Obesity + Hunger = 1 global food issue | Ellen Gustafson | TEDxEast

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.
Co-creator of the philanthropic FEED bags, Ellen Gustafson says hunger and obesity are two sides of the same coin. At TEDxEast, she launches The 30 Project -- a way to change how we farm and eat in the next 30 years, and solve the global food inequalities behind both epidemics.

I'm Ellen, and I'm totally obsessed
with food.

But I didn't start out obsessed with food.

I started out obsessed
with global security policy

because I lived in New York during 9/11,
and it was obviously very relevant.

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 too.

Especially if you
and your kids are hungry,

your neighbor's kids are hungry,
your whole neighborhood is hungry,

you're pretty angry.

Actually, lo 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 Programme

as a way to try to address
these security issues

through food security issues.

While I was there, I came across

what I think is the most brilliant
of their programs.

It's called School Feeding,
and 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.

While I was working at the U.N.,
I met this girl, Lauren Bush.

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 each bag we'd sell would provide

a year's worth of school meals
for one kid.

It's so simple, and we thought, okay,

it costs 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 Programme.

But of course, at the U.N.,
sometimes things move slowly,

and they basically said no.

We thought it was a great idea
that would raise a lot of money.

So we said screw it,
we'll just start our own company,

which we did three years ago.

So that was my first dream,
to start this company called FEED,

and here's a screenshot of our website.

We did this bag for Haiti, and launched it
just a month after the earthquake

to provide school meals for kids in Haiti.

FEED's doing great.
We've so far provided 55 million meals

to kids around the world

by selling now 550,000 bags,
a lot of bags.

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 the thing that'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?"

I've been thinking a lot about that,

and about food systems in our own country.

Especially being on New York,
you get access to awesome food,

but when you travel, especially airports,
the food is crap.

So, thinking about food issues,

there's definitely hunger in America:

49 million people
and almost 16.7 million children.

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 it in our own country.

But obviously the bigger problem
that we all know about

from the TED Prize winner, Jamie Oliver,

to watching FoodInc,
reading Michael Pollan,

is obesity, and it's dramatic.

The other thing that's dramatic
is that both hunger and obesity

have really risen in the last 30 years.

And I started to think about
this whole 30 year thing,

and you'll see it running as a theme
through my talk.

Unfortunately, obesity's not only
an American problem.

It's actually been spreading
all around the world

and mainly through our kind
of food systems that we're 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 agriculture is where food comes from.

Well, agriculture in America's
very interesting.

It's very consolidated,

and the foods that are produced
lead to the foods that we eat.

The foods that are produced are,
more or less, corn, soy and wheat.

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 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.

We're trying to understand
who is farming them.

That's what I was wondering.

So I went and stood
on a big grain bin in the Midwest,

and that really didn't help me
understand farming,

but I think it's a really cool picture.

And you know, the reality is

that 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 farmers in 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 it's 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 farmed
ends up as what we eat.

And 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.

You can't see the thing in red,
but it's crazy.

A fifth of kids under two drinks 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 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, that's an interesting way
to connect hunger and obesity.

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 -

and 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 us,

like the mouse
and the Internet and Windows.

You know, there's 30-year cycles.

Actually, Sam Lessin,
who spoke earlier,

has this thing called Y+30,
about 30 year change.

I think 2010
can be a really interesting year

because it is the end
of the 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 thirtieth anniversary
of GMO crops

and 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 sort of the creation
of this new food system.

I'm not the only one who's obsessed
with this whole 30-year thing.

The icons like Michael Pollan

and Jamie Oliver in his TED Prize wish

both addressed this last
three-decade time period

as incredibly relevant
for food system change.

Well, I really care about 1980

because it's also the thirtieth
anniversary of me this year.

In 15 days I'm turning 30, everyone.

I'm never going to be able
to lie about my age

because I'm saying it publicly.

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 it's been a success.

So I'm announcing today
the start of a new organization,

or a 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 going to 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 how we use petrochemical fertilizers.

And you know,
these are really relevant topics

that are long term

and important for both people 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

inherently more expensive than an apple,

then maybe it's time for a different sense

of personal responsibility in food choice

because the choices are actually choices

instead of three-quarters of the products
being made just from corn, soy and wheat.

Starting today - the website did go up
at 9 o'clock this morning -

the 30project.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.

(Applause)