 literally we will not survive continuing to to eat the way that we eat and farm the way that we farm and in many ways this is the natural world kind of saying you know shame on you you know learn from your mistakes figure it out and I also think that there was this moment too during the pandemic I don't know if you remember at the beginning all these news stories that were like there's dolphins in Venice and there's so many more birds and people really started to be like oh wait what I do impacts the natural world and so I do think that there was that connection and there's been a ton of really interesting just polling coming out over the past few months wonderman Thompson put out a stat that was like 84 percent of Americans feel more appreciative of nature now than they did prior to the pandemic so you know I do think that we're at this really really exciting moment where we can leverage all of these different things to again kind of connect the dots Eve Teropal is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine Eve is a globally recognized thought leader who focuses on the intersection of the digital age food trends and well-being she is the author of Hungry Avocado Toast Instagram influencers and our search for connection and meaning Eve researches human behavior and the impact of the 21st century technologies and cultural events and examines how these shifts impact people's wants and needs all through the lens of food and lifestyle trends with her unique blend of investigative reporting analysis of academic research and top trends Eve utilizes her extensive empirical research to advise fortune 500 companies startups nonprofits and independent entrepreneurs on how to connect and better serve people she is also the founder of an executive director and executive director of the food and climate league a nonprofit that's creating an exciting food and climate narrative to democratize sustainable eating one other thing that was not in her bio is a book that maybe some of you have read as well her first book this is not her her first book her first book was a taste of generation young through interviews with a variety of millennials roughly about 80 million in the U.S. as well as food luminaries including Anthony Bourdain, Michael Pollan, Mark Bitman, Mary Ann Nestle and more Eve investigated the underlying drive for the millennial obsession with food and later looks at the role of millennials in the food future of food policy in America Eve welcome to the podcast it's so good you're here thanks so much for having me and thank you for that wonderful and thorough introduction you're you're most welcome I am totally thrilled that you're you made the time to speak with me today and I always struggle with the generation Z in the millennials and reaching ever you're a millennial you're a millennial mother and an author and very successful and and so I'm hoping to be enlightened myself and I tell you this is your book and I read it twice and you're actually even so kind to mail me a signed copy and I really thank you for that can't wait to get it here in Germany it's hard to get those things but in your biography in this description of of what how I introduce you I know you've been doing this for about 10 plus years our passive maybe crossed a few times you've been at certain events or or speaking or doing things and with some of the same food foodies and food people and researchers as me but now I want to know besides just talking about it besides writing about it has all this information all this wisdom all this preparation around food and seeing it under different lenses helped you prepare for all the craziness we just experienced oh my god pandemic black lives matters asian racism the inauguration I could go on and on we've just been through and we still are in some respects going through crazy times but as a almost as a researcher as investigative journalist as as someone who has been researching talking with the thought leaders the influencers finding out why we do what we do did any of that you apply to your life and get some better business models or better operating systems on how to weather such crazy times better can you share with us how you've made it through how have you gotten through this time well I mean first I want to be honest with the fact that I think I have very much suffered through this period of time in many of the same ways that that others have I lost two family members I have been stuck you know at home most of the time but hungry specifically really started off with me doing research around human well-being and digging into all of these different theories right because what I've been fascinated by for 10 plus years is why people choose to spend their discretionary time and income in certain ways and when you really start prodding into that question you have to go back to well what are our core basic needs what needs are people trying to fulfill by spending $23 on avocado toast or going to goat yoga or doing sound bathing and so I started off my research for this most recent book by doing an evaluation of human well-being theories so I looked at theories coming from the realm of psychology from neurobiology from religious leaders and it was super interesting when I overlapped all of them kind of laid them out I actually like did this on my floor of my condo saw that there really were three pillars that showed up the first being our desire for control and safety the second being our desire for community and belonging and the third being our desire for purpose and meaning in life and through that work I was able to then identify how those desires have been showing up in food and lifestyle culture especially over the last five or so years now of course it was riveting to watch the COVID culture emerge the Black Lives Matter culture emerge to really see how again those core needs were being reflected in people's behaviors but on a personal level it did help me just manage my anxiety you know I recognized early on in the pandemic okay but our lives right now are completely out of control completely chaotic