WEBVTT

00:00:13.088 --> 00:00:15.070
All right. The world's a mess.

00:00:15.070 --> 00:00:16.537
(Laughter)

00:00:16.537 --> 00:00:18.186
Climate change.

00:00:18.186 --> 00:00:19.669
Farmlands turning to desert.

00:00:19.669 --> 00:00:22.038
Depletion of our water resources.

00:00:22.038 --> 00:00:24.970
Chronic disease and obesity everywhere.

00:00:24.970 --> 00:00:27.073
Social injustice, violence, poverty.

00:00:27.073 --> 00:00:29.026
Learning gaps in kids.

00:00:29.026 --> 00:00:31.540
Threats to national security.

00:00:31.540 --> 00:00:32.950
Oy.

00:00:32.950 --> 00:00:33.990
(Laughter)

00:00:33.990 --> 00:00:36.606
It's enough to make you
just give up and feel hopeless.

00:00:36.606 --> 00:00:42.816
But there is something
that you do every single day

00:00:42.816 --> 00:00:47.155
that can radically change all of that.

00:00:48.189 --> 00:00:49.637
You eat.

00:00:51.055 --> 00:00:55.014
You see, I've been connecting the dots
as a doctor for 30 years,

00:00:55.014 --> 00:00:57.686
treating thousands of patients.

00:00:58.025 --> 00:01:00.753
And I've been able to use a powerful tool

00:01:00.753 --> 00:01:06.175
to prevent, treat and reverse
most chronic disease,

00:01:06.175 --> 00:01:08.580
and it's nothing I learned
about in medical school,

00:01:08.580 --> 00:01:11.302
and you can't find it in a pharmacy.

00:01:11.302 --> 00:01:12.302
[A new drug]

00:01:12.302 --> 00:01:13.805
It's food.

00:01:14.967 --> 00:01:19.450
Now, food has the power
to cure or to kill.

00:01:19.450 --> 00:01:23.696
And it's the nexus where everything
that matters comes together.

00:01:24.106 --> 00:01:30.753
Most of us believe that what we eat
is just about personal choice,

00:01:31.554 --> 00:01:33.151
that if you're sick and fat,

00:01:33.151 --> 00:01:35.437
it's because of bad habits
or lack of willpower,

00:01:35.437 --> 00:01:38.486
that it's sort of your fault
you're fat and sick.

00:01:38.486 --> 00:01:41.343
It's what the government
and the food industry tells us.

00:01:41.343 --> 00:01:43.186
It's all about moderation,

00:01:43.186 --> 00:01:45.638
about more exercise,
about personal responsibility.

00:01:45.638 --> 00:01:47.782
There are no good and bad calories.

00:01:47.782 --> 00:01:52.169
But what if I gave you a Big Gulp,
which has 46 teaspoons of sugar,

00:01:52.169 --> 00:01:55.985
or 21 cups of broccoli,
which has 35 grams of fiber -

00:01:55.985 --> 00:01:57.985
same calories -

00:01:57.985 --> 00:02:00.142
are they going to effect you the same?

00:02:00.832 --> 00:02:04.502
No, they change your hormones,
your brain chemistry, your metabolism.

00:02:04.502 --> 00:02:06.486
They're very, very different,

00:02:06.486 --> 00:02:08.861
and yet the party line

00:02:09.321 --> 00:02:13.134
from doctors, scientists, nutritionists,
the government, the food industry

00:02:13.134 --> 00:02:16.669
is that they're exactly the same;
there's no difference.

00:02:16.669 --> 00:02:17.981
Eat less, exercise more.

00:02:17.981 --> 00:02:20.010
How's that working out for all of you?

00:02:20.010 --> 00:02:22.672
Right? Not so good.

00:02:23.502 --> 00:02:28.235
And so in a world of misinformation,

00:02:28.235 --> 00:02:31.051
in a world of marketing,

00:02:31.051 --> 00:02:34.284
the whole concept of personal choice
is a little more complicated,

00:02:34.284 --> 00:02:38.466
and I began to really understand this
when I met this young man, Brady,

00:02:38.466 --> 00:02:40.416
as part of the movie "Fed Up,"

00:02:40.416 --> 00:02:43.632
about the food industry's role
in the obesity epidemic.

00:02:43.632 --> 00:02:46.300
I went down to Easley,
South Carolina - small town.

00:02:46.300 --> 00:02:49.277
One of the worst food deserts in America.

00:02:49.597 --> 00:02:50.927
Visited his family of five,

00:02:50.927 --> 00:02:53.443
who lived in a trailer
on food stamps and disability.

