Obesity Hunger 1 global food issue Ellen Gustafson

I’m Ellen and I am totally obsessed with

food but I need to start out obsessed

with food I started out obsessed with

global security policy because I’ve

lived in New York during 9/11 and it was

obviously a very relevant thing and I

got from global security policy to food

because I realized when I’m hungry I’m

really pissed off and I’m assuming that

the rest of the world is - especially if

you’re hungry and your kids are hungry

and your neighbors kids are hungry and

your whole neighborhood is hungry you’re

pretty angry and actually low and behold

it looks pretty much like the areas of

the world that are hungry are also the

areas of the world that are pretty

insecure so I took a job at the United

Nations World Food Program as a way to

try to address these security issues

through food security issues and while I

was there I came across what I think is

the most brilliant of their programs

it’s called school feeding it’s a really

simple idea to sort of get in the middle

of the cycle of poverty and hunger that

continues for a lot of people around the

world and stop it by giving kids a free

school meal it gets them into school

which is obviously education the first

step out of poverty but it also gives

them the micronutrients and the

macronutrients they need to really

develop both mentally and physically

what was working at the UN I met this

girl her name is Lauren Bush and she had

this really awesome idea to sell the bag

called the feed bag which is really

beautifully ironic because you can strap

on the feed bag but if it each bag we’d

sell would provide a year’s worth of

school meals for one kid it’s so simple

and we thought you know okay it cost

between 20 and 50 bucks to provide

school feeding for a year we could sell

these bags and raise a ton of money and

a ton of awareness for the World Food

Program but of course you know at the UN

sometimes things move slowly and they

basically said no and we god this

is such a good idea and it’s gonna raise

so much money so we said screw it we’ll

just start our own company which we did

three years ago so that was kind of my

first dream was to start this company

called feed and and here’s a screenshot

of our website we did this bag and for

Haiti and we launched it just a month

after the earthquake to provide school

meals for kids in Haiti Sophie’s doing

great we’ve so far provided fifty five

million meals to kids around the world

by selling a five hundred fifty thousand

bags ton of bags lotta bags all this

time you’re really when you think about

hunger it’s a hard thing to think about

because what we think about is eating I

think about eating a lot and I really

love it and it’s a little strange about

international hunger and talking about

international issues is that most people

kind of want to know what are you doing

in America what are you doing for

America’s kids

there’s definitely

in America 49 million people in almost

16.7 million children I mean that’s

pretty dramatic for our own country

hunger definitely means something a

little bit different in America than it

does internationally but it’s incredibly

important to address hunger in our own

country but obviously the bigger problem

that we all know about is obesity and

it’s dramatic the other thing that’s

dramatic is that both hunger and obesity

have really risen in the last thirty

years

unfortunately obesity is not only an

American problem it’s actually been

spreading all around the world and

mainly through our kind of food systems

that were exporting the numbers are

pretty crazy there’s a billion people

obese or overweight and a billion people

hungry so those seem like two bifurcated

problems but I kind of started to think

about you know what is obesity and

hunger what are both those things about

well they’re both about food and when

you think about food the underpinning of

food in both cases is potentially

problematic agriculture and you know

agriculture is where food comes from

well agriculture in America is very

interesting it’s very consolidated and

the foods that are produced lead to the

foods that we eat well the foods that

are produced are more or less corn soy

and weed and as you can see that’s

three-quarters of the food that we’re

eating for the most part processed foods

and fast foods unfortunately in our

agricultural system we haven’t done a

good job in the last three decades of

exporting that to those technologies

around the world

so African agriculture which is the

place of most hunger in the world has

actually fallen precipitously as hunger

has risen so somehow we’re not making

the connect between exporting a good

agricultural system that will help feed

people all around the world who is

farming him that’s what I was like

wondering and so I went and stood on a

big grain bin out in the Midwest and

that really didn’t help me understand

farming but I think it’s a really cool

picture and and you know the reality is

that between between farmers in America

who actually quite frankly when I spend

time in the Midwest are pretty large in

general and their farms are also large

but but farmers and the rest of the

world are actually quite skinny and

that’s because they’re starving most

hungry people in the world are

subsistence farmers and most of those

people are women which is a totally

other topic that I won’t get on right

now but I’d love to do the feminist

thing at some point I think it’s really

interesting to look at agriculture from

these two sides there’s this large

consolidated farming that’s led to what

we eat in America and its really been