what is it that I do have control over I'm going to go to the grocery store and get a lot of dried goods and fill up my house with jars and jars and jars of dried beans dried rice you know really just to make myself feel like okay no matter what happens I'm going to be able to feed myself and feed my family so that was like my way of kind of asserting order and control in terms of community it really was a reminder for me that I needed to continue FaceTiming as many of my close friends as possible to kind of keep that sense of community and connection and also I reached out to my neighbors you know we're in this really bizarre time culturally especially here in the United States most people don't know their neighbors and I was living in downtown Chicago you know in a in an apartment building that was just budding up on either side to my neighbors I had never met them and over the course of COVID I got to know them really well and they became really great friends and we shared meals and early on in the pandemic I organized like a a back porch beer hour with kids in a dance party and then in terms of purpose the most fascinating work that I came across when really looking at what makes us feel fulfilled was just how intimately connected to nature we all are whether we recognize it or not and that we are physically and emotionally rewarded for spending time in nature and so throughout this whole period of time I have made it a point that every single day I go on a walk outside you know taking as many of my calls outside as possible even if that meant walking around in my backyard but I would you know take off my shoes and make sure my feet were sensing the grass and that I was pausing to just listen to the birds so all of these things did improve my well-being I think throughout the last year plus thank you so much for sharing that I'm so sorry for your loss it's it's you know it's been a hard time for everyone people have lost people but we've also been through some extremely crazy time so we're in this situation where there's a lot of dis-ease and uncertainties and even before the pandemic people were uncertain with certain elected officials but also with governments and policies they were just not very confident that the nations that they lived in where they lived that they were doing the right things for the future for them and so there's there is this this angst this anxiety and things where people are looking for other tribes other social media other places to kind of help them and with that knowledge that you you've gone through not only the research but just kind of about well-being your search and and what you learned around around well-being even though you've had a hard time where there may be some other really good lessons or or things that you said boy this really helped me besides the grounding you're going out into nature and walking or maybe some examples of of your neighbors where you say wow this is a better model to to get through hard times and pandemics even more and the the reason I ask you is because right now we don't see a lot of change and in all of those systems those civilization frameworks are those well-beings that when the next pandemic comes that we maybe will have more social dis-ease say we won't wear a face mask we'll wear a gas mask or an oxygen mask it'll be it's a step up it's not I I don't and most people in the world don't see that it's gonna get better no next time we won't wear a mask we won't get vaccines you know and so how do we deal that prepare ourselves in different ways I'm just looking for some some tools and tips and I think you've at least come across some ideas and some more that we could we could think about we'll go into more later as well but I'd like to hear now what if you had any others yeah so you know what gets me up in the morning is this understanding that the behaviors that we need to take on and when it comes to food in order to combat the climate crisis those behaviors are inherently better for us physically and better for us mentally and you've started to see that come to life over this past year we feel better when we know who is growing our food how our food is grown when we feel connected to the people who are serving us food at a restaurant or in a grocery store we feel better when we feel competent at creating something tangible and you saw that with the sourdough bread boom we feel better when we feel connected to our communities and I think the Black Lives Matter movement really jolted a lot of people into also recognizing community members that I think they've been ignoring and also gave an opportunity for people to voice their support of their neighbors and fellow citizens in a way that they hadn't before and that in and of itself is fulfilling to stand up for people's rights is fulfilling and I do think that there is a really interesting cultural shift happening right now that I do hope maintains itself and grows so that when the next crisis like this happens we have that resiliency built in but that really focuses in on what's happening locally where you are getting reacquainted with nature but with also your local food systems getting reacquainted with your neighbors your fellow members of humanity really reminding yourself that we are legitimately all in this together and you as one person can make a difference for better or for worse that's going to impact people and I think that part of the difficulty at the very beginning of this was just our blatant disconnect from all of those different concepts it really took a while to feel for people to feel ownership to feel that sense of bonding and community for people to feel that sense of control um you know I've heard just just stories from family friends people who really have never spent much time outside thinking about the birds or even thinking about their black and brown neighbors who over this past year have found this real sense of purpose through just everyday things and that has become a tool for their own resiliency but I think that if we as a global society can build those things into our basic