Video Summary: What’s wrong with our food system by Birke Baehr | TEDxNextGenerationAsheville

Birke Baehr, who is 11 years old, said that he came here today to talk about problems with the current food system. Brike said that he is amazed how kids easily come to believe in TV ads and ads in public schools about food.

Brike said that he believes that corporations are always trying to let kids convince their parents to buy them stuff that can harm them and the planet. Brike said that little kids get attracted by colorful packages and plastic toys and that he was one of the kids who fell for that earlier.

Brike said that he used to think that all food comes from good farms where animals are treated and fed properly, but when he started to do research on the internet and in books, he discovered the total opposite.

Brike said that genetically engineered seeds are not a good idea. He said that he likes fish and tomatoes but he doesn’t like the idea of a company mixing the DNA of both fish and tomatoes to get a different result. Brike said that food produced this way was proven to cause cancer in farm animals.

Brike said that even though people have been eating food produced that way since the 1990s, they just don’t know it’s manufactured that way. Brike said that rats were fed genetically engineered corn & developed signs of liver & kidney toxicity. He also said that we consume that corn all the time.

Brike showed a picture of a CAFO. Brike said that conventional farmers use chemical fertilizers made from fossil fuels that they mix with dirt to make plants grow. He said they do so because they stripped the soil from its nutrients by growing the same crop over and over.

Brike said that harmful chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides are sprayed on fruits and vegetables to kill bugs, but when it rains, those chemicals run into the ground and into our waterways, thus poisoning our water too. (See What are Some Examples of Green Fruits?)

Brike said that he wanted to be an NFL player but now he wants to be an organic farmer instead so that he can have an impact on the world. Brike said that a man called Joel Salatin is called crazy by the system because he grows food without using any harmful chemicals.

Brike said that we can all make a difference by making choices. He said that by buying food from local farmers or neighbors, we can improve the system. Brike said that even though organic food is expensive, the money we save might go to the hospital if we ate the chemically processed food.

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Brike said that he knows of a farmer called Bill Keener, who has a farm similar to the ideal ones he spoke of earlier. Brike said that he sometimes goes to Bill’s farm and volunteers to see where the food he eats really comes from.

Brike said that when kids know about the problems with the food system, they will want to change to healthy food. Brike said that we can make a difference one kid at a time by refusing to eat non-organic food. (See How to make healthy eating unbelievably easy by Luke Durward)