Transcriber: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs All proper. The world’s a large number. (Laughter) Local weather change. Farmlands turning to abandon. Depletion of our water sources. Persistent illness and weight problems in all places. Social injustice, violence, poverty. Studying gaps in children. Threats to nationwide safety. Oy. (Laughter) It is sufficient to make you simply hand over and really feel hopeless. However there’s something that you just do each single day that may seriously change all of that. You eat. You see, I have been connecting the dots as a physician for 30 years, treating hundreds of sufferers. And I have been ready to make use of a strong device to forestall, deal with and reverse most power illness, and it is nothing I realized about in medical college, and you may’t discover it in a pharmacy. [A new drug] It is meals. Now, meals has the facility to remedy or to kill. And it is the nexus the place every thing that issues comes collectively. Most of us consider that what we eat is nearly private selection, that for those who’re sick and fats, it is due to dangerous habits or lack of willpower, that it is form of your fault you are fats and sick. It is what the federal government and the meals {industry} tells us. It is all about moderation, about extra train, about private duty. There are not any good and dangerous energy. However what if I gave you a Massive Gulp, which has 46 teaspoons of sugar, or 21 cups of broccoli, which has 35 grams of fiber – similar energy – are they going to impact you a similar? No, they modify your hormones, your mind chemistry, your metabolism. They’re very, very completely different, and but the get together line from medical doctors, scientists, nutritionists, the federal government, the meals {industry} is that they are precisely the identical; there isn’t any distinction. Eat much less, train extra. How’s that figuring out for all of you? Proper? Not so good. And so in a world of misinformation, in a world of promoting, the entire idea of private selection is a bit more difficult, and I started to actually perceive this once I met this younger man, Brady, as a part of the film “Fed Up,” concerning the meals {industry}’s position within the weight problems epidemic. I went all the way down to Easley, South Carolina – small city. One of many worst meals deserts in America. Visited his household of 5, who lived in a trailer on meals stamps and incapacity. All sick, morbidly overweight. The daddy had kind 2 diabetes, on dialysis at 42, could not get a brand new kidney as a result of he could not lose the burden. They had been determined to drop some pounds, doing all the best issues, they thought: consuming a low-fat food regimen, having food regimen this, food regimen that. So I went to their trailer, and I took out all of the meals from their cabinets. We seemed on the packages. I lined over the entrance of the field. I mentioned, “Are you able to inform me what that is?” They usually could not inform if it was a Pop-Tart or a corn canine. what that is? Anyone? It is a Twinkie. (Laughter) It isn’t meals. It is a food-like substance. (Laughter) So we all know what that is. It is simply meals. It does not have a label, ingredient listing or a Diet Details on it, proper? And so I so merely cooked a meal with them, of actual meals, they usually beloved it, surprisingly. I mentioned, “You are able to do this.” I gave them a information on the best way to eat properly for much less, a cookbook. They misplaced 200 kilos within the first yr, collectively. The daddy bought a brand new kidney. Brady misplaced 50 kilos, after which he went to work at Bojangles’ as a result of it is the one place to work down there. And he mentioned, “It is like sending an alcoholic to work in a bar.” (Laughter) And he gained the burden again. After which some. And eventually, he bought his act collectively, and he misplaced 140 kilos, and final week I bought an e mail from him, saying, “Hey.” (Applause) I bought an e mail from him, saying, “Hey, are you able to write me a letter of advice for medical college?” So what I realized from Brady, what I realized from Brady was that in a world the place supermarkets are meals carnivals stuffed with biologically addictive meals, it is not about private selection. It is about fixing the meals atmosphere. So I started to surprise, like, what’s the affect of our meals on our world, proper? I started to consider it and questioned, “What is going on on?” So let me tackle a journey from the sphere to the fork to the hospital to Congress and past. We all know power illness is epidemic. One in two of us have a power illness. One in two People has prediabetes or kind 2 diabetes. 70% of us are chubby. And it is crippling our financial system. Medicare and Medicaid are buckling below the burden of power illness. In 20 years, it is estimated that it’ll comprise our total federal funds. And it is international: $47 trillion will likely be spent globally, internationally, preventing power illness that is largely food regimen pushed. And we have now large lack of productiveness: 2 trillion a yr from what I name “FLC syndrome.” what that’s? That is while you really feel like crap. (Laughter) And we have now achievement gaps in children who go to highschool on Doritos and Flamin’ Sizzling Chips and soda. In fact they cannot focus or be taught or succeed or go to varsity. Now we have evaluation that meals has monumental affect on the mind and temper and habits. And the research in prisons – violent crime in prisons and prisoners goes down by 56% for those who feed them a nutritious diet and 80% for those who give them a multivitamin. What are the implications of that? And we have usurped the meals techniques of many poor communities, the Native People particularly. We took away their meals system, gave them commodities: sugar, flour, shortening. And there is a phrase for folks who on the reservations eat these commodity meals. It is known as “commod bod.” I bear in mind occurring a rafting journey final summer time with a Hopi elder, Hopi chief. And he had horrible diabetes, massively chubby. He was so sick. I mentioned, “You possibly can repair