WEBVTT

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I'm such an unlikely crusader
for cleaning up the food supply.

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I grew up in Texas,

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eating my fair share
of Doritos and Ding Dongs.

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(Laughter)

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I wasn't a foodie.

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What I was, was the oldest of four kids
and like you often hear about,

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I inherited absolutely every single one
of those Type A overachieving genes

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that you read about
in first born children.

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Thankfully, I learned how to
channel that into academics,

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and I received a full scholarship
to business school

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before graduating
as the top one in my class.

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I then went on to work
as a food industry analyst

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and when the management teams
of places like Whole Foods and Wild Oats

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would come to our offices,
we just kind of thought it was

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"lifestyle of the rich and famous"
or some hippie thing.

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We didn't really get it.

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After doing that for a while,
my husband and I decided to have kids,

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so I traded the brief case
for a diaper bag.

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Using all of that Type A energy,

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I had four kids

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in just over five years.

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(Laughter)

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Up until that point, I really
hadn't given a whole lot of thought

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about what was in the food supply.

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I figured if it was on grocery store
shelves, it was safe.

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Please don't tell me what to eat,

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and don't tell me what to feed my kids.

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Then one morning,
over breakfast, life changed.

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And in all candor, that morning,

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that breakfast was
L'Eggo My Eggo waffles,

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tubes of blue yoghurt,

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and scrambled eggs.

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Our youngest child started
to have an allergic reaction.

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As her face started to swell shut,

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I was so unfamiliar with
what a food allergy actually looked like,

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that I looked at my older three and said,
"What did you put in her face?"

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They all gave me
those blank little kid stares.

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And I got really scared.

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So I raced her to the
paediatrician's office and she said,

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"Robyn, what did you
feed the kids for breakfast?

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It looks like she is having
this allergic reaction."

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I said,"I fed them L'Eggo My Eggo waffles,
blue yoghurt, and scrambled eggs."

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And she says, "Well, those are
three of the top beta allergens",

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and she starts rattling off all
of these statistics about food allergies,

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and how food could kill a kid.

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All I could think was, since when?

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Since when has food become so dangerous?

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As we got everything under control,
we got back home,

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and I put all the kids down for a nap,

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every single analytical gene
in my body went off.

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I wanted to dig into that data.

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Because I hadn't known anybody
that had a food allergy when I was a kid.

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As I turned to the research,
I learned that morning:

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from 1997 until 2002, there had been
a doubling of the peanut allergy.

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I also learned that one out of 17 kids
under the age of three

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now has a food allergy.

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Then I learned from
the Centers for Disease Control

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that there had been a 265% increase

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in the rate of hospitalization
related to food allergic reactions.

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That was doctors checking people into ER,
that wasn't moms diagnosing it.

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So I wanted to know,
what is a food allergy?

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A food allergy is when your body
sees food proteins as foreign.

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It basically launches
this inflammatory response

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to drive out that foreign invader.

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It just begged the question to me:

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Is there something foreign in our food
that wasn't there when we were kids?

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Again, I turned to the data and I'd heard
from the Wall Street Journal and CNN

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that milk allergy is the most
common allergy here in the US.

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I learned from
the US Department of Agriculture

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that beginning in the 1990s,

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we began to engineer new proteins
into our food supply.

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And it started in our milk.

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In 1994, in order to drive profitability
for the dairy industry,

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scientists, using this new technology,

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were able to genetically
engineer new proteins.

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It was a synthetic growth hormone.
and it's injected into dairy cows,

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and it helps them make more milk.

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Now, the analyst in me,
that made absolutely perfect sense,

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it was a brilliant business model

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that could help drive profitability
for the dairy industry.

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But at the same time, no human trials
had ever been conducted on that.

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Animal studies were showing
that it increased rates of mastitis,

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ovarian cysts, lameness,
skin disorders that resulted

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in an increased antibiotic use.

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For that reason, governments
around the world said,

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"This hasn't yet been proven safe."

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So Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand,

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Japan, all 27 countries in Europe,

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they didn't allow it
into their food supply.

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On top of that, studies started
to come out that showed

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that this synthetic growth hormone,
elevated hormone levels

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that were linked to breast,
prostate, and colon cancer.

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When I learned that, I wanted to know:

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what are the rates
of cancer here in the US

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versus these other countries
that didn't accept this growth hormone?

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So I turned to incredible organizations

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like the American Cancer Society
and Livestrong.