00:02:53.443 --> 00:02:54.631
All sick, morbidly obese.

00:02:54.631 --> 00:02:57.785
The father had type 2 diabetes,
on dialysis at 42,

00:02:57.785 --> 00:03:00.702
couldn't get a new kidney
because he couldn't lose the weight.

00:03:00.702 --> 00:03:02.386
They were desperate to lose weight,

00:03:02.386 --> 00:03:04.377
doing all the right things, they thought:

00:03:04.377 --> 00:03:06.778
eating a low-fat diet,
having diet this, diet that.

00:03:06.778 --> 00:03:08.893
So I went to their trailer,

00:03:08.893 --> 00:03:11.532
and I took out all the food
from their cupboards.

00:03:11.532 --> 00:03:12.948
We looked at the packages.

00:03:12.948 --> 00:03:14.672
I covered over the front of the box.

00:03:14.672 --> 00:03:17.881
I said, "Can you tell me what this is?"

00:03:17.881 --> 00:03:21.552
And they couldn't tell
if it was a Pop-Tart or a corn dog.

00:03:21.982 --> 00:03:23.582
You know what this is?

00:03:23.962 --> 00:03:25.362
Anybody?

00:03:26.402 --> 00:03:27.553
It's a Twinkie.

00:03:27.553 --> 00:03:28.614
(Laughter)

00:03:28.614 --> 00:03:31.575
It's not food. It's a food-like substance.

00:03:31.575 --> 00:03:32.998
(Laughter)

00:03:34.567 --> 00:03:37.863
So we know what this is. It's just food.

00:03:37.863 --> 00:03:43.739
It doesn't have a label, ingredient list
or a Nutrition Facts on it, right?

00:03:44.589 --> 00:03:49.880
And so I so simply cooked
a meal with them, of real food,

00:03:49.880 --> 00:03:52.092
and they loved it, surprisingly.

00:03:52.092 --> 00:03:53.673
I said, "You can do this."

00:03:53.673 --> 00:03:56.493
I gave them a guide on how
to eat well for less, a cookbook.

00:03:56.493 --> 00:03:58.827
They lost 200 pounds
in the first year, together.

00:03:58.827 --> 00:04:00.197
The father got a new kidney.

00:04:00.197 --> 00:04:03.026
Brady lost 50 pounds, and then
he went to work at Bojangles'

00:04:03.026 --> 00:04:05.381
because it's the only place
to work down there.

00:04:05.381 --> 00:04:08.930
And he said, "It's like sending
an alcoholic to work in a bar."

00:04:08.930 --> 00:04:10.595
(Laughter)

00:04:10.595 --> 00:04:12.669
And he gained the weight back.

00:04:13.229 --> 00:04:15.028
And then some.

00:04:15.178 --> 00:04:19.111
And finally, he got his act together,
and he lost 140 pounds,

00:04:19.111 --> 00:04:21.918
and last week I got
an email from him, saying, "Hey."

00:04:21.918 --> 00:04:23.429
(Applause)

00:04:25.668 --> 00:04:27.192
I got an email from him, saying,

00:04:27.192 --> 00:04:30.686
"Hey, can you write me a letter
of recommendation for medical school?"

00:04:31.096 --> 00:04:33.329
So what I learned from Brady,

00:04:33.329 --> 00:04:34.525
what I learned from Brady

00:04:34.525 --> 00:04:39.915
was that in a world
where supermarkets are food carnivals

00:04:39.915 --> 00:04:42.961
filled with biologically addictive foods,

00:04:43.861 --> 00:04:46.084
it's not about personal choice.

00:04:46.084 --> 00:04:49.811
It's about fixing the food environment.

00:04:49.811 --> 00:04:51.244
So I began to wonder,

00:04:51.244 --> 00:04:55.112
like, what is the impact
of our food on our world, right?

00:04:55.112 --> 00:04:58.228
I began to think about it
and wondered, "What's going on?"

00:04:58.228 --> 00:04:59.524
So let me take on a journey

00:04:59.524 --> 00:05:02.699
from the field to the fork
to the hospital to Congress and beyond.

00:05:02.699 --> 00:05:04.638
We know chronic disease is epidemic.

00:05:04.638 --> 00:05:06.543
One in two of us have a chronic disease.

00:05:06.543 --> 00:05:10.726
One in two Americans
has prediabetes or type 2 diabetes.

00:05:10.726 --> 00:05:12.460
70% of us are overweight.

00:05:12.460 --> 00:05:14.960
And it's crippling our economy.

00:05:14.960 --> 00:05:18.354
Medicare and Medicaid are buckling
under the weight of chronic disease.

