Watch TEDxManhattan Online

Watch TEDxManhattan online at www.livestream.com/tedx on January 21st from 10:30am – 5:15pm est.

Find out more on the Media page on the TEDxManhattan website.

TEDxManhattan Viewing Party

Host a viewing party for TEDxManhattan “Changing the Way We Eat”!  It’s simple – invite some friends over and together watch the video at www.livestream.com/tedx on January 21st from 10:30am – 5:15pm EST.  You can email and send us photos throughout the day – we’ll read selected emails out to the audience.  Join us!

TEDxManhattan Challenge Finalists

TEDxManhattan “Changing the Way We Eat” planning is well underway, with 14 speakers confirmed, the venue in place and food details underway.  We’ve also chosen our five finalists for the TEDxManhattan Challenge – we challenged people last year to work in their community anywhere in the United States on a project related to sustainable food and farming.

We received around 40 applications from all over the country and have narrowed it down to the final five.  The winner will get to speak live from stage at the 2012 TEDxManhattan event.  If you would like to vote for your favorite, please email your choice by December 5th to TEDxManhattanChallenge@gmail.com.

We’re also encouraging everyone to set up a local viewing party to watch the event live – if you’d like to watch, please tune in to our broadcast on January 21st at www.livestream.com/tedx.  Better yet, set up a viewing party in your neighborhood and invite friends over to watch the talks with you.  You can find out more information about viewing parties and setting one up at http://tedxmanhattan.org/viewing-parties/.

The five TEDxManhattan Challenge finalists  are:

1.  Natasha Bowens, The Color of Food – http://thecolorofood.org/home.html   She’s spent the past year creating a space for farmers and food activists of color to connect, work together and share stories, history and traditional knowledge. The Color of Food is a space to raise the voices of communities of color in the movement for food justice.

2.  Rick Nahmias, Food Forward – http://foodforward.org/  In 2.5 years they have become Southern California’s largest backyard harvesting for the hungry NPO. Food Forward organizes corps of between 3 and 300 volunteers to harvest excess food from private homes and public spaces, donating 100% to the hungry.

3.  Amie Hamlin, New York Coalition for Healthy School Food – http://www.healthyschoolfood.org/  New York Coalition for Healthy School Food has been working with the New York City Office of SchoolFood (they spell it as one word) in a formal partnership for the last few years to develop and introduce plant-based entrees to serve as the protein component in school lunches. They are doing this in 18 schools and have a waiting list of 48 schools.

4.  Howard Hinterthuer, Veteran’s Food Production Project
http://www.wuwm.com/programs/news/view_news.php?articleid=9474  Their organic therapy project for veterans, now in its fourth year, is transitioning into a food production program designed to supplement and eventually replace food that they currently purchase through vendors.

5.  Billy Mawhiney, Fresh Mitchell – http://freshmitchell.info/   Fresh Mitchell is a group aimed at changing the way rural Mitchell, South Dakota, eats. They began marketing their Farmers Market, got accepted for SNAP and credit cards, and began a CSA through a 5th generation farm about 30 miles away (called the Goosemobile). They recently hosted their first Fall Harvest Celebration, a night of Old Fashioned fireside stories from the South Dakota food movement to raise funds for an edible classroom, demo area for the market and CSA support.

Please email your favorite finalist by December 5th to TEDxManhattanChallenge@gmail.com.

Wayne Pacelle will be one of the speakers at TEDxManhattan 2012

In order to “Change the Way we Eat” we must first change the way we think about food and  farming.  We are nation of cat and dog lovers but conveniently, or innocently, ignore the way farm animals are treated. On January 21, 2012 Wayne Pacelle will talk about the protection of animals at TEDxManhattan.

Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, leads the nation’s largest animal protection organization with 11 million members and constituents. The organization is the 155th largest charity in the United States. During his tenure, Pacelle has nearly doubled the size of the organization and, through corporate combinations with groups such as The Fund for Animals and the Doris Day Animal League, built unity and greater efficiency within the animal protection cause.

He has led successful efforts to pass hundreds of new state and federal laws to protect animals, expanded The HSUS’s animal care operations, and worked with dozens of corporations to enact operational changes that benefit animals. Pacelle was named one of NonProfit Times’ “Executives of the Year” in 2005 for his leadership in responding to the Hurricane Katrina crisis.

2012 TEDxManhattan Applications Now Being Accepted

On Saturday, January 21, 2012, TEDxManhattan “Changing the Way We Eat” will be held at the Times Center in New York City. This one-day TEDx event will explore the food system — from what happened, to where we are, to what we are doing to shift to a more sustainable way of eating and farming. The goal of “Changing the Way We Eat” is to create new synergies, connections and collaborations across disciplines, to unite different areas of the food movement and to introduce the TEDx audience to the exciting and innovative work being done in this field. The Glynwood Institute for Sustainable Food and Farming is the lead sponsor for TEDxManhattan.

Please visit the TEDxManhattan website to fill out an application to attend the event. Please note that applying does not guarantee admittance. We will let you know in late October if we’ll be able to accommodate you.

Food Day, Time to Eat Real!

