[Music]
[Applause]
when I was a child one of my favorite
things to do was treat my grandparents
desserts you see my grandfather owned a
small family bakery in Columbia where
everything he sold was made from scratch
from decadent chocolate cakes to warm
bread every single item was homemade and
filled with natural organic ingredients
I remember that he used to handpick the
big red strawberries that he used to
decorate his cakes and evidently the
coffee that he used for historama su was
cultivated by the loving hands of a
Colombian farmer for me eating what will
now be labeled to be organic or
all-natural was nothing out of the
ordinary the fruits and vegetables that
my family ate every day were sold by the
farmers themselves the milk we drank
came from the cows and the pastures near
home and the bread that I ate every
single day was made in my own
grandfather’s bakery as a child I never
gave much thought to what I was feeding
my body and I never realized how lucky I
was to eat cheap organic food three
times a day when I moved to Canada I was
completely amazed by the items offered
at the supermarket
mint flavored Oreos multicolored cereals
ready-to-eat mac and cheese it was a
childhood dream come true it seemed to
me that every single item of a
supermarket shelf came in a variety of
colors flavors and sometimes even shapes
for me to choose from yet my
enthusiastic attitude towards processed
food drastically changed in just one
meal
I went out for dinner with my family one
night and I ordered a glass of juice but
what the waitress came back with let me
tell you it did not look like juice at
all
this was colored sugary water not juice
made from actual fruit
I remember being disgusted astonished
and asking myself who in the world would
prefer to drink and audibly red colored
liquid instead of thick and flavorful
strawberry juice at that moment I
realized that in spite of the delicious
and addictive taste of junk food I
missed the food in Colombia not for its
taste or its quality but for its meaning
food for me was my link to other people
it brought me childhood memories of my
grandfather’s bakery of going to the
market with my grandmother and is having
a friendly conversation with a man that
sold avocados on the street every
weekend at the same time food constantly
reminded me of my dependency and
relationship with mother nature it
reminded me of the beauty of growing up
in a country where cows are always seen
outside grazing and where the potatoes
you buy are always covered in their own
healthy soil industrialism truly robs us
of all that it is distance us from each
other and from nature due to the
increasing amount of technologies
available less and less people devote
their lives to farming in fact according
to statistics Canada there now are 91
percent less farmers and there were in
1901 even though we now have nearly 30
million more Canadians to feed this
figure is truly symbolic as the Tulsa
side of food is no longer cooked in
kitchens or cultivated by people
it is now made by machines we have
entrusted our most basic and in her
necessity to laboratories that
genetically alter seeds
industries that add chemicals to her
everyday snacks and to factories that
slaughter millions of animals each year
not only does this pose a great threat
to our health but also to the
environment unlike your ancestors we no
longer follow and respect the cycle of
nature by eating what is in season
a study by BBC good food magazine showed
that 9 out of every 10 adults in Britain
do not even know when the most common
fruits and vegetables are in season
this lack of knowledge is truly
predictable not only in Europe but also
here in North America given that now
nearly all fruits and vegetables are
available at our supermarkets all year
round yet when we buy tomatoes during
the winter or strawberries in the early
spring we do not take into account the
environmental impact or food traces have
in order to have all these items
available throughout all seasons
supermarkets must import them from other
countries this poses a great threat to
the environment given the carbon
footprint of food transportation however
it is important to note that what causes
greater damage the environment is not
the transportation of food itself but
its method of production in order to
produce higher yields reduce the damage
caused by pests and ensure that fruits
and vegetables do not rot but are being
transported to other countries many
farmers now use synthetic pesticides
fertilizers and even seeds that have
been genetically engineered in spite of
the increasing amount of practices that
allow farmers to reduce the damage
caused by pests while using little to no
chemicals our use of
besides and genetically engineered crops
has augmented throughout the past years
in fact according to the United States
Department of Agriculture 92 percent of
the corn and 94 percent of the soybeans
that are grown in the US and in many
cases later used to make the processed
foods that we eat every day have been
genetically engineered nature has been
able to produce delicious fruits and
vegetables for thousands of years
without the use of these chemicals
however our increasing desire to have
fruits or vegetables that have more
nutrients to have apples that don’t turn
brown after they’ve been sliced or to
have potatoes that do not breathe so
easily has led us to disregard the
environments biological processes our
increasing desire to have higher yields
or almost perfect fruits and vegetables
