TED Talks on Food w/Jamie Oliver, Carolyn Steel & Christien Meindertsma

TED has become an incredibly popular series of conferences featuring inspiring speakers from around the world. TED is a small non-profit devoted to what they call - "Ideas Worth Spreading." Starting out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment & Design, TED has since broadened its scope to include two annual conferences in California, a global conference in the UK and many on-line resources where more than 700 TEDTalks are now available. TED believes in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world.

With a number of the talks delivered at their annual conferences involving food, on this episode, we hear three of those talks including one delivered by well-known television personality Jamie Oliver who speaks passionately about teaching children about food. We hear architect and author Carolyn Steel speaking about the history of how cities fed themselves and we hear author/artist Christien Meindertsma speak about the astonishing afterlife of the ordinay pig, parts of which make their way into at least 185 non-pork products!

Voices

Jamie Oliver, chef/author, JamieOliver.com (London/Essex, UK) - Jamie Oliver has been drawn to the kitchen since he was a child working in his father's pub-restaurant. As the host of the BBC2 television show Naked Chef launched in the late 90s, Jamie Oliver has built a worldwide network of TV shows, books, cookware and magazines, all based on a formula of simple food. Today, Jamie's focus has been on bringing attention to the changes he believes are needed to the diets of Brits and Americans and has launched campaigns such as Jamie's School Dinner, Ministry of Food and Food Revolution USA.

Carolyn Steel, architect/author, Hungry City - (London, UK) Carolyn uses food as a medium to read cities and understand how they work. In her book Hungry City, she traces and puts into historical context food's journey from land to urban table and thence to sewer.

Christien Meindertsma, author/artist, PIG 05049 (Rotterdam, Netherlands) - Christien is a dutch artist who explores raw materials in thoughtful ways, making simple books and products to better showcase once-hidden processes. Her second book, titled PIG 05049, documents the astounding array of products that different parts of a pig named 05049 could support -- revealing the lines that link raw materials with producers, products and consumers that have become so invisible in an increasingly globalized world. PIG 05049 was acquired by New York's Museum of Modern Art this past winter.