Inspirational Speaker: Carolyn Steel

I chose one speaker from TED.com that has inspired me and has similar views. Her name is Carolyn Steel and in this talk she covers How Food Shapes Our Cities. This topic is one side idea to my business proposal about Food Through Culture.

She starts by asking the audience where they think the food on their plate comes from. She also talks about how the food is transported, bought and sold, produced, cooked, eaten and disposed of and how this repetition of events happens everyday in every city. She discusses how ancient food routes shaped the modern world and how as the years go on the demand for meat and dairy will double. Carolyn claims that half of the food that is in the United States is thrown away and the planet is not even being fed properly. She educates the viewer on how 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, agricultural and urbanism combined. Rome shaped it’s inter-land through its appetite. You could also determine where food was located and provided within a city by looking at street and town names. Cities used to be constrained by geography, but once the train was created, cities could grow to any shape. People used to cook and now we add water. She explains how no one values food anymore and now we are dependable on huge corporations to provide food for us. She points out a very interesting word, sitopia, which means food place and she says that we do live in a place that is shaped by food. She proposes that we bring food back to the center of life. She also re-conceptualizes the way that food shapes our lives.

Carolyn Steel has inspired me to think of food and how important it is for socialization, nature and sustenance. I believe that if people become more aware of the food they eat and why they eat it, that they will start caring about the environment and what our bodies are consuming. She also points out that by creating a sitopia people will become more centered. People will start cooking their own food again, going to farmer’s markets and buying food from trustworthy and worthy sources. The family will also become more united through the effort it takes to prepare the food.

This speech is so close to my idea of Food Through Culture. The difference here was that Carolyn Steel was warning the people of how food can shape a city and the harmful effects that happen when we allow it get out of control.

She has inspired me to work harder on making all of my own meals, buying from farmers and spreading the word and the sitopia.