has led many farmers to use chemicals
that kill 200,000 people per year alter
the natural composition of the soil and
even threaten biodiversity not only are
we using these chemicals on plants but
you have now moved to using them on
animals to obtain delicious meat eggs
and dairy products an example that is
often used is that of chickens thanks to
the use of hormones and antibiotics many
companies have been able to reduce the
age at which chickens are killed to
merely 47 days and as you can see on
this graph the age of the chickens are
slaughtered has substantially decreased
throughout the past century while their
weight has constantly augmented reaching
unprecedented levels in addition to this
in order to maximize profits many
companies no longer allow animals to
freely roam the land but confine them to
small and often unsanitary spaces this
is done not only to lessen costs but
sure that the meat of the animal is soft
and tender and not tough like that of an
animal who has had the privilege of
moving we no longer see animals as
living creatures that have the right to
live a healthy and pleasant life but as
mere objects that must provide us with
what we demand we have now completely
alienated ourselves from nature we now
believe that we are superior to the
environment and many of us consider that
we have the right to alter its
biological processes in spite of the
atrocious consequences that will ensue
technology has and will continue to
allow us to facilitate many agricultural
practices but at the same time it is
altered the basic essence of farming
which is the cooperation between man and
the environment we cannot continue to
take from nature without giving it care
and respect in return we cannot continue
to use hazardous chemicals on plants or
to deprive animals of their most
fundamental physical and social
necessities as consumers you and I have
the power to change the system at every
snack and every meal so the next time
that you go to a grocery store think of
picking the items of companies that
respect our planet companies that
believe that animals have the right to
roam the land that fruits and vegetables
must be go in in an organic and
sustainable manner and that the labor of
a farmer will always be far more
valuable than that of a machine it is
time for us to return back to our roots
to buy products made at family-owned
restaurants and bakeries and to enjoy
cooking from scratch with our loved ones
it is time for us to recognize that food
is an intrinsic part of who we
are as human beings and if we do not
take care to what we feed to our bodies
or how we grow it in the environment we
will damage our connection with each
other and with our planet thank you
[Applause]
[Applause]
when I was a child one of my favorite
things to do was treat my grandparents
desserts you see my grandfather owned a
small family bakery in Columbia where
everything he sold was made from scratch
from decadent chocolate cakes to warm
bread every single item was homemade and
filled with natural organic ingredients
I remember that he used to handpick the
big red strawberries that he used to
decorate his cakes and evidently the
coffee that he used for historama su was
cultivated by the loving hands of a
Colombian farmer for me eating what will
now be labeled to be organic or
all-natural was nothing out of the
ordinary the fruits and vegetables that
my family ate every day were sold by the
farmers themselves the milk we drank
came from the cows and the pastures near
home and the bread that I ate every
single day was made in my own
grandfather’s bakery as a child I never
gave much thought to what I was feeding
my body and I never realized how lucky I
was to eat cheap organic food three
times a day when I moved to Canada I was
completely amazed by the items offered
at the supermarket
mint flavored Oreos multicolored cereals
ready-to-eat mac and cheese it was a
childhood dream come true it seemed to
me that every single item of a
supermarket shelf came in a variety of
colors flavors and sometimes even shapes
for me to choose from yet my
enthusiastic attitude towards processed
food drastically changed in just one
meal
I went out for dinner with my family one
night and I ordered a glass of juice but
what the waitress came back with let me
tell you it did not look like juice at
all
this was colored sugary water not juice
made from actual fruit
I remember being disgusted astonished
and asking myself who in the world would
prefer to drink and audibly red colored
liquid instead of thick and flavorful
strawberry juice at that moment I
realized that in spite of the delicious
and addictive taste of junk food I
missed the food in Colombia not for its
taste or its quality but for its meaning
food for me was my link to other people
it brought me childhood memories of my
grandfather’s bakery of going to the
market with my grandmother and is having
a friendly conversation with a man that
sold avocados on the street every
weekend at the same time food constantly
reminded me of my dependency and
relationship with mother nature it
reminded me of the beauty of growing up
in a country where cows are always seen
outside grazing and where the potatoes
you buy are always covered in their own
healthy soil industrialism truly robs us
of all that it is distance us from each
other and from nature due to the
increasing amount of technologies
available less and less people devote
their lives to farming in fact according
to statistics Canada there now are 91