this.” He mentioned, “What do I’ve to do?” I mentioned, “It’s a must to hand over sugar and flour and starch.” He says, “Nicely, what are we going to do with our conventional Hopi ceremonial meals?” I am like, “What meals?” He says, “Cookies, truffles and pies.” (Laughter) And I assumed to myself, these usually are not his conventional ceremonial meals. (Laughter) So not solely are these issues actual, however we have now, now, in evaluation, that our meals system as a complete, collectively all of the facets of it, is the primary driver of local weather change, greater than the power sector, and that the way in which we farm depletes our soils. We mine the soils; we deplete our aquifers and water sources. It is estimated that possibly in 50 years we’ll don’t have any water or soil left to feed us. So I started to query: what’s going on right here? If that is the meals system, and it creates the meals we have now, then how did we get right here? The guts of the matter is that this: our meals system shouldn’t be designed to create wholesome folks or a wholesome world. It is designed to maximise income. So what are the insurance policies that drive our meals system? How will we rethink what we’re doing? Nicely, our subsidies, for instance, are for commodities – wheat, corn and soy – that get changed into processed meals. It is 60% of our energy in America, and those that devour probably the most of these energy are the sickest and the fattest. And people meals are then changed into processed meals, which then we pay for with our Meals Stamp Program. $85 billion a yr, and most of that’s for junk meals – $7 billion alone is for soda. That is 20 billion servings a yr we give to the poor with meals stamps. Our meals labels are so complicated you want a PhD in vitamin to determine it out, and even then, good luck. , we have now meals advertising to children, the place they see 6,000 advertisements for junk meals yearly on tv. It is unrestricted and doubtless far more on social media. We all know the common two-year-old can go in a grocery retailer and title brand-name merchandise earlier than they will barely stroll or discuss. And we have now dietary pointers which might be so complicated as a result of they’re corrupted by food-industry affect and by ignoring big quantities of related science. And this was from a report from the Nationwide Academy of Sciences. So clearly, these insurance policies usually are not working to serve us, proper? The reason being cash, cash in politics. Now we have half a billion {dollars} spent by 600 lobbyists on the farm invoice, which is basically our meals invoice. Now we have vitamin science being corrupted by the meals {industry}, which funds a lot of our vitamin science. If a vitamin science research is funded by a meals company, it is 8 to 50 occasions extra more likely to present profit for that meals. For instance, if a meals firm research synthetic sweeteners, 99% of the time, it is high quality. If impartial scientists research it, 99% of the time, it is not high quality. After which our public well being organizations – the American Coronary heart Affiliation, Diabetic Affiliation, Most cancers Affiliation, even the Academy of Diet Dietetics – 40% of their income comes from the meals {industry}. How can we belief what they are saying? In fact, there’s this excellent effort of company social duty, the place Coca-Cola funds NAACP, in fact, and the Hispanic Federation. In fact they will oppose the soda tax. They’ve the patron entrance teams, just like the Middle for Shopper Freedom, which says weight problems is a hoax. Nicely, go to WalMart or Costco, go searching. Wonderful. And the American Council on Science and Well being, (Laughs) which is principally telling us that insecticides and smoking is okay. I went to point out the film “Fed Up” on the King Middle, and it was all arrange. Bernice King was all into it. Received a name the day earlier than – we will not present the film. Why? King Middle’s funded by Coke. Martin Luther King says, “Our lives start to finish the day we grow to be silent about issues that matter.” And naturally, since their merchandise are getting much less and fewer common right here, they are going around the globe, and now China and India are one and two in diabetes: 80% of the world’s diabetics within the creating world. So if companies are beholden to their shareholders solely, then they do not prioritize the struggling of tens of millions of individuals. We permit them to denationalise income and socialize the prices and put income forward of public good and public well being. What if all of the externalities in our meals system had been embedded within the value of meals? How a lot would a can of soda value? $100? What if the affect on well being, the atmosphere, the financial system had been all included? What would a value of manufacturing unit farm meat be for a pound? $1,000? We are able to not ignore the affect and the results of our meals system on every thing that issues. We can not do this any longer. And we have now to rethink this. And the excellent news is there are efforts taking place around the globe to alter this. Paul Hawken has estimated that if we modify all of the facets of our meals system in the best means, that we may draw down carbon to pre-industrial occasions, like regenerative agriculture. Now we have well being techniques, like Geisinger, paying for meals pharmacies, giving diabetics $2,400 a yr in meals and lowering healthcare prices by 80%. Now we have nations, like Chile, being courageous and going up in opposition to the meals {industry} with 18% soda tax. They’ve eradicated meals advertising on TV, radio, in print, in film theaters. They put warning labels, like on cigarette bins, on the entrance of cereals, they usually’ve gotten rid of cartoon characters. They’ve killed Tony the Tiger. (Laughter) So there are some issues we can not change, however this we modify. We vote thrice a day with our fork. What we do to our our bodies, we do to the planet. What we do to the planet, we do to our our bodies. It is time that we step up and communicate and act about issues that matter, and meals issues most. Thanks. (Applause)