00:05:18.354 --> 00:05:19.384
In 20 years,

00:05:19.384 --> 00:05:22.343
it's estimated that it will comprise
our entire federal budget.

00:05:22.343 --> 00:05:26.778
And it's global: $47 trillion
will be spent globally, across the world,

00:05:26.778 --> 00:05:30.309
fighting chronic disease
that's mostly diet driven.

00:05:30.309 --> 00:05:32.574
And we have tremendous loss
of productivity:

00:05:32.574 --> 00:05:35.573
2 trillion a year from
what I call "FLC syndrome."

00:05:35.573 --> 00:05:36.975
You know what that is?

00:05:36.975 --> 00:05:38.706
That's when you feel like crap.

00:05:38.706 --> 00:05:40.068
(Laughter)

00:05:40.068 --> 00:05:41.786
And we have achievement gaps in kids

00:05:41.786 --> 00:05:44.675
who go to school on Doritos
and Flamin' Hot Chips and soda.

00:05:44.675 --> 00:05:47.740
Of course they can't focus or learn
or succeed or go to college.

00:05:47.740 --> 00:05:49.575
We have analysis

00:05:49.575 --> 00:05:55.524
that food has enormous impact
on the brain and mood and behavior.

00:05:56.008 --> 00:06:00.488
And the studies in prisons -
violent crime in prisons and prisoners

00:06:00.488 --> 00:06:04.408
goes down by 56%
if you feed them a healthy diet

00:06:04.408 --> 00:06:07.389
and 80% if you give them a multivitamin.

00:06:07.389 --> 00:06:09.300
What are the implications of that?

00:06:09.300 --> 00:06:12.224
And we've usurped the food systems
of many poor communities,

00:06:12.224 --> 00:06:14.272
the Native Americans especially.

00:06:14.272 --> 00:06:17.040
We took away their food system,
gave them commodities:

00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:19.373
sugar, flour, shortening.

00:06:19.373 --> 00:06:20.770
And there's a word for people

00:06:20.770 --> 00:06:23.173
who on the reservations
eat those commodity foods.

00:06:23.173 --> 00:06:25.699
It's called "commod bod."

00:06:25.959 --> 00:06:30.857
I remember going on a rafting trip
last summer with a Hopi elder, Hopi chief.

00:06:31.577 --> 00:06:34.230
And he had terrible diabetes,
massively overweight.

00:06:34.230 --> 00:06:35.422
He was so sick.

00:06:35.422 --> 00:06:37.389
I said, "You can fix this."

00:06:37.389 --> 00:06:38.958
He said, "What do I have to do?"

00:06:38.958 --> 00:06:41.823
I said, "You have to give up
sugar and flour and starch."

00:06:41.823 --> 00:06:43.686
He says, "Well, what are we going to do

00:06:43.686 --> 00:06:46.239
with our traditional
Hopi ceremonial foods?"

00:06:46.239 --> 00:06:47.755
I'm like, "What foods?"

00:06:47.755 --> 00:06:50.473
He says, "Cookies, cakes and pies."

00:06:50.473 --> 00:06:51.472
(Laughter)

00:06:51.472 --> 00:06:55.338
And I thought to myself, those are not
his traditional ceremonial foods.

00:06:55.338 --> 00:06:56.456
(Laughter)

00:06:56.456 --> 00:06:59.722
So not only are those problems real,

00:06:59.722 --> 00:07:01.873
but we have, now, in analysis,

00:07:01.873 --> 00:07:05.571
that our food system as a whole,
collectively all the aspects of it,

00:07:05.571 --> 00:07:07.757
is the number one driver
of climate change,

00:07:07.757 --> 00:07:10.205
more than the energy sector,

00:07:10.205 --> 00:07:13.536
and that the way we farm
depletes our soils.

00:07:13.536 --> 00:07:16.737
We mine the soils; we deplete
our aquifers and water resources.

00:07:16.737 --> 00:07:18.508
It's estimated that maybe in 50 years

00:07:18.508 --> 00:07:21.950
we're going to have
no water or soil left to feed us.

00:07:22.590 --> 00:07:27.221
So I began to question:
what is going on here?

00:07:27.221 --> 00:07:30.937
If this is the food system,
and it creates the food we have,

00:07:30.937 --> 00:07:34.269
then how did we get here?

00:07:34.269 --> 00:07:36.845
The heart of the matter is this:

00:07:37.355 --> 00:07:40.002
our food system is not designed

00:07:40.002 --> 00:07:42.050
to create healthy people
or a healthy world.