percent less farmers and there were in
1901 even though we now have nearly 30
million more Canadians to feed this
figure is truly symbolic as the Tulsa
side of food is no longer cooked in
kitchens or cultivated by people
it is now made by machines we have
entrusted our most basic and in her
necessity to laboratories that
genetically alter seeds
industries that add chemicals to her
everyday snacks and to factories that
slaughter millions of animals each year
not only does this pose a great threat
to our health but also to the
environment unlike your ancestors we no
longer follow and respect the cycle of
nature by eating what is in season
a study by BBC good food magazine showed
that 9 out of every 10 adults in Britain
do not even know when the most common
fruits and vegetables are in season
this lack of knowledge is truly
predictable not only in Europe but also
here in North America given that now
nearly all fruits and vegetables are
available at our supermarkets all year
round yet when we buy tomatoes during
the winter or strawberries in the early
spring we do not take into account the
environmental impact or food traces have
in order to have all these items
available throughout all seasons
supermarkets must import them from other
countries this poses a great threat to
the environment given the carbon
footprint of food transportation however
it is important to note that what causes
greater damage the environment is not
the transportation of food itself but
its method of production in order to
produce higher yields reduce the damage
caused by pests and ensure that fruits
and vegetables do not rot but are being
transported to other countries many
farmers now use synthetic pesticides
fertilizers and even seeds that have
been genetically engineered in spite of
the increasing amount of practices that
allow farmers to reduce the damage
caused by pests while using little to no
chemicals our use of
besides and genetically engineered crops
has augmented throughout the past years
in fact according to the United States
Department of Agriculture 92 percent of
the corn and 94 percent of the soybeans
that are grown in the US and in many
cases later used to make the processed
foods that we eat every day have been
genetically engineered nature has been
able to produce delicious fruits and
vegetables for thousands of years
without the use of these chemicals
however our increasing desire to have
fruits or vegetables that have more
nutrients to have apples that don’t turn
brown after they’ve been sliced or to
have potatoes that do not breathe so
easily has led us to disregard the
environments biological processes our
increasing desire to have higher yields
or almost perfect fruits and vegetables
has led many farmers to use chemicals
that kill 200,000 people per year alter
the natural composition of the soil and
even threaten biodiversity not only are
we using these chemicals on plants but
you have now moved to using them on
animals to obtain delicious meat eggs
and dairy products an example that is
often used is that of chickens thanks to
the use of hormones and antibiotics many
companies have been able to reduce the
age at which chickens are killed to
merely 47 days and as you can see on
this graph the age of the chickens are
slaughtered has substantially decreased
throughout the past century while their
weight has constantly augmented reaching
unprecedented levels in addition to this
in order to maximize profits many
companies no longer allow animals to
freely roam the land but confine them to
small and often unsanitary spaces this
is done not only to lessen costs but
sure that the meat of the animal is soft
and tender and not tough like that of an
animal who has had the privilege of
moving we no longer see animals as
living creatures that have the right to
live a healthy and pleasant life but as
mere objects that must provide us with
what we demand we have now completely
alienated ourselves from nature we now
believe that we are superior to the
environment and many of us consider that
we have the right to alter its
biological processes in spite of the
atrocious consequences that will ensue
technology has and will continue to
allow us to facilitate many agricultural
practices but at the same time it is
altered the basic essence of farming
which is the cooperation between man and
the environment we cannot continue to
take from nature without giving it care
and respect in return we cannot continue
to use hazardous chemicals on plants or
to deprive animals of their most
fundamental physical and social
necessities as consumers you and I have
the power to change the system at every
snack and every meal so the next time
that you go to a grocery store think of
picking the items of companies that
respect our planet companies that
believe that animals have the right to
roam the land that fruits and vegetables
must be go in in an organic and
sustainable manner and that the labor of
a farmer will always be far more
valuable than that of a machine it is
time for us to return back to our roots
to buy products made at family-owned
restaurants and bakeries and to enjoy
cooking from scratch with our loved ones
it is time for us to recognize that food
is an intrinsic part of who we
are as human beings and if we do not
take care to what we feed to our bodies
or how we grow it in the environment we
will damage our connection with each
other and with our planet thank you
[Applause]
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