Good evening.
I've always really liked eating, but I was never really into cooking.
When I was little, I loved watching my granny cook and work in the kitchen.
She was in charge of Christmas dinner, New Year's and Easter.
She made all with so much love and care.
My brother was the one who liked to go hands-on with her.
Even today, she still asks me
how, when and why did I end up in the kitchen?
And that's the answer I want to give you today.
Because if something can change the future of eating habits,
that's cooking.
As a teenager, precisely at 14,
I began to do yoga.
And yoga changed me.
It completely changed my life.
It changed my vision of the world, it changed my diet,
and with that I realized
that food has power,
so to speak.
I also decided to study eating philosophies
that used food as forms of prevention,
healing, and disease treatment,
even as kinds of medicine.
So I decided to study a little about Ayurveda and macrobiotics.
These philosophies brought back something in me
that I think modern times have taken from many of us young people,
which is care, zeal, and respect for nature.
So, I decided that we could change the way
we build the food system through eating habits.
I believe one of the side effects of modern times
is humans getting distant from nature,
the distance between urban and rural life.
I believe that if we bring
a little of rural life to the city,
we can strengthen the bonds between man and nature.
For example, by planting urban gardens.
It's a way to reconnect with nature.
Some years later, when I was 18,
I lived abroad, and there I learned how to cook.
I fell in love with the art of culinary, I fell in love with the kitchen,
and I realized we could use food and eating habits as a tool,
not only to improve the quality of life in terms of health
but also to use it as as tool
in political, economic, social, and environmental terms,
and then manage to restructure the food system,
change the diet dynamics
and the production, distribution, and food consumption processes.
I'll give you an example of the meat production process.
There are two principles that conduct the meat production
at an industrial scale:
quantity and speed.
The more you produce and the cheaper it gets,
the worse the quality,
and the cost is higher for our health and environment.
In terms of speed,
the animal cycle is artificially accelerated,
the animal life cycle is artificially accelerated,
and it starts growing and producing in such a way
that at some point their bodies can't take it anymore,
and it drastically decreases
its life quality,
its health and lifetime.
I believe that we can and must change
this food system.
The other day I was at the supermarket,
and I noticed that a pound of chicken
was cheaper than a pound of tomatoes.
And I said, "How can that be?"
This is very complex.
How can it cost so little
to raise an animal from birth to slaughter?
I couldn't understand that.
In terms of vegetables and greens,
the industrial scale production process
is also very harmful to our lives,
our health, and to the environment
because, today, Brazil is the biggest agrochemical consumer in the world.
Each Brazilian consumes around 11 pounds of agrochemicals per year.
It's a steep amount.
And people know the hazards of agrochemicals,
but they still put up with this abuse of usage and consumption.
And I wondered why.
But the answer is that our current society
has twisted values.
Our values are twisted.
Why does someone worry about not buying fake perfume
because they worry about some allergic reaction,
as they don't know its origin,
they don't know what sort of chemicals are in the bottle,
and they don't care about eating intoxicated vegetables?
Why is that?
I wondered about this and realized that this is the change of values.
We need to teach people to value organic products,
because when you buy organic lettuce, for example,
you're not only investing in your health
but also paying for the producer's well-being,
which is something people don't usually think of,
they don't know that behind that lettuce is someone who cares for it with love
and brought that lettuce to you.
So we pay for the producer's well-being,
we invest in our health, and we respect nature.
I think that's why I fell in love
with cooking and nutrition.
In terms of distribution, it's not efficient either.
I think you know we produce a lot of food.
One third of the food we produce is simply wasted, thrown out.
And we ask ourselves why so many people are still starving.
The reason is bad distribution policy.
We have to rethink that.
In consumption terms,
the way we consume food today is frightening.
My grandma is from São Paulo, and she lives there.
If I dropped her in the middle of Paulista Avenue,
I'm sure she would be really scared
seeing all those executives, or those people in a hurry,
walking along the street, talking on their cell phones,
swallowing a slice of pizza -
because chewing is something people also think is a waste of time,
but it's actually very important.
