Ilya Kolmanovsky an interactive lecture “Let’s Look at the Bad Things!” at EIS

How does our brain evaluate food? And why do we love junk food so much and choose it in preference to good food? Our friend Ilya Kolmanovsky answered these questions at Exupery International School in his interactive lecture, “Let’s Look at the Bad Things!”

Ilya’s lecture included some fascinating scientific experiments in which our students took an active part. One of these was particularly interesting and explained why we often choose sweets rather than fruit, even though we know fruit is better for us.

To explain this phenomenon and prove a point, a participant from Primary School took part in Ilya’s experiment. She was asked to evaluate 3 products: (a) grapes, to which she gave 7 points; (b) marshmallows, which she loved, awarding them 9 points; (c) grapes again, to which she only gave 5 points, saying they weren’t as tasty as the marshmallows and must have been a different kind of grape from the first ones. It turned out that they were in fact the same grapes! This showed clearly how eating sweets affects our taste preferences, and why we should take special care to choose our food wisely.

It’s great when these things can be explained through fun experiments that we will always remember. We thank everyone who came – and a special thank-you to Ilya Kolmanovsky and the Direct Speech lectorium!