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I learned that the US has
one of the highest rates of cancer

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of any country on the planet.

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And that migration studies show
that if you were to move here

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from somewhere like Japan,

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your likelihood of developing cancer
increases fourfold.

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I also learned that one out of two men
and one out of three American women

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are expected to get cancer
in their lifetime.

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I then went on to learn
from the Centers for Disease Control

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that cancer is the leading cause
of death by disease

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for children under the age of 15.

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Correlation isn't causation.

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So I wanted to look
at some of these other allergens.

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I turned to soy because I had learned

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that soy had recently become
one of the top eight allergens.

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According to the US Department
of Agriculture, in 1996,

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in order to drive profitability
for the soy industry,

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because it's primarily used
to fed livestock,

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a new protein was introduced
into the soy bean.

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Again, as an analyst,
it made perfect sense.

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The soy bean was engineered

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to withstand increasing doses
of wheat killer.

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So it drove profitability for the industry
by increasing sales with that wheat killer

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and then on top of that, you were
patenting something new in that protein

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that you could then license,
and charge royalty fees,

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and trade fees, and licensing fees for.

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And again, because no human trials
had been conducted,

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and the one human trial
that had been conducted

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showed a 50% increase
in the rate of soy allergies,

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governments around the world said,

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"We're going to exercise precaution.

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We're not going to allow this
into our food supply

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because it hasn't yet been proven safe."

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And yet, here we said,
"It hasn't yet been proven dangerous."

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And we allowed it.

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As I kept looking, I wanted to know:

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Were there other new proteins in our food?

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I learned that a few years later,

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through the growing concern

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of the spraying of insecticides
over corn fields,

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scientists using this new technology

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were able to engineer that insecticidal
protein into the seed of a corn plant.

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So that as it grows,
it releases its own insecticide.

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Again, because no
human studies had been done,

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governments around the world said,

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"We're not going to introduce this
into our food supply.

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Or if we do, we are going
to insist on labeling

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so that consumers
can make an informed choice."

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In some countries, they didn't want it
fed to their livestock.

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In some countries,
like in France, in New Zealand,

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they were so concerned,
they didn't want it planted in their soil.

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As you can imagine,
upon learning all of this,

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there were some pretty
dark nights in our house.

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When I thought, "How many bowls
of cereal have I poured this milk on

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not knowing that it contained
this synthetic growth hormone?

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How much of the soy have I fed my family

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not knowing that consumers
in other countries

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were able to make an informed choice?"

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As I sat down with my husband, I said,
"I cannot unlearn this information.

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I have to do everything I can
to try to teach other people about this.

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I don't know what they will say."

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Together, the next morning,

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we sat the kids down
at the breakfast table and I said,

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"You know how mom has learned
some pretty tough stuff

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about what's going on in our food?

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It's not in food in other countries,

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and it's especially
not in food fed to kids.

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I'm going to have to do
something about it."

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One of the boys looked
at me, and he said,

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"Mom, how many people are on your team?"

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(Laughter)

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I said, "Well, it's you four. And daddy."

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(Laughter)

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And he said, "Mom,
you need a bigger team."

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(Laughter)

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He was absolutely right.

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At that point, people were saying,
"You should reach out to Erin Brockovich,

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you should really reach out
to Erin Brockovich."

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All I kept thinking was, "Who am I?

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Who am I to reach out to Erin Brockovich?"

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But at the same time,

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I thought maybe if I could get through
to somebody like that,

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we could start to create this change.

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Truly harnessing every single one
of those Type A genes,

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I spent two weeks crafting
a four sentence e-mail to Erin Brockovich.

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(Laughter)

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When I fired it off, I don't know
if I ever really expected her to reply.

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But when she did, I suddenly thought,

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maybe one person really can
make a difference.

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As I continued to look into this research

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and the research that was
being presented by the industry

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about how we needed this new
operating system on our food supply,

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that we needed these
genetically engineered proteins,

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and all the chemicals that went with it,

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I realised that they had done
an incredible job manufacturing demand

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by creating this fear of scarcity

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that we needed this technology
to feed the world.

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But at the same time,
the USDA was reporting

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that the US was throwing away
96 billion pounds of food, every year.

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27% of the food that we were producing
wasn't even making it to our plates.

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So I realised while it was
in the interest of industry

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to drive a need for increased production,
this was also a distribution issue.

