My TEDxManhattan Viewing Party

CHANGING THE WAY WE EAT

This past weekend I hosted a TEDxManhattan Viewing Party at my home to watch the Livestream event from New York,  and invited some of my Food Revolution Day team and some friends that have food issues and are interested in healthy food.

Chipotle Mexican Grill who was a very generous sponsor partner for TEDxManhattan donated vouchers for food for over 100 viewing parties including mine.  Chipotle leads the Fast Casual food business as they now call it in leading the way for the future of quick service with Food with Integrity as they say.  They have pledged to serve food that is healthy for people and the environment and have started to become a leading chain in the U.S. and growing in other countries.
We were given these massive Burritos and the most amazing Tortilla chips that were all gobbled up.

I also invited Richa Gupta from Good Food for Good to join us to show us her new products that are Gluten Free, Vegan and Dairy Free and free of preservatives and artificial flavours and colors.

I will post more about this in a separate post.  I thought it would be great to show a local entrepreneur trying to make a difference in the food world.

Now as for the TEDxManhattan Speakers Talks it was difficult for me to watch them because I was hosting the viewing party and I kind of made it into an all day drop in affair by inviting friends to come by when they could. 

Unfortunately we had to watch it on my computer monitor which isn't hooked up to any external speakers so it wasn't loud enough and everyone was so engaged with talking about food to each other that they didn't pay as much attention to the speakers on the screen.  But I hope they take the time as I did this morning to go online and watch some of the videos of the speakers talks.

Here's what I picked up from a few of the speakers;

Joel Berg spoke about changing the way we deal with food insecurity by approaching the way we provide food to people that can't afford it through food banks and food stamps to providing better jobs and better food programs.  He said that "Charity is not the answer" and to "replace charity with justice".   We much "Change public policies" and equated Food Drives to the equivalence of Bucket brigades where firefighters were trying to put out fires with buckets instead of fire trucks.

Interesting quotes included "To be schooled you must be fuelled" and "To be well read you must be well fed".    His point was that we need to take action to demand the government to provide better paying jobs for people so that they don't have to rely on food banks and food drives and to provide food for kids in schools so that they can learn and create the jobs we need in the future.

Dana Cowin from Food and Wine Magazine talked about the Ugly Food Movement and wants us to look at our food in a different way and #loveuglyfood.  

Stefanie Sacks a mom who helps people eat better for their health showed a video of her family going grocery shopping and navigating the food marketing traps and turning to having her kids contribute to cooking as a family for their dinners.  She said we need to provide an "Edible Education".

DJ Cavem provided a very entertaining rap chat.  He said he was an O.G. - Original Gardener and his mission started when his grandmother died from Diabetes.  He is trying to change the way the culture in the "Hood" looks at food.  By growing them "Greens"- Kale, spinach, Chard etc.  and thinking about growing your own food and looking at it as a cool thing to do.  In his hood a lot of people didn't eat right and didn't have access to the right things but he wants to change their focus and start thinking about what they are eating.

I plan to watch the rest of the TEDxManhattan videos that I missed on Livestream online in the next few days and learn and be inspired to put that energy into the things I do for Food Revolution Day.

What the viewing party did was get a bunch of people together to talk about what we were doing for Food Revolution Day and to see how we could help each other.  Everyone sipped on fruit infused waters and my friend brought a Rainbow Wrap inspired coleslaw and I had some healthy snacking options available too.

We all had a great time and new friendships were born and I hope that it will inspire us to keep doing what we having been doing and more in the future.

I suggest that you check out some of the TEDx videos and if you are inspired join us at one of our Food Revolution Day events here in Toronto or across the Globe or become a Food Revolution Day Ambassador and host your own events.  You can find out more information on the Food Revolution Day website which will be fully launched for this years events soon.