Coolhunt 2 Food Transparency

Lately there has been increasing commotion about the food we consume. This is because of the various food scandals which were published. And this will probably not be the last.

I will mention a few scandals here:

‘Chinese human hair is sometimes used as a bread improver’ (Volkskrant)
The article told that an important component of bread, called ‘bread improver’, in some cases is made of Chinese human hair.
Bread improver is an extra ingredient which bakers add to dough to enhance the tenderness of their bread.
This phenomenon does not occur in the Netherlands, luckily, but it makes people thinking about it.

Horsemeat Scandals
About a year ago the horse meat scandals reached the news. It became known that horse meat was sold as beef.
In an article on Foodnieuws.nl I read that the FNLI found it extremely disappointing that ”another company became known as still not living up to the basic requirements for integrity products and acting safely and whereby the administration to guarantee the quality is not in order ”.

Foodwatch started a campaign that is called: ‘Misleid!’ (misguide).
Foodwatch is the ‘waakhond’ of the Netherlands. They join forces with thousands of consumers for the right of fair, safe and healthy food. They show you where it goes wrong and point the government and industry at their responsibility to protect consumers (Foodwatch.nl)

Food Watch has revealed  a lot of misleading marketing tricks over the past few years. ‘Healthy’ products full of sugar, ‘authentic’ recipes with a long list of E-numbers, false health claims on ‘resistance- enhancing’ yogurt and so- called ‘natural’ products which do not turn out to be as natural as was claimed. Food manufacturers use the marketing tricks on a large scale to sell their – often unhealthy and processed – products ‘.

At https://www.foodwatch.nl/misleid/index_nl.html you can read what the situation is at the moment and the number of products which they have identified is shown.

There are many more scandals and signals out there, but I will discuss the products that have arisen in response of these messages:

A food scanner has been designed, which is called ‘TellSpec‘. The gadget analyzes your food and tells you exactly what is in it.
‘by holding the device close to the food and drink, he measures the molecular mass of individual components with infrared light, . Tellspec is not finished yet. The creators started a crowdfunding campagin on Indiegogo’ (bright.nl)

There also exist packages that are adapted.
‘Corella meat branding’ indicates the ‘Exact Cut of the Animal Inside’ So he’s telling the consumer exactly what sort of animal he is s about to eat and from where on that creature the cut has come’ (trendhunter.com).

The Slow Food Movement is organizing a wild course where you slaughter animals by yourself, prepare them and eat them.
The consensus at the farm is that it is good to think about how our food is produced.
According to Arie van den Brand we are completely alienated from our food. ‘I actually think that all the kids in high school have to slaughter a chicken and prepare it. Just to make them aware of what they eat and if you still want to eat meat, it is your own choice’ (volkskrant.nl).

SLA LAB is part of the Salad Bar SLA which is located in Amsterdam.
‘Under SLA LAB eat, share and live will come together. The LAB is not just the kitchen where we translate our inspiration into new recipes (eat), but also the open house where you will learn how to cook SLA- typical and listens to ‘do-ers’, dreamers and thinkers from the world of good food (share)’ (sla-lab). From January 2014 they started organizing workshops. Every month they invite experts that they find inspiring and who can tell you a little more about the wonderful world of food.

During a guest lecture at school we got to hear something about restaurant BIO MIO.
‘In the former red light district of Copenhagen, Bio Mio serves an Asian- tinged menu which is 100% organic and which consists for 70 % of vegetables’ (foodinspiration.nl).
They don’t use fancy scenes, but fair, real food is central to this anti -glamour concept.
The remarkable thing is that visitors can look through a wall of glass into the freezer.
That is Total Transparency!!

Why is it cool?
Because of the overload of food scandals people do not longer know what is healthy and what is not.
Through various routes there will be searched for solutions to solve the problem.

Why has it future growth potential?
Transparency is not only a trend in the Food sector, it is everywhere. Therefore it will be a long during trend. People no longer accept that companies and the government are holding back things for them. By the various confusions that have been established, people want clarity first. The first companies started with it, but it still will take a while before everything is clear to everyone.

