it our own.
Remo:
I think the biggest challenge right now is probably shifting away from red meat, especially when it comes to food. The topic is very emotional. People hear a lot of things. They hear you should buy organic food, they hear you should eat more, more vegetables, less meat; they hear. You shouldn't buy avocados or you shouldn't shouldn't buy almond milk, this and that. And to bring order into this, this overwhelming chaos of information, you need a scientific approach. And that's exactly what we do when we when we design our content that we serve. We have the food. We look at the numbers that somebody actually researched. And when we look, how does this compare? And we find that red meat is orders of magnitude worse than almonds or avocados. And we focus on the points that matter most. And we can therefore also put aside some other points which are not that important at the moment.
Sue:
Exactly. The issue that is with the media, they like the big flashy stories. Just recently, the story about the WWF publication, about almond milk it was just it's nice to have very flashy headlines and to make everybody confused again from the beginning. I say, well, I thought now… Exactly. And the worst thing there could be is that people think, well, actually we're doomed anyway, nothing really matters… and it does matter. And here I think people really like that. We bring the scientific and academic approach and say again, it's super complex; it will stay like that. It's multidimensional; it will also stay like that. But if we compare in this dimension, then it ranks like this. If we compare this dimension it ranks like this, and then we can find the pattern that works.
But just another aspect, about ETH, which I think is really important for the change which is about to happen from my experience, studying at ETH and meeting the people there, the attitude is, we can do everything. There's an issue: let's solve it. It's never, there's something in front of me and I'm just standing and I don't want to move forward.
It's very much a getting things done attitude and that's what I like and that's why I surround myself with people I met from, from ETH. And I never felt so much at home in my life like I did at ETH.
I'm Sue Tobler, the Founder of TASTELAB, a spin-off of ETH Zurich, and we do everything about the future of food, and we’re here because it’s an event that people want to eat but also want some food for thought as a side.
Remo:
And I’m Remo Gisi, I’m Sue’s partner in crime. I studied Computer Science, and I met her when she studied Physics, and that's how we initially came to this whole science and food combination.
Sue:
In food terms, I think that there needs to be a big shift to more plant-based food. Not black and white, there's a mix; but I think the way it's structured right now is not the right priorities in the right amounts. And here we tried to really go to one extreme side, which is only plant-based because, if you like, we already know how to cook meat and animal products. So let's show what we can do with the remaining part that needs to take up a much bigger, bigger fraction. And we always try to do this in a very non-negative way, not saying don't eat this, or don't eat that, but tell, tell and show, and taste on the plate like, look, these are the amazing products and dishes you can eat.
Remo:
I think culture is the thing that makes people choose what they eat. And and we are also trying to create a bit of culture in a very sustainable way, so that we can slowly shift towards a more sustainable food future.
Sue:
I think especially here, we can see that in Central Europe, meat, but especially also dairy products are very, very predominant. So if you think about traditional Alpine cuisine, you can almost not get around cheese and cream and meat. So it's nice to combine food concepts of all the cultures of other areas because many of them are much more plant based because also normally people have less money. It's more plant based naturally. And to take these influences, take inspiration basically from the whole world and combine it, but then make it our own.
Remo:
I think the biggest challenge right now is probably shifting away from red meat, especially when it comes to food. The topic is very emotional. People hear a lot of things. They hear you should buy organic food, they hear you should eat more, more vegetables, less meat; they hear. You shouldn't buy avocados or you shouldn't shouldn't buy almond milk, this and that. And to bring order into this, this overwhelming chaos of information, you need a scientific approach. And that's exactly what we do when we when we design our content that we serve. We have the food. We look at the numbers that somebody actually researched. And when we look, how does this compare? And we find that red meat is orders of magnitude worse than almonds or avocados. And we focus on the points that matter most. And we can therefore also put aside some other points which are not that important at the moment.
Sue:
Exactly. The issue that is with the media, they like the big flashy stories. Just recently, the story about the WWF publication, about almond milk it was just it's nice to have very flashy headlines and to make everybody confused again from the beginning. I say, well, I thought now… Exactly. And the worst thing there could be is that people think, well, actually we're doomed anyway, nothing really matters… and it does matter. And here I think people really like that. We bring the scientific and academic approach and say again, it's super complex; it will stay like that. It's multidimensional; it will also stay like that. But if we compare in this dimension, then it ranks like this. If we compare this dimension it ranks like this, and then we can find the pattern that works.
But just another aspect, about ETH, which I think is really important for the change which is about to happen from my experience, studying at ETH and meeting the people there, the attitude is, we can do everything. There's an issue: let's solve it. It's never, there's something in front of me and I'm just standing and I don't want to move forward.
It's very much a getting things done attitude and that's what I like and that's why I surround myself with people I met from, from ETH. And I never felt so much at home in my life like I did at ETH.
Photo credit: Viktoria Ivarsson
About the author
Change Agent. Go-to Person. Viktoria Ivarsson is the International Relations Officer in the Office of the President of ETH Zurich, where she works on projects and events of international scope to increase the visibility of the university worldwide. She also manages the ETH Circle, an international network of alumni and friends of ETH Zurich who act as ambassadors. Formerly with EHL School of Hospitality, Hirslanden, and the World Economic Forum, Viktoria holds an MAS in Sports Administration and Technology from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), and an MA in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (HEI). A Swiss and Swedish national, she is fluent in 4 languages, and is currently learning German. A member of Nordiska, the Nordic Rowing Association, she can be found most mornings rowing on Lake Zurich. You can follow her on Twitter at V_Ivarsson.
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