00:07:42.050 --> 00:07:45.402
It's designed to maximize profits.

00:07:45.402 --> 00:07:49.435
So what are the policies
that drive our food system?

00:07:49.435 --> 00:07:51.466
How do we rethink what we're doing?

00:07:51.466 --> 00:07:55.452
Well, our subsidies, for example,
are for commodities -

00:07:55.452 --> 00:07:56.885
wheat, corn and soy -

00:07:56.885 --> 00:07:59.019
that get turned into processed food.

00:07:59.019 --> 00:08:01.208
It's 60% of our calories in America,

00:08:01.208 --> 00:08:04.571
and those who consume
the most of those calories

00:08:04.751 --> 00:08:07.398
are the sickest and the fattest.

00:08:07.768 --> 00:08:13.599
And those foods are then turned
into processed food,

00:08:13.599 --> 00:08:16.013
which then we pay for
with our Food Stamp Program.

00:08:16.013 --> 00:08:18.953
$85 billion a year, and most of that
is for junk food -

00:08:18.953 --> 00:08:22.384
$7 billion alone is for soda.

00:08:22.384 --> 00:08:27.198
That's 20 billion servings a year
we give to the poor with food stamps.

00:08:27.198 --> 00:08:29.204
Our food labels are so confusing

00:08:29.204 --> 00:08:31.481
you need a PhD in nutrition
to figure it out,

00:08:31.481 --> 00:08:32.731
and even then, good luck.

00:08:32.731 --> 00:08:34.682
You know, we have food marketing to kids,

00:08:34.682 --> 00:08:37.686
where they see 6,000 ads for junk food
every year on television.

00:08:37.686 --> 00:08:40.415
It's unrestricted and probably
much more on social media.

00:08:40.415 --> 00:08:43.550
We know the average two-year-old
can go in a grocery store

00:08:43.550 --> 00:08:47.567
and name brand-name products
before they can barely walk or talk.

00:08:48.067 --> 00:08:51.115
And we have dietary guidelines
that are so confusing

00:08:51.115 --> 00:08:54.318
because they're corrupted
by food-industry influence

00:08:54.318 --> 00:08:56.634
and by ignoring huge amounts
of relevant science.

00:08:56.634 --> 00:09:00.653
And this was from a report
from the National Academy of Sciences.

00:09:00.983 --> 00:09:06.422
So clearly, these policies
are not working to serve us, right?

00:09:06.422 --> 00:09:09.966
The reason is money, money in politics.

00:09:09.966 --> 00:09:14.265
We have half a billion dollars spent
by 600 lobbyists on the farm bill,

00:09:14.265 --> 00:09:16.082
which is essentially our food bill.

00:09:16.082 --> 00:09:20.208
We have nutrition science
being corrupted by the food industry,

00:09:20.208 --> 00:09:22.498
which funds much of our nutrition science.

00:09:22.498 --> 00:09:26.098
If a nutrition science study
is funded by a food corporation,

00:09:26.098 --> 00:09:30.480
it's 8 to 50 times more likely
to show benefit for that food.

00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:33.408
For example, if a food company
studies artificial sweeteners,

00:09:33.408 --> 00:09:35.832
99% of the time, it's fine.

00:09:35.832 --> 00:09:40.756
If independent scientists study it,
99% of the time, it's not fine.

00:09:41.006 --> 00:09:43.004
And then our public health organizations -

00:09:43.004 --> 00:09:46.729
the American Heart Association,
Diabetic Association, Cancer Association,

00:09:46.729 --> 00:09:49.581
even the Academy of Nutrition Dietetics -

00:09:49.581 --> 00:09:52.327
40% of their revenue
comes from the food industry.

00:09:52.327 --> 00:09:55.330
How can we trust what they say?

00:09:55.330 --> 00:09:59.147
Of course, there's this wonderful effort
of corporate social responsibility,

00:09:59.147 --> 00:10:01.829
where Coca-Cola funds NAACP,

00:10:02.424 --> 00:10:04.279
of course, and the Hispanic Federation.

00:10:04.279 --> 00:10:06.682
Of course they're going
to oppose the soda tax.

00:10:06.682 --> 00:10:10.163
They have the consumer front groups,
like the Center for Consumer Freedom,

00:10:10.163 --> 00:10:11.622
which says obesity is a hoax.

00:10:11.622 --> 00:10:14.579
Well, go to WalMart
or Costco, look around.

00:10:15.699 --> 00:10:16.708
Amazing.

00:10:16.708 --> 00:10:18.915
And the American Council
on Science and Health,

00:10:18.915 --> 00:10:19.915
(Laughs)

00:10:19.915 --> 00:10:24.211
which is basically telling us
that pesticides and smoking is okay.