The first, and definitely not the last, Food Day will be October 24, 2011. Food Day aims to bring people from all walks of life, students, teachers, parents, health professionals, community organizers, chefs, local officials, and eaters, together to push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable humane way.

Events will be taking place across the country in schools, city halls, farmers markets, and state capitols.  Join thousands of Americans for a conversation about eating real.  To find an event near you, click here.  If there are no events taking place near where you live, why not host one?  There is still time to sign-up and organize an event. You can screen a movie, host a talk, harvest vegetables for a food bank, have a pot-luck, have a cooking demonstration, whatever you want, as long as it revolves around good food!

Still not convinced?  Read the Food Day priorities, if that doesn’t do it I’ll buy you a big mac.*

Why Eat Real?

• Reduce diet-related diseases by promoting safe, healthy foods
• Support sustainable farms and limit subsidies to big agribusiness
• Expand access to food and alleviate hunger
• Protect the environment and animals by reforming factory farms
• Promote health by curbing junk-food marketing to kids
• Support fair conditions to food and farm workers

* Statement made to emphasize point, my conscious won’t actually allow me to buy you a big mac.

The Apple Project: Drink-Up to Save Farms

Image taken from iFood TV

Farms everywhere are struggling to survive. Faced with the mounting challenges of increased production costs, global competition, and encroaching development, it’s getting harder and harder for farmers to make a profit. Apple growers are not immune from these pressures.  Glynwood has been hard at work trying to find economic opportunities for Hudson Valley apple growers, and thus the Apple Project was born. Their solution? Forget eating an apple a day, how about drinking several, preferably in the delicious form of hard cider or apple spirits.

Glynwood’s Apple Project is encouraging diversification of apple varieties, giving growers new resources for knowledge and skill, and supporting a growing market for hard cider and apple spirits. Some of its programs include Cider Week,  Apple Exchange, and the Hudson Valley Cider Route.

October 16 to 23 will be the first ever Cider Week. Over 80 establishments in New York City and the Hudson Valley will feature ciders from all over the Hudson Valley.  There will be plenty of opportunity to learn more at tastings, classes, and special events.  A great excuse to celebrate fall, farmers, and local food with a nice glass of cider.

Meet Urvashi Rangan, from Consumer Reports, future speaker at TEDx Manahattan 2012

Urvashi Rangan leads and directs the Consumer Safety and Sustainability Group for Consumer Reports. She is responsible for managing risk analysis, policy assessments, label evaluations and consumer advice for tests, reports, and related advocacy work. Urvashi joined Consumers Union in 1999 and developed the ratings system, database, and Web site, Eco-labels.org for evaluating environmental and food labels. In 2005, she managed the launch of GreenerChoices,org, which covers green aspects over a wide range of products and services.

Urvashi serves as a primary, national spokesperson for Consumer Reports in the areas of sustainable production/consumption practices, food safety, and product safety issues related to chemical and contaminant hazards.

She continues to decode the meaning of eco-labels for consumers and advocates for credible labeling in the marketplace, including influencing government policy decisions at the state and federal level. In 2011, she helped lead a decisive victory in a widely publicized debate on the benefits of organic production.  She was also part of the teams that worked on the Sigma Delta Chi award winning food and supplement magazine reports, highlighting public health concerns.

Dr. Rangan received her Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences from Johns Hopkins University in 1995 and conducted her post-doctoral work at the Environmental and Occupational Health Science Institute. She was a National Institutes of Health fellow from 1990-97.

Feeding Hope: Living Democracy

In honor of the Small Planet Fund’s 10th Anniversary and the book Diet for a Small Planet’s 40th Anniversary, Frances Moore Lappe´and Anna Lappe´are celebrating by hosting an exciting event free to the public.  Come out for an evening of conversation with Vandana Shiva and  Frances Moore Lappé, the  fearless and tireless advocates for food as a human right, restoring the earth, and building peace through living democracy.

The Small Planet Fund was started in 2001 to fund groups around the world focusing on hunger, poverty, and environmental devastation. Every year the Small Planet Fund supports core grantees and makes emergency grants.  With the support of donors around the country they have raised and given away more than $800,000.

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011, 7:00-9:00pm

Cooper Union’s Great Hall
7 East 7th Street (at Third Avenue)
New York, NY 10003

Pre-registration is strongly recommended, to sign-up click here

Meet Dr. Wallinga, future speaker at TEDx Manhattan 2012

Physician, writer and full-time advocate, David Wallinga, M.D., represents the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) as a de facto doctor to the nation’s ailing food system. Through his work, Dr. Wallinga sheds a public spotlight on commonplace practices usually kept under wraps—the contamination of high fructose corn syrup with mercury, the routine feeding of antibiotics and arsenic to food animals to help them grow faster. His 2010 essay on farm policy and the obesity epidemic in Health Affairs helped launch unprecedented interest in the health of the 2012 Farm Bill; subsequently, dozens of the nation’s medical and public luminaries have signed onto IATP’s Charter for a Healthy Farm Bill . Dr. Wallinga has also served as the only physician on the steering committee of Keep Antibiotics Working : The Campaign to End Antibiotic Overuse since 2000.

We will be highlighting the 2012 speakers over the next few months so stay tuned!