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On top of that, reports were
coming out of the United Nations,

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they were saying
that conventional agriculture,

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without the use of all
these synthetic chemicals,

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was actually doing an incredible job
of meeting this demand.

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As I stepped back from that I thought,
"How can we eat this way here?

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Without all of these synthetic chemicals

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and without all of these
newly introduced proteins

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for which no human trials
had been conducted?"

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I kept coming back to organics.

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In all candor, it was
driving me absolutely nuts

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because of the high price for those foods.

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So I looked into the business model there.

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I learned that as a national family,
sitting down to our national dinner table,

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with our national budget, our resources
are used to subsidize the growing of food

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with all of these genetically engineered
proteins and all of these chemicals.

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And at the same time, the farmers
that are growing things organically,

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which by law means without the use
of these synthetic chemicals

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and without the use
of these genetically engineered proteins,

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these guys are charged fees
to prove that their stuff is safe.

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On top of that, they're charged fees
to then label it, and then on top of that,

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they don't get the same crop insurance
and marketing assistance programs

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that these guys get over here.

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So I reached out to these farmers that had
adopted this new operating system.

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That's when I learned that the farmers

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that had been feeding
our country for generations,

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are suddenly having to pay new costs
with these new technologies

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because of the patents in those seeds,
they can no longer store seeds

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as their grandfathers did
and their great grandfathers did.

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But rather, they've got to license
the use of that technology

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and pay royalty fees,
and trade fees, and licensing fees

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for the privatization of these profits
to these shareholders.

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As I reflected on the fact that the US
was one of the few countries in the world

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to have so boldly adopted
this new technology,

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and all of these chemicals
that it was dependent upon,

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I wanted to know,

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"What are our rates of disease here
versus the rest of the world?"

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I learned that the US
spends more on health care

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than any other country on the planet.

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That 16 cents of every dollar we spend
is spent managing disease.

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As an analyst, I reflected
on that. and I thought,

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we can't drive our profitability
towards our core competencies

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at the corporate level
because we're busy managing disease.

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Our global competitiveness
could very well be at stake.

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So as I stood in my kitchen,
having learned all of this,

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looking in my cabinets and realizing
that these synthetic ingredients

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and these genetically engineered proteins
were in just about everything.

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I turned to the Grocery
Manufacturers Association

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to learn how I could avoid them.

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I learned that 80% of our processed foods

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contain these genetically
engineered ingredients.

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But at the same time, I learned
that Kraft and Kellogg and Coca Cola

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aren't using them in the products
that they formulate in other countries.

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When I first learned that,
it was kind of depressing.

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But then I thought,

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We're not asking them
to reinvent the wheel.

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We haven't called upon them together
to exercise the same level of precaution

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and to either label these ingredients
so that we can make an informed choice

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or remove them from the products
that they sell here in the US,

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and place the same value on the lives
of the American eaters

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that they've already placed on the lives
of eaters in other countries.

00:17:05.519 --> 00:17:09.123
In all candor, that day,
standing in the kitchen,

00:17:09.124 --> 00:17:12.065
we simply began to make changes

00:17:12.066 --> 00:17:15.935
by trying to eat
a little bit less processed food.

00:17:16.815 --> 00:17:21.709
Because it wasn't about the perfect
being the enemy of the good.

00:17:22.469 --> 00:17:25.929
It was about progress, not perfection.

00:17:27.459 --> 00:17:33.705
What I came to realise is that each
and every single one of us

00:17:34.545 --> 00:17:38.287
has something that we're uniquely good at.

00:17:39.547 --> 00:17:44.167
When you leverage that with something
that you're passionate about,

00:17:45.177 --> 00:17:51.451
it can serve as a rocket fuel
to create extraordinary change.

00:17:52.811 --> 00:17:58.785
The bottom line is
that our country was founded

00:17:58.786 --> 00:18:03.503
by courageous and creative entrepreneurs.

00:18:04.793 --> 00:18:10.338
So I invite you to lend
your talent so that together,

00:18:10.339 --> 00:18:15.410
as a nation of 300 million Americans,

00:18:15.411 --> 00:18:19.340
can create the change that we want
to see in the health of our families,

00:18:19.341 --> 00:18:22.855
in the health of our food system,
and in the health of our country.

00:18:23.565 --> 00:18:24.772
Thank you.

00:18:24.773 --> 00:18:26.140
(Applause)