since around 1980 after the oil crisis

when you know mass consolidation mass

exodus of small farmers in this country

and then in the same time period you

know we’ve kind of left Africa’s farmers

to do their own thing

unfortunately what is farm ends up as

what we eat in America a lot of what we

eat has led to obesity and has led to a

real change in sort of what our diet is

in the last 30 years it’s crazy

1/5 of kids under to drink soda hello

you don’t put soda in bottles but people

do because it’s so cheap and so our

whole food system in the last 30 years

has really shifted I mean I think you

know it’s not just in our own country

but really we’re exporting this system

around the world and when you look at

the data of least developed countries

especially in cities which are growing

really rapidly people are eating

American processed foods and in one

generation they’re going from hunger and

all of the detrimental health effects of

hunger to obesity and things like

diabetes and heart disease in one

generation

so the problematic food system is

affecting both hunger and obesity not to

beat a dead horse but this is a global

food system where there’s a billion

people hungry and a billion people obese

I think that’s the only way to look at

it and instead of taking these two

things as bifurcated problems that are

very separate it’s really important to

look at them as one system we get a lot

of our food from all around the world

and people from all around the world are

importing our food system so it’s

incredibly relevant to start a new way

of looking at it the thing is I’ve

learned in in the technology people that

are here which I’m totally not one of

them but apparently it really takes 30

years for a lot of technologies to

become really endemic to to us like the

mouse and and and the internet and

Windows you know there’s 30 year cycles

I think 2010 can be a really interesting

year because it is the end of a 30-year

cycle and it’s the birthday of the

global food system so that’s the first

birthday I want to talk about you know I

think if we really think that this is

something that’s happened in the last 30

years there’s hope in that it’s the 30th

anniversary of GMO crops of the big gulp

Chicken McNuggets high fructose corn

syrup the farm crisis in America and the

change in how we’ve addressed

agriculture internationally so there’s a

lot of reasons to take this 30 year time

period as as sort of the creation of

this new food system I’m not the only

one who’s obsessed with this whole

thirty year thing the icons like Michael

Pollan and Jamie Oliver in his TED Prize

wish both addressed this like last three

decades time period is incredibly rare

for food system change well I really

care about 1980 because it’s also the

30th anniversary of me this year and so

in my lifetime a lot of what’s happened

in the world and being a person obsessed

with food a lot of this has really

changed so my second dream is that I

think we can look to the next 30 years

as a time to change the food system

again and we know what’s happened in the

past so if we start now and we look at

technologies and improvements to the

food system long term we might be able

to recreate the food system so when I

give my next talk and I’m 60 years old

I’ll be able to say that’s been a

success so I’m announcing today the

start of a new organization our new fund

within the feed foundation called the 30

project and the 30 project is really

focused on these long-term ideas for

food system change and I think by

aligning international advocates that

are addressing hunger and domestic

advocates that are addressing obesity we

might actually look for long-term

solutions that will make the food system

better for everyone we all tend to think

that these systems are quite different

and people argue whether or not organic

can feed the world but if we take a

30-year view there’s more hope in

collaborative ideas so I’m hoping that

by connecting really disparate

organizations like the one campaign and

slow food which don’t seem right now to

have much in common we can talk about

holistic long-term systemic solutions

that will improve food for everyone some

ideas I’ve had is like look the reality

is kids in the South Bronx need apples

and carrots and so do kids in Botswana

and how are we gonna get those kids

those nutritious foods

another thing that’s become incredibly

global is production of meat and fish

understanding how to produce protein in

a way that’s healthy for the environment

and healthy for people will be

incredibly important to address things

like climate change and and you know how

we use petrochemical fertilizers and you

know these are really relevant topics

that are long-term and important for

both people in in in Africa who are

small farmers and people in America who

are farmers and eaters and I also think

that thinking about processed foods in a

new way where we actually price the

negative externalities like

petrochemicals and like fertilizer

runoff into the price of a bag of chips

well if that bag of chips then becomes

sort of inherently more expensive than

an apple then maybe it’s time for a

different sense of personal

responsibility and food choice because

the choices are actually choices instead

of three-quarters of the products being

made

from corn soy and wheat the 30 project

org is launched and I’ve gathered a

coalition of a few organizations to

start and it’ll be growing over the next

few months but I really hope that you

will all think of ways that you can look

long-term at things like the food system

and make change

you