TED

I actually watch the TED videos on a regular basis. So I had seen Mark Bittman and Jamie Oliver give their speeches before. I had not seen the one with Anne Cooper. It amazes me that they spend less than a dollar a day on a child's lunch. You can get a pack of Grandma's Cookies for what Los Angeles spends on school lunch. It is no wonder that they feed kid's heavily processed junk food. The fact that Cooper was able to put salad bars in schools and make them work is fantastic. I wish I had had that option as a child. Sadly, I see many of the bad food decisions at my own daughter's elementary school. Everything comes in plastic and is basically finger food. I agree with Cooper that we need better education about food and how to be healthy in schools.

Bittman's speech was like a recap of Fast Food Nation in some ways. One thing that he points out is how livestock contribute more greenhouse gasses than automobiles. I pointed out to a Prius owner one day that the burger they just ate caused more damage to the ozone than their car probably will in it's lifetime. This is because, as Bittman pointed out, we eat too much meat. We feed cows corn and soy which they do not digest properly causing them to belch and fart constantly. This seems an odd problem to have as compared to emissions from exhaust. It makes me feel like they should be doing a smog check on my burger and not my car.

I think Oliver did a very good job getting his points across. Without seeing his show, the short clips about West Virginia were very depressing. It really shows that when someone is obese it affects everyone around them. The worst of it being that persons death. You can really understand why the pastor feels fed up with burying his friends. I do not know about the rest of you, but I think milk tastes pretty good on its own. Who ever decided they needed to add eight ounces of sugar to it was off their rocker. When I was growing up, having chocolate milk was a treat. Seeing that wheelbarrow full of sugar reiterates why it needs to stay a treat and not an everyday option. All of this, that Oliver said, and the rest of the videos highlight just how preventable it all is. I probably won't use them in my paper. Still, very informative and good speeches, all of them.