infrastructure of how we live then we hopefully will not be dealing with at least the same levels of anxiety and depression and stress that we are right now um you know there is just something critical in knowing your neighbors and valuing human life and valuing the other living things around you it really puts it really puts things in perspective um there's tons of really interesting literature as well about the appreciation of of life whether it's a tree or it's another person who maybe doesn't look like you or talk like you um but that can fill you with a feeling of awe and gratitude and it has been studied over and over and over again to make us feel well and so for me it's just super exciting to see well okay how do we get to that place we need a more sustainable food culture um how do we get to that place we need a more socially just food culture um and there's all of these really wonderful and beautiful opportunities in front of us that at the end of the day also translate into foods that are honestly more exciting and more delicious to eat um more culturally relevant dishes more ingredients from different places more textures more colors more stories um more dinners together around the table all of these really fun exploratory um completely hedonistic uh options before us that will will ultimately have all of these other um kind of ripple out benefits thank you for sharing that that is so beautiful and and when i read your book or you're really uh at the closer to the end you even give more examples of really in the conclusion really some things you can do but you take us on this nice journey it's not written like in academic publication or research report it's really something that connects us with what's been going on recently and the trends and the research and what we're seeing and and i and i really love that there there are some questions that i want to know from you personally but also maybe if you could tie in the research and what you've seen there during this pandemic this lockdown we've had the social distancing there's been this extreme nationalism that's kind of bubbled up and and um really tight borders because of the pandemic we're not allowed to travel and things like that but also some kind of blame and we're not open to pretty much everyone and it's had ripple effects to uh in the food industries and food generally how we eat what's available and all sorts of things which create depression whatever the the question really is do you feel like a global citizen and how could you describe or feel or tell me how you would feel about a world without nations borders divisions of humans one from another and this extreme nationalism now i want to caveat that even a step further during the pandemic the lockdown food was a global citizen the pandemic was a global citizen species were a global citizen uh food water air was global citizens but humans we weren't we were like all of a sudden they'd you know this person's the problem that nation whatever and and there was a lot of this separation how do you feel about that trend or even glow even if you want to go more general about globalization and how does it tie to what you see in your research more especially to that what you see online and what trends are and what things are people doing yeah so it's a really deep question but a really complicated answer so i want it there is a beautiful idea of a borderless homogeneous in some ways um well i shouldn't say homogeneous because it really is more about uh an acceptance and appreciation for the lack of similarities between us there is this beautiful picture of that world that exists but i do remain skeptical of that becoming a reality for a number of reasons based on what i found during my research for this book so first what comes to mind for me is an inherent desire within each of us to create order and sense of the world again this has been tested a number of different times you can prime people even in conversation to think that there are things that are happening that are out of their control and they will certainly suddenly see shapes in a picture of fuzziness they will suddenly think that they're they need to take on more superstitious behaviors um we are really primed when we're feeling anxious in any way to try to create something that is more black and white you know separating the grays and one way that we do that is by creating in groups and out groups by saying this is the community that i know that's familiar to me i want to shut out or separate myself from the other which is unfamiliar to me and therefore makes me feel more out of control and that's something that we've seen even going back to hunter-gatherer times i mean that's tribes right you get to know your cohort you know it was up to 100 people who you felt like you knew inside and out who were going to be there to have your back um and the outside tribe was an unknown which inherently makes us human beings feel anxious and so i do think that there is something innate within us that utilizes that in group out group almost as a control and safety mechanism which is pretty interesting when you when you really think about well if we just kind of accepted and loved the humanity and all of us wouldn't that make us less anxious um but the other part of this and the other reason why identity culture is so important is that it reduces the number of decisions that we have to make in a day which is really important for our mental health and mental well-being and it provides a structure and sense of self and one of the things that's most apparent in food and lifestyle culture today is people searching for that sense of identity people searching for their tribe and we're living in this really interesting time in human history when we're less likely to be going to houses of worship we are actually less likely to be strongly politically affiliated it doesn't feel like it but there's more political independence now than in previous decades we're less likely to know our neighbors less likely to volunteer those kind of core assets that have provided that structure of