TED talks: Food Matters

If you haven't gotten hooked on watching *TED Talks yet, now is your chance! The TED website has a plethora of talks discussing a multitude of topics, but I want to highlight one theme in particular, their Food Matters sections. One of my favorite TED talks is Jamie Oliver's from 2010. With a bit of humor and a good amount of frankness, Jamie Oliver gives us some real talk and a reality check when it comes to the state of nutrition today in our modern society. 

“I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.” JAMIE OLIVER

Do you agree with Jamie Oliver that the government (both the U.S. and England) is guilty of child abuse via unhealthy school lunches? Did you know that corporations like Coca-Cola for example sign contracts with schools in which the school must sell a quota of Coca-Cola products to its students (to make quotas they place vending machines in high traffic areas)? Is this a concern or just great business strategy?

Carolyn Steel: How food shapes our cities, is another good video that speaks to our class in that food and the evolution of the city are tightly connected, as much 1000 years ago as it is today.

 

"...as more of us move into cities, more of us are eating meat. So, that a third of the annual grain crop globally now gets fed to animals, rather than to us human animals. And given that it takes three times as much grain--actually ten times as much grain--to feed a human if it's passed through an animal first that's not a very efficient way of feeding us...Meat and urbanism are rising hand-and-hand and that's a big problem." CAROLYN STEEL - FOOD URBANIST

Do you know about some of the ways people respond to the meat and urbanism relationship? (Urban farming, vegetarianism, grass-fed meat only diets, etc.)

*TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.