GLOW Eindhoven

Hello everyone!

I had to go to an experience for school. I chose GLOW Eindhoven because I have tried to go for two years and it never actually came out. A lot of people around me told me every year how nice it was so I got really curious.

So on Friday evening, I finally went to Eindhoven GLOW!

The experience
In this concept they put the center of Eindhoven in the sign of light-art for 8 days. The city center is transformed into a huge (temporary) museum.
Artists and designers from the Netherlands and abroad are showing their light art- and design applications, which have been realized by the use of new media technologies like computers, sensors, animation, but also more known projection techniques.

The entire route could be found over the internet or by using an information booklet. The route was also visible thanks to the street lamps which were colored red and there where traffic regulators who helped the great amount of people to cross the road.
There was a light show to see at the Philips Stadium, and a guard escorted me to the elevator because I was walking with a crutch. I thought the staff was very friendly!

Eindhoven is known as the City of Light, which originates in the launch of the Philips bulb factories in this city. Later, this resulted in many modern applications.

This year the theme of the festival is ‘Urban Playground’, in other words, a large playground for light-artists. Various light-artists showed in a unique way that by playing with light the reality can be experienced in a totally different way.

Psychosocial context
As you can read, I heard about GLOW regularly and had, therefore, already kind of a prior knowledge about it. I went with my mother and sister and thought it was important to have a nice evening and to discover what sorts of of different lighting techniques the artists used.

My expectations were pretty high. I heard about the Philips stadium already, that they putted cd’s on the seats which would gave a very nice effect. I was thereby focused to see these effects, they were a little bit disappointing but otherwise the light show was spectacular!
There were also involved several primary schools from Eindhoven.
As a visitor of the festival for example you could paint a specific surface of LEDS with water at the piece ‘Water light Graffiti’. When the LED lights get in touch with water, they will light out of nowhere.

With some work I had the idea that I could look at it for hours.

Experience
For me this was definitely a memorable experience. I learned a lot about light art and thought it was a well organized festival with very impressive work. It was very interesting to see how much you can do with light!
I will not forget this and I hope that I can go again the next few years!!

E.E Phase
Glow can be divided in  Phase 4. Virtuality and involvement.
They use a lot of new technologies.

If you want more information about GLOW, go to these links:
http://www.gloweindhoven.nl/website/glow/glow.php?action=home

GLOW Eindhoven

I hope you enjoyed reading this post and see below for the pictures!!

Citytrip to Gent

Hi!

I’m sorry that I haven’t post anything new on my blog lately.

On my last birthday, which was January the 3th, my oldest sister gave me an overnight stay in a city of my choice. Eventually, we found a location and date, and headed over to Gent for the weekend!

We slept in a very nice hostel (hostel47), and it looked all fairly new. If you ever are planning to go to Gent, I could definitely recommend this to you.

In the two days we were there, we walked around a lot in the city, saw great things, went shopping, saw ‘The lamb of God‘ (which is the most well-known work of the painter brothers Hubert & Jan van Eyck). We went to the Design Museum too, but that was a little bit disappointing, because we thought we’d see a lot of new design. Apparently not..

We also ate a real belgian waffle, had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and in the evening, we went for a drink at a pub called ‘mosquito bar‘.

In short, we had a really nice weekend!

Some pictures we took:

        funny key rack!

Hostel47

GENT

stopover at Antwerp Central

An hour with John Legend!

About two weeks ago, I saw on the internet that John Legend was coming to our school. So first we thought it was a joke. But it wasn’t … IT WAS REAL

400 of the 2200 students of the Fontys Academy of Creative Industries had the opportunity to see John.
He came to Tilburg to give an interactive seminar.
It wasn’t easy to get a ticket, but I got to be one of the 400 people!

Last friday was the day!
Everyone was very excited that such a big artist came to our school. Normally he sings for more than just 400 people.
Upon entering, Legend went straight to the piano, and he got a big applause from all the attenders.
The first song he played was Made to Love. It was really amazing!
Then he played ‘Tonight’ and ‘Save Room’ and everyone was impressed by his singing and piano playing.