stability and community support have evaporated but we need them we need them for our own well-being and so people are searching and saying well where are my people who am I and you know in Hungary I really look at how this is directly in relationship to the rise of interest in veganism in the paleo diet right I mean these diets they're not diets they're lifestyles they are philosophies they are ways of being it impacts the clothes that people wear and the schedules of their days I mean think about intermittent fasting with the with paleo and with veganism there's a there's a really strong philosophy about the things that we've gotten wrong in culture today there's a lot of infighting as well within those those tribes which is also super super interesting to research I went to a vegan speed dating event and asked a few people there whether they would date a vegetarian and it was like it was like I had asked if they would date the devil I mean it was their response was just so strong um and the same thing when talking to researchers who look at paleo communities that there's a lot of divisiveness between those who end up going down the keto route versus the whole 30 route and people saying you know you're wrong but again that's just further dividing these in groups out groups and I do think that there's something just innate in human nature that creates those divisions because it provides that sense of self and sense of control and there is this really interesting movement right now I do think we're at an inflection point where some of us are finding a sense of control and safety and actually viewing all of humanity as brothers and sisters who are in this together and I do think that that is something that is developing I certainly have started to feel that more strongly during this period of time but then there's the other right route which is people saying the world is completely out of control someone else is to blame uh you know I'm going to point my fingers I'm going to close myself off and that's where you're seeing really this push around mostly white nationalism that's happening I'm all around the world and extremism you know different religious groups against saying you know we are the solution you're the problem and I'm going to be very interested to see how this plays out but it does really feel like there's this massive divide that's starting right now of people kind of finding that sense of safety and control in two very different ways I really appreciate you forming in that way and I might take you a little bit deeper if you don't mind so there there um I had I had Dr. Parag Kanan on the show and he wrote 16 plus books but one of them is our cartography type of a book and looking at different maps digital satellite maps basically based off of satellite data and how we see how our world really functions we we think it might be the map that we're used to seeing but then when we look at the world at night if we look at shipping and transportation if we look at roads or or or or all different types of things from space we get this different view of our world and how it works and and you touched upon something there that's nice and I see it as well and I've actually been seeing it for a long time but I really feel it even stronger now I even had Sasha Sagan on the podcast her dad was Carl Sagan the famous astronomer and he he she wrote a fabulous book and he's a fabulous man but he wrote a bunch of things cosmos and and did a series on TV but he had this this kind of way of formulating things and he says there's this emerging consciousness that sees the earth as a single organism and an organism divided amongst itself is doomed or an organism at war with itself is doomed and we were not draw I'm I'm in Hamburg Germany now you're probably in Chicago I was not dropped off here on in a spaceship from Germany I you were not dropped off on a spaceship to Chicago we crawled out of the primordial soup of this earth we are earthlings we come from this earth and yes we were born from our mothers but we were born from the earth and so we are all kin there's no you know we're all homo sapiens which means wise men and sometimes I question that but but we're all kin we're all distant cousins and related to some extent but where we're kind of struggling against one each other and in these tribes or cliques and you you research not only the psychology and the data and the things behind it or kind of the well-being of that I just want to see is there really in the psychology of well-being where you see that humanity says well people in Asia and Germany and in the U.S. we're all the same kin and that there's this emerging maybe might put us into better balance or do you still see that as a divisive factor that's going to continue this divide that you spoke about or do you see some more hope or optimism that that's also emerging that realization of humanity no matter what age so that's a great question you're reminding me of a life satisfaction index that I'm going to find when we get off this call that asks in the survey you know a question about do you feel a part in among humanity and one of the things that I've been really intrigued by since finishing hungry is this question of how do we guide people towards a more sustainable food movement in large part because it satisfies all of these needs and you know saves the planet for humanity but part of that to me is also about allowing people the opportunity to recognize that we are made from the earth that there isn't a division between us and the soil every single thing that you consume is made up of nutrients that were once in the ground whether that was consuming an animal that then consumed something that was in the ground you your existence every single one of us our existence is fueled by the nutrients in the dirt beneath our feet and that disconnect is causing I think a lot of this sense of unrootedness lack of lack of sense of place and self and while I do believe that the internet has caused a lot of problems for us which we haven't really dug into quite yet you know the digital