Anyway, she would freak out
because she doesn't see that as a meal,
as a way to nurture and feed oneself.
Fast food is made for this purpose,
so we can eat while doing something else,
talking on the phone, typing, watching TV.
This makes us lose our notion of satiation.
We make room for gluttony,
which is very harmful to our health.
So, we need to rethink the way we consume food.
These snacks, biscuits, and so on also have a lot of chemical additives,
and too much salt, fat, and sugar, which is the addictive trio.
Flavor enhancers end up destroying our sense of taste,
they degenerate our nervous system and create addiction,
not only physical but also mental,
psychological, and physiological addiction.
That is, excessive industrialized products
are very harmful.
I don't even call them food.
To me, they are fake food,
because you may feel full eating them,
but they won't nurture or feed you.
And who still makes popcorn in a pan? Pan popcorn instead of microwave?
Look! Half and half. (Laughter)
Who still makes cakes instead of buying mixtures?
Oh! Also half and half. (Laughter)
These two questions may seem a little harmless
and not mean anything, but actually they mean a lot.
By just switching from pan popcorn to microwave popcorn,
you're already harming your health,
because you're consuming chemicals
that you surely wouldn't add to your pan popcorn,
and you're also polluting with the microwave popcorn packaging.
It's an extra packaging that could be less trash in the world.
I think the excessive consumption of industrialized products
is really harmful.
To sum up
this food production issue,
I think this food dynamics, this food system
is not healthy at all.
It's not working.
And we have to change. But how can we change?
The main answer is going back to the kitchen.
Cooking is synonym of art, culture, leisure, health.
Cooking brings independence, self-knowledge, autonomy,
safety, freedom.
Cooking is life's fundamental art.
If we don't cook, someone will do it for us.
I hope it's not the industry.
Because the industry doesn't cook, it simply processes food.
If you let the industry feed you,
it'll choose what to give you for dinner:
frozen lasagna, French fries, burgers, hot dogs.
How about pizza?
Give us delivery pizza
because we can't even make pizza anymore!
I believe that we...
Oh, no! Wait! Where's rice and beans?
The everyday rice and beans that filled up our stomachs and souls?
I think a lot of people
who are not interested in or fond of cooking
must think it's a lot of work,
not practical, and a waste of time.
But if you leave the beans soaking overnight,
in the morning, in 20 minutes you'll have them ready in the pressure cooker.
Or you just take one day to make beans
and freeze them for the week.
Along with fresh rice that you make in 20 or 30 minutes
and vegetables that you have prewashed and cut up in the fridge
when you came back from the market,
you have a whole meal ready in half an hour.
It might be the same time you would wait for a pizza,
from the pizza delivery.
So, I think we must change
the way we see cooking,
the way we see the act of cooking.
Everybody can and must cook:
men, women, boys, girls, kids, adults, the elderly.
There's no age, sex, or gender.
Everybody can cook. Everybody should cook.
By changing education, teaching kids,
taking kids to the market to choose the vegetables they'll have for dinner,
having kids peel potatoes, do the dishes,
simple day-to-day things,
we can build a better future.
These kids will grow up with a holistic view of the world.
They'll know where the food comes from,
because many people think it comes from the supermarket shelf.
Kids will grow up independent of the food industry
because they will learn to cook.
They will grow up independent of the pharmaceutical industry
because they will be less sick,
growing up and eating homemade food, healthy food.
I believe we have to change the food dynamics.
We have to change
how we value food.
We have to value food more, value the act of eating and cooking.
Education isn't just saying "please," "thank you," and "excuse me."
Education doesn't mean
seeing a hospital as synonym of health.
I think having life quality, a healthy lifestyle, and a healthy diet,
so that we need fewer hospitals -
that is education.
It's education and prevention.
So, the future of food
will decide the future of humanity.
Cooking and choosing food well
are choices we can make to make a better world.
Thank you.
(Applause)