Earlier this week there was the ability to ask him a few questions on twitter with # Ask Legend.
Sony choose 10 students who could ask a question after he played the three songs.
He took the time to answer the questions. Thereby he exposed himself as a concerned person and as a world famous musician who stayed true to who he is.

That the success hasn’t risen to his head, is thanks to his late breakthrough, says John.
‘I was 25 years old, I knew who I was’.

He also gave us some advice: ‘Be good at what you do, not just good, but really good. So keep practicing day after day. It takes time, but you need to keep working on it. ‘Be patient, but don’t accept no’.

As encore he played his single ‘All of Me’, a song he wrote for model Chrissy Teigen, who he recently married with.

Thanks John Legend, Sony and Fontys for this opportunity!!

Amazing Video!

Concept for medical trainings weights

What is it and why is it cool?
Weights are a good way to train your body, but they occupy quite some space. In addition, they are always heavy.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have light weights which you can aggravate temporarily.
This is the idea behind the concept for these magnetic training weights, the 02 Magnetic Dumbell.

Users can increase and lower resistance by simply adjusting a small dial. By switching the polarity of the magnets embedded within the units, users can toggle between concentric and eccentric muscle movements, allowing them to access a wide range of exercises.

The display indicates 8 circled bars which each represent an additional weight of 3kg. Thus the user can conveniently choose the right training weight ranging from 3kg to 24kg at a glance. Last but not least the user can follow the repetitions of each training set as they are indicated on the display in the middle of the device. This enables the user to get a comprehensive overview of the current training status.

Why it has future growth potential?
The reason for this concept is that people have less time to move. People want to be able to do this when they are on their way.
With the old training weight this is not possible because they are too heavy and too big to carry with them.

You can take the magnetic dumbell with you when you are traveling.  You can do the exercises in the train for example and also when you are reading a text.

Reference : http://www.want.nl/o2-concept-voor-magnetische-trainigsgewichten/

I love Bali!

Hi!

In April and May I went to Bali to volunteer. I lived for 7 weeks in Penestanan, a little village near Ubud. Ubud is a city with a lot of art surrounded by rice fields and nice people!
I teached English in the 3th grade. The kids would only have English for two weeks so we had to learn them a lot of new words in English. We teached them with pictures, games and songs.
The last day, when we had to say goodbye, the girls had been crying. I really miss them!

I met great people from all over the world and lived between the Balinese people. They learned me a lot about Bali and their culture.

We went to loads of great places on the Island in the weekends.

I saw beautiful beaches, clear water and I went snorkeling. During the snorkeling I saw a Manta Ray. The man on the boat told us that they didn’t see the Manta for a few months so we were very lucky. 3 pictures from this collage were made on the Gili Islands (three small islands next to Lombok), and one at Lombok. 

I saw beautiful sunsets
I made the left picture in Lovina, a place at the North of Bali. The right one were made at Gili Trawagan. 

I drank the most expensive coffee (Kopi Loewak), went into the holy water..

I also hiked a vulkano and went rafting.
I hiked at the mount Batur, that’s the second highest vulkano in Bali. 

I spotted dolphins!!
The three little black spots at the picture in the middle are three fishermen.

I’ve been showed a lot of beautiful temples!!

And went to the Island next to Bali, Lombok.
For 4 days I traveled alone at Lombok, the nature on this Island is beautiful but I still prefer the culture of Bali. 

I had a really fantastic time overthere and learned a lot.
It was the first time that I went on my own outside Holland and to Bali.

I would really recommend it to volunteer abroad!

I hope you enjoyed this post!

My first post on my first blog!

Hi!

My name is Eline Smits,
I’m a 19 years old student International Lifestyle Studies. I live in Breda, a city in the Netherlands.

International Lifestyle Studies, also called as ILS will focus on trend watching and concepting. We work with 6 sectors: Appearance, Living, Health, Human Movement, Food and Leisure.
I have to write my blog for school but I also will write about things I like & see.
First I thought that it is a little bit scary to write a blog in English but I will try!

Thank you for reading this post and I hope you will read my blog again!