Due to illness a colleague couldn’t attend a business training and passed the invite to me. I hurriedly packed my bag, and drove to the hotel where the event (“competitive research”) was to take place. A menacing venue, a skyscraper with (no doubt) all amenities and an undersized pool in the cellar. I stormed into the building. Many participants were already onsite, almost exclusively men in black business suits with vests. Very friendly men, who ignored my jeans, shirt and the absent tie, instead involving me in their conversations. Yes, they were also attending the M.E. event, yes it was going to be an exciting day. I lined up in the long queue to get my training material, all the while feeling more and more out of place. Finally, the friendly ladies at the reception illuminated me; this queue was for the M.E. event “IT for Banking”. I was booked for the M.E. event in the next building, reachable by the connecting bridge. I sighed with relief and waved farewell to my new friends. I hurried over the bridge and found the correct meeting room, where a dozen participants and the single presenter (all dressed in a similar fashion as I) were just getting ready to start. One participant (a representative from pharma) was still missing, explained the presenter, but he had been in contact with him, and suggested to kick off anyway. We did a round of introductions and expectation setting, the usual stuff. The presenter started off on a lengthy and very dry presentation, which didn’t bode well for the day. I longed for a coffee (which I had missed due to the hullabaloo). Twenty minutes in, and a man threw open the door. He stared at us, and we stared back. Sweaty and red-faced, he clutched his briefcase to his chest and made for the single free chair. He sat down, got out a notepad and picked up one of the pens on the table. Curious behavior, as there was a pen visible in the pocket of the vest that he wore beneath his black suit. I, and some of the other participants looked at the presenter with question marks in our eyes. But the presenter, undeterred, just kept on rambling on. In fact, he increased volume and speed. The new participant started to fidget about. He looked at the presenter, then at us. He played with his necktie. He picked up a brochure from the table and flipped through it, his face getting redder and redder. The tension in the room rose to an unbearable, mortifying level, the presenter talking faster and faster, the banker realizing from the narrative that this was the wrong meeting altogether, that this was not “IT for Banking”. After several excruciating minutes, I bent forward and whispered: “The IT meeting is in the other building.” The man jumped up, mumbled an apology, and ran from the room, the door banging shut behind him. Ten minutes on, the participant next to me said: “He forgot his briefcase.” The presenter ignored the statement and moved to the next chapter.

Read more of my work here: www.clemenssuter.com/books

A typical hotel lobby where your next international business training may take place

On the photo: an avocado, and here comes the reason why I will never eat avocados again. Don’t read on if you want to continue enjoying avocados. Love avocados? Then stop here.

Two weeks ago I was at a party, or more accurately, a “social event” to celebrate something or the other, and in the line at the buffet I started chatting with the girl in front of me. Or woman? She seemed to be one of the younger guests, and with a slightly unkempt hairdo and poor complexion, she could have been post- or delayed puberty – or simply ageless. I soon found out she was one of the organizers of the event. She also stated she had prepared some of the dishes. Without too much enthusiasm; apparently cooking was notably less enjoyable than climbing the Mount Everest.

“Oh look,” I said, “Avocado dip! Delicious! I’ve heard avocado is extremely healthy. Full of useful nutrients, nutrients, nutrients. Vitamins D and K, ethereal oils, unsaturated fats and you can even eat the nut.” The kind of bullshit you chat about at buffets. I smeared a copious amount of avocado on a cracker and inserted it into my mouth. With my mouth full I managed to say “I even heard you can use avocado as a facial mask; extremely healthy for your skin.”
The girl looked at me blankly and said: “Yes I know. Where do you think this guacamole was last night?”

Read more of my work here.

Everyone has to eat. No other industry has the potential to so directly impact the well-being of the global population than the food industry. Innovative technologies are already affecting us all: from the rise of wearable fitness devices and DNA-based nutritional profiling, to nutraceuticals and the use of nanotechnology to increase nutrient concentrations in food. Good health is good for us as individuals, and our nutrition also affects business.

The challenge

How does food affect our health? First of all, all over the globe, food is stigmatized as not being that good for us at all: obesity is a global epidemic. In 2008, more than 1.4 billion adults were overweight, and this situation is worsening. Currently, obesity is the fifth leading risk for global deaths: 44% of diabetes burden, 23% of the heart disease burden and 7% to 41% of certain cancer burdens are attributable to obesity. At the same time, we sense that food and nutrition have profound positive effects on our health: just think of the “promotion” of fresh vegetables by our parents at family meals; or special low-fat or low-carb foods available in any supermarket.

Obesity has a dramatic effect on healthcare costs (e.g. 200B$ per year in the USA), and governments are taking this issue very seriously. Individuals are following suit: people are taking charge of their health experience. They expect not only medical care, but any kind of health-related product to be tailored to their specific needs, so that they can live full and healthy lives.