00:10:24.211 --> 00:10:27.977
I went to show the movie "Fed Up"
at the King Center,

00:10:27.977 --> 00:10:29.694
and it was all set up.

00:10:29.694 --> 00:10:31.075
Bernice King was all into it.

00:10:31.075 --> 00:10:33.501
Got a call the day before -
we can't show the movie.

00:10:33.501 --> 00:10:36.385
Why? King Center's funded by Coke.

00:10:36.385 --> 00:10:37.562
Martin Luther King says,

00:10:37.562 --> 00:10:38.658
"Our lives begin to end

00:10:38.658 --> 00:10:41.878
the day we become silent
about things that matter."

00:10:41.878 --> 00:10:45.945
And of course, since their products
are getting less and less popular here,

00:10:45.945 --> 00:10:47.457
they're going around the world,

00:10:47.457 --> 00:10:49.908
and now China and India
are one and two in diabetes:

00:10:49.908 --> 00:10:52.417
80% of the world's diabetics
in the developing world.

00:10:52.417 --> 00:10:57.889
So if businesses are beholden
to their shareholders only,

00:10:58.699 --> 00:11:02.562
then they don't prioritize
the suffering of millions of people.

00:11:02.562 --> 00:11:08.577
We allow them to privatize profits
and socialize the costs

00:11:08.577 --> 00:11:12.427
and put profits ahead
of public good and public health.

00:11:12.427 --> 00:11:17.193
What if all the externalities
in our food system

00:11:17.193 --> 00:11:18.893
were embedded in the price of food?

00:11:18.893 --> 00:11:21.059
How much would a can of soda cost?

00:11:21.059 --> 00:11:22.583
$100?

00:11:22.583 --> 00:11:25.307
What if the impact on health,
the environment, the economy

00:11:25.307 --> 00:11:26.510
were all included?

00:11:26.510 --> 00:11:29.123
What would a cost of
factory farm meat be for a pound?

00:11:29.123 --> 00:11:30.770
$1,000?

00:11:31.211 --> 00:11:34.643
We can no longer ignore

00:11:35.343 --> 00:11:39.275
the impact and the consequences
of our food system

00:11:39.275 --> 00:11:41.752
on everything that matters.

00:11:42.142 --> 00:11:44.594
We cannot do that any longer.

00:11:45.964 --> 00:11:47.808
And we have to rethink this.

00:11:47.808 --> 00:11:52.997
And the good news is there are efforts
happening around the world to change this.

00:11:52.997 --> 00:11:54.894
Paul Hawken has estimated

00:11:54.894 --> 00:11:59.157
that if we change all the aspects
of our food system in the right way,

00:11:59.157 --> 00:12:01.778
that we could draw down carbon
to pre-industrial times,

00:12:01.778 --> 00:12:03.407
like regenerative agriculture.

00:12:03.407 --> 00:12:06.700
We have health systems, like Geisinger,
paying for food pharmacies,

00:12:06.700 --> 00:12:09.772
giving diabetics $2,400 a year in food

00:12:09.772 --> 00:12:13.243
and reducing healthcare costs by 80%.

00:12:13.883 --> 00:12:18.381
We have countries, like Chile, being brave
and going up against the food industry

00:12:18.381 --> 00:12:21.505
with 18% soda tax.

00:12:21.505 --> 00:12:26.288
They've eliminated food marketing
on TV, radio, in print, in movie theaters.

00:12:26.288 --> 00:12:28.585
They put warning labels,
like on cigarette boxes,

00:12:28.585 --> 00:12:29.813
on the front of cereals,

00:12:29.813 --> 00:12:31.945
and they've gotten rid
of cartoon characters.

00:12:31.945 --> 00:12:34.440
They've killed Tony the Tiger.

00:12:34.440 --> 00:12:36.506
(Laughter)

00:12:36.506 --> 00:12:41.100
So there are some things we cannot change,

00:12:41.100 --> 00:12:42.428
but this we change.

00:12:42.428 --> 00:12:46.571
We vote three times a day with our fork.

00:12:47.001 --> 00:12:49.765
What we do to our bodies,
we do to the planet.

00:12:49.905 --> 00:12:52.897
What we do to the planet,
we do to our bodies.

00:12:53.437 --> 00:12:59.437
It's time that we step up and speak
and act about things that matter,

00:12:59.437 --> 00:13:02.014
and food matters most.

00:13:02.014 --> 00:13:03.305
Thank you.

00:13:03.305 --> 00:13:05.004
(Applause)