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A Recipe for Fixing Our Broken Food System
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A Recipe for Fixing Our Broken Food System

Aspen Ideas
Aspen Institute, 2022
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Overview
  • Visionary
  • Engaging

Recommendation

Imagine a delicious, affordable, healthy meal. Food that appeared on your plate without causing any major suffering among humans, animals or the environment. Imagine that the people who grew and prepared the food lived dignified, safe lives because they are well-compensated for their labor. Can you imagine it? Because you’ve probably never had such a meal, or if you have, only rarely. In this talk from the 2022 Aspen Ideas Festival, Mark Bittman provides an honest view of the current food system and a vision of the better system that could take its place.

Take-Aways

  • Good food should be healthy and accessible, and its production should generate well-paid jobs and be easy on the environment.
  • The US food system wasn’t designed to provide nutrition for a healthy populace. It was designed to make money and help America become a world power.
  • Health and environmental advocates promote change at the individual level, but in reality, only policy change can fix the broken food system.

About the Speaker

Mark Bittman is an author and food journalist. He wrote “The Minimalist” column for The New York Times for 13 years, and is currently a fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He’s the author of 30 books, including The Best Recipes in the World, The Minimalist Cooks at Home, and his latest, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal.

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