age does also provide this unique opportunity for us to see humanity as one and I do think that this global pandemic was a really interesting moment for us when we could really observe the lack of border right what you were saying that the the virus itself is a global citizen that you know with the climate crisis people are starting to understand that the air is a global citizen and the water and the birds and the dolphins and you know whatever else that surrounds us and I do think that there is opportunity for us to create the in group of people on earth and the out group as people off of earth and that seems kind of radical and wild right now I think for a lot of people because the existence of things off of earth just seems so unknown but we need to create so I'm I'm a huge nerd about all this stuff so I'm going to use the term collective effervescence which is a Durkheim theory so collective effervescence is like that feeling that bubbles up in you when you're like at a Beyonce concert or at a sports game right where you just like feel this kinship with the people around you you know I think that's kind of been facilitated over the last few years at communal dining tables or immersive experiences or escape the room events right we need a global collective effervescence of feeling that sense of bubbling support and love for one another that will encourage people to band together and also feel a sense of personal responsibility to do the right thing for one another and for planet earth but I do there's you know this kind of like interesting psychological trick that I do believe has to be played where there has to still be an out group in order for that collective effervescence excuse me in order for that collective effervescence to really coalesce and percolate among us if that makes sense to you oh it totally makes sense and it's so interesting you know I've definitely heard you know collective intelligence collective energy when you're in such large groups when you're around big tables that you just feel alive this energy this excitement and and also in hard times you feel sadness and and anxiety and things can fear can emerge as well so I appreciate you kind of giving us that bigger global aspect that view of of how we work I think the cultures and diversity and people of color and all those different tribes or cultures that maybe sometimes would see as divisional or separating us somehow or making us make a choice and when we are good they take humanity to certain levels but there is a much bigger one the one that we all crawled out of the same earth and we're all related kin um and we all basically walked out of the plains of savannah and in africans and um and evolved to this point where we are today um and with many other other things there's always um a lot of talk in our area as well around food indigenous wisdoms and cultures and how we need to respect them absolutely we absolutely need need to respect them and those those atrocities that have occurred over the decades over the millennia where we've actually used food clear back to and even before gondi where the colonialism was using food as a way to hurt people to hurt groups and in the united states we did that a lot with the native americans and buffalo and many many stories like that where food can be used as such a beautiful powerful connector but then it can also be used as a form of control and as you get into your book as you start out you have this nice flow on how it goes and i really like that so it's control it's belonging and its purpose and this belonging is is really that community you kind of are speaking about as as well and um but it's not not just the food culture and this well-being but it's tying it into today and age we're in the digital age when we've got smartphones we take selfies and tiktok and all these different things that are also an added layer of of how we eat how we interact with food how we see food how we understand it what are the ways that we can be sustainably eating how are you creating with this food for climate league kind of some of the tools that take us into some better models that that you're working on to teach us to eat different to to think about it different and and what what are your hopes maybe you can tease us about some of your projects that you're currently working on yeah well first thank you for the question i also as you were speaking i was just thinking about how great a metaphor agriculture is for just humanity right we went from this point of being wild to now row crops and deciding that there is really a certain few things that we should be focusing on we're going to line them up we're going to make them pretty and we're going to try to run the world that way well guess what it doesn't work and so now there's this movement of rewilding that i'm so excited about you know and matter of fact i just sorry i'm going to pull up a book here about that same thing the the wild terrarium diet and and yeah but also the the rewilding and the carbon farming and there's so many things regenerative agriculture and permaculture that are just emerging out tons of books here going back from old to new that all just talk about those things and that is where we need to go that's where we were and i doesn't need to go back to the roots it can be done in a modern way but we've disconnected ourselves from nature and how food grows and it's hurting the biome our soil our waterways and that's hurting the biome of our guts and our microbes and our bodies making us unhealthy yeah i mean literally we will not survive continuing to to eat the way that we eat and farm the way that we farm and in many ways this is the natural world kind of saying you know shame on you you know learn from your mistakes figure it out and i also think that there was this moment too during the pandemic i don't know if you remember at the beginning all these news stories that were like there's dolphins in venice and there's so many more birds and people really started to be like oh wait what i do impacts the natural world and so i do think that there was that