Changing attitudes in nutrition

People are becoming more conscious of what they eat. The number of vegans in Britain rose by 360% in 10 years to half a million individuals – the perceived health benefits driving the trend. Tofu schnitzel, tofu bratwurst, tofu kebab: with 10% of its population going meatless, Germany has the highest rate of vegetarianism compared to its European neighbors. In addition, consumers are reaching out for biofoods, to ensure that fewer chemicals and pesticides land on their plates – and in their stomachs. The European organic market grew by 7.6% to more than 26 billion euros in 2014. U.S. organic sales reached $43.3 billion in 2015 – outstripping the overall food market’s growth rate of a miserly 3% – by growing a whopping 11%. Healthy food is no longer a fad, it is a business.

Far reaching effects

The effects of obesity have been investigated extensively, and the direct causal relationship to e.g. diabetes type II or the increased risk of stroke through heightened blood pressure are well described. However, in many other instances, the effects of food on health are enigmatic. The immune system may well be at the core, as this highly complex, yet very effective apparatus has the capability to protect our body from many attacks. The immune system can detect and destroy abnormal cells and thus prevent many cancers. There is also a direct link between neurological disease and the immune system. Overall, the immune system is influenced by many different nutrition factors – to name but a few: zinc, selenium, vitamins A, C, E and B6 and folic acid; and thus by our diet: e.g. processed food has been described as threatening to our immune system.

The Microbiome

Most interestingly, the gut is the primary site of interaction between the immune system and microorganisms. Just imagine: humans carry ten-fold more bacterial cells than human ones. The microbes that live in our gut (tens of thousands of different species) can easily fill a half-gallon jug. Together they make up the human micobiome, with a tremendous potential to impact our physiology, in health and in disease. These microbes contribute to metabolic functions, protect us against pathogens, educate our immune system, and affect directly or indirectly most of our physiologic functions. The microbiome has therefore been implicated in diseases such as asthma, autism, multiple sclerosis, depression and anxiety, ulcers, and (suprise, surprise) obesity. Needless to say, the microbiome flourishes or suffers by our diet, and thus our food intake has, through the health of our microbiome, an additional effect on our health.

Nutrigenomics and more

What if we could improve our health by eating some foods and avoiding others, based on who we are as individuals, all the way down to our DNA? In comes genomics; or better: nutrigenomics. Adapting dietary advice for particular subsets of people is still very much a work in progress. Classic example: people with phenylketonuria lack an enzyme that breaks down phenylalanine. By limiting phenylalanine in the diet, those with the mutation can avoid intellectual disability and other problems. For that reason, phenylketonuria is screened for at birth. Lactose and gluten intolerance are also genetically hard-coded, although in the latter case the underlying mechanisms are harder to interpret. As the cost of sequencing a human genome continues to drop, it is highly likely that in the nearby future all of us will have our fully annotated genome sequence in the cloud, accessible through a smartphone app. Why not sequence our microbiome on a daily basis – as we flush the toilet? Combine the information from the two in that same app, and receive real-time notifications on what you should eat that day; always up-to-date with the latest insights?

How companies react

Crystal ball aside: many consumer goods companies are investing in the area of nutraceuticals, example focusing e.g. on Alzheimer’s. Again, and perhaps not surprisingly, gastrointestinal health is one of their focus areas too. Brewers are not only turning to genome sequencing to identify how to create certain flavors through knowledge of the yeast genome. A London brewery has launched a service to create a beer personalized to your DNA-based taste preferences. A range of new applications is envisioned in the area of nanoparticles in nutrition: e.g. to improve the bioavailability of bioactive food components. Taken together, as technological progress continues to take quantum leaps and as more scientific facts become available about the interplay between nutrition and health, consumer interest in food quality and beneficial foods will continue to increase.

The Fat Years Are Over – Time to Start Thinking About Healthy Nutrition?

(This article is adapted from the original blogpost on LinkedIn; the latter contains all the references).

Also look at my novels : www.clemenssuter.com/books

It was ice-cold and foggy in Milan, Lombardy. Few tourists about, and like us, they all huddled in winter coats and gloves and shawls. Winter was saying farewell with a vengeance and we had to spent a lot of time in espresso bars and restaurants to warm up – which turned out to be very pleasant actually !

Sample from Two Journeys.

“There are journeys that you choose to make and others that you embark on because you have to. It’s all a matter of perspective, I guess.
The company that I worked for always made us fly out to customers on Saturdays. The airplane tickets were cheaper if there was a Sunday between flight out and flight back.
My wife hated that.
“We lose the weekends, and nobody is paying you those back.”
Naturally, she was right.
Nevertheless, on Saturday, April 24, I took a taxi to the airport from our house in Lichterfelde, Berlin. I was supposed to fly to Frankfurt first and    from there on to Tokyo.
My company sold software to large pharmaceutical corporations all over the world. The Japanese liked our products, and because of that, I traveled to Tokyo or Osaka at least once every quarter. This time, I was supposed to meet my colleagues Chris and Frank in Tokyo on Monday morning. Together we would then drive to the first customer of the week to do our sales pitch in front of sleeping Japanese scientists.
It was an uneventful business class flight. I knew the faces of some of the Lufthansa flight attendants, but […]”