The interesting facts of how strings of noodles covered in red tomato sauce and ground beef landed on your table will be one food topic revealed at the Fourth Annual Fall Ethics Symposium, Ethics in EverydayLife: The Ethics of Food on Monday from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. in the Hinde Auditorium, University Union.

Russel DiSilvestro, associate professor of ethics and 2009 symposium director, said the symposium will address a number of issues relating to food in our lives and the morality of the way food is produced.

The wide range of professionals will provide different perspectives of opinion and discipline, DiSilvestro said. There will be doctors, dietitians, environmental scientists, historians, lawyers, philosophers.

Participants in the event are invited to a reception to begin and end the event, including light refreshments from 8-8:30 a.m. and 4:30-6 p.m.

Rick Schubert, executive director of the 2009 symposium, recommends the Keynote Session titled Animals as Food.

Other issues besides how the food we are eating got to our table will be covered. Schubert said each topic has to do with the morality of the food we eat. Topics include social issues, genetically modifiedorganisms in food and their global impact and the health affects of the way food is produced.

“The event is concerned with the ethics of food from production to consumption,more than just whether or not you ought to eat meat,” he said.

Schubert said it is important for people to recognize that everyday decisions have a moral dimension including the decision about what we eat. The food we eat morally reflects the quality of our behavior, hesaid.

Schubert said he believes that ethics is not only a theoretic thing to reference in the classroom, but ethics should guide our everyday decisions, like where we eat or what we eat.

“The entire event is going to be pretty incredible,” Schubert said.

Vanessa Garibaldi can be reached at [email protected]