connection and there's been a ton of really interesting just polling coming out over the past few months um wonderman thompson put out a stat that was like 84 percent of americans feel more appreciative of nature now than they did prior to the pandemic so you know i do think that we're at this really really exciting moment where we can leverage all of these different things to again kind of connect the dots um so i'll go back to to your question about food for climate league and what it is that that we are working on um i mean that there was even another question if you don't mind if we could come back to that in just a second and so it's it's because you just touch upon it is so right there is this we feel like you know because we see those nature things and that we're we're now connected but there's also this flip side and maybe you can touch upon this as well and when we talk more about the book and what your research found or even moving forward with the food for climate league but when you're overweight or when you're unhealthy or when you're eating the wrong types of food there's this form of desensitization or numbing where you can't even feel or sense or hear or see the outside world whether it's natural or not that because you're in pain or you're depressed or or whatever else where you can't even do that and so if you're healthy if you're if you're eating the right things if you know where they come from there's just this innate connection to our kin to the nature and that and I used I used to be fat I used to be a fat big fat guy overweight and I was really numb I if somebody says marketing to be environmentally less an activist and and do all these things I never would have believed it in a million years because I was numb I couldn't feel and sense the outside world I was so caught up in my own body and I'm sure many people are feeling that same thing but it's a wicked spiral to get out of and maybe I don't know if that's taking down the wrong path but I just see that connection there to what you you were just mentioning I was just if there's you know if you want to come back to that later that's fine as well so I don't forget what I was gonna say I'm sorry no no no this is good there's a I mean there's a lot of just like rich rich content in here and thank you for these great questions so I would love to start with talking about the impact of the digital age and kind of how we've gotten here because I do think that that you know we're talking about the industrialized global food system and the addiction of sugar salt and fat and the racial and social injustice of our food system but there is a new addiction that was presented to us around 2007 and that comes in the form of an iphone and yes again the iphone debuted in 2007 instagram came out in 2010 that was not that long ago and think about how drastically your life has changed it's not just food culture it's the way we interact with family and friends it's the way that we evaluate our self-worth it's how we literally spend our waking hours of life um there was some really disturbing data that I uncovered during the research we're hungry about the number of years that we are going to be spending on social media that if you take the the hours that especially millennials and gen zers spend on these these networking sites right now and you extrapolate that over a lifetime it's years of our lives spent liking and upvoting things and you know we were just talking about this notion of appreciation for humanity and rewilding versus the desire for order and rose and a capitalistic meritocracy which is what so much of the world is now moving towards or is is fully in really pushes towards the individual right all of the attention goes to your sat scores and the grades that you're getting and whether you've got the corner office and whatever accolades you personally um are are kind of collecting along the way and the internet has just exacerbated this make your profile right make your profile to present yourself four different ways on four different social media platforms you know be artistic on instagram be you know funny and witty on facebook be sarcastic on twitter and be super professional and impressive you know impressive on linkedin um and who cares what you're actually like you know as long as your posts are getting kind of the upvotes that that you need in order to get the job and and get that sense of fulfillment now much of hungry is actually just going through all the reasons why this kind of relationship is really bad for our well-being and exacerbating rates of loneliness and stress and anxiety and depression guess what we already had a loneliness epidemic prior to covid and now we are in a really dire situation the cdc has said that 40 percent of americans are now expressing symptoms of true intense anxiety and depression over the summer they came out with data that said that 25 percent of the i think it was 18 to 25 year olds that they had interviewed and this is the cdc right doing like a phone interview i think 25 percent had said they'd contemplated killing themselves this year i mean this is we are really at a moment when we need a new way of living we need to be embracing something that is different than the reality we've created for ourselves and a lot of these technologies ping our evolutionary brain in much the same way that a bag of doritos or a snicker bar does it's taking advantage of the way that our minds evolved but then putting us an entirely different situation so we feel really good when we get a like but guess what you feel much better when you have eye to eye contact and hug somebody um and that like that hit of dopamine you get from that like it dissipates really quickly and then you end up just feeling envious and jealous and horrible about yourself most of the time when you're using social media um there's all of these things that we're doing that are really destructive to our sense of self and along the way we really need to be shifting the way that we are relating to one another um taking that online experience and somehow putting it aside or reusing it and you know finding a new way to use it to really coalesce and i think that happened with the black lives matter movement i think that has happened at the beginning of the pandemic where instead of using the internet to gloat about things that to be honest no one really cares about um you know whatever you ate for dinner or you know whatever witty thing that you said people are going to forget about it in two seconds um instead we used it to organize marches in the streets we've used it to provide tips on here's how you use whatever's left over in your fridge you don't have to go to the grocery store again here's where you find a local farmers market here's you know some tips for things that you can do with your kids outside we actually use these platforms to better our well being for i would say the first time ever um and i'll be really interested to see what that what the data um says coming coming out of this um and now i need to think about i'm going to pause for one second because i need to think about what the other point was that i was going to make and i was going to draw this to something else that's now slipping away remind me the original question well just how are we become desensitized as well that was when i interrupted and interjected to you um that when we're eating the wrong foods when we're overweight uh creates a desensitization and numbing of us that we can't even really feel the outside world we're not connected to the nature and earth that was one one but i mean in what you brought up as well there's a new data coming out that i'm hearing is a lot of people don't want to return to the way that they were living return to the way that they were working they're now happy and more comfortable on how they've been interacting with their daily lives and being at home and finding a new lifestyle choice and that's what i loved about your book and how you said this in the beginning it's really about creating a lifestyle that we want that's worthy of us and and where we're going to go and and not nine to five and soulless type of a living yeah i remember what i was going to say so you were talking about that sense of of feeling numb and a lot of this really comes down to the fact that so many of us are suffering emotionally um i recently learned that maslow's hierarchy of needs uh which is what i use a lot in the book as a reference was inspired by an indigenous pyramid of needs that looks very different so in maslow's hierarchy you have food water shelter at the bottom you have this desire for family and support and building of self-esteem and then at the top you have self-actualization becoming your ultimate self so it turns out that maslow had spent time with a native tribe in the us and they had their own hierarchy which actually had self-actualization as the first step because in that model the tribe was already providing all of those other rungs of maslow's hierarchy from the get-go and you were born you had a sense of safety you had shelter you had food you had a community you had a sense of self and belonging and purpose and the first step of the hierarchy was the tribe helping you become all that you could be and then it was figuring out how does that help propel and support your community and then how do you pass that down to future generations right we are right now feeling completely caught by focusing in on how can i just survive right how like you can't even when you're numb like that you can't feel connected to the outside world you can't feel connected to others and so much of this is being perpetuated by the digital worlds that we are living in and listen the the thing that i'm really excited about again is that sustainable food culture and a lot of these trends that we are seeing over the past year are breaking down those habits and barriers we've also seen how quickly people can change their habits and behaviors right if you have a moment of disruption guess what we figure it out we develop you know new ways of doing things new foods to eat new habits new new new places to work new ways of interacting with one another and part of what we're doing at food for climate league is actually saying well okay this is a really beautiful idea of the whole world moving in this sustainable direction but we're dealing with record high rates again of anxiety of loneliness of depression of stress people are so unbelievably overwhelmed they're unhealthy on a physical level as well how do we present sustainable food culture as something that seems less altruistic and and of you know about self-actualization and more about helping you reconnect with yourself unnumb yourself um and that might be about affordable foods it might be about immune boosting foods it might be foods that are helping you celebrate your cultural heritage and diversity there's an amazing plant-based food movement happening right now in the african-american community that i am inspired by on a daily basis i think is super exciting that's about celebrating culture and guess what it just happens to have plants in the center of it because for most of humanity that's what we've eaten and been really satisfied by so at food for climate league we're really investigating ways of talking about sustainable food culture that can resonate with people who are in that moment of just oh my gosh i need some control over my life over my health over my mental health um talking to people who feel disconnected from the world around them be it their neighbors or their family or the soil underneath their feet and then you know also contributing to the narrative of purpose though that narrative is is pretty well developed out there right um most food and lifestyle brands are saying you know here's how you do good in the world by by eating sustainably so what we're really investigating is well how do we talk to the rest of humanity because the reality is there aren't there many of us who are ready to give up something in order to do something for the common good and that message is just not going to resonate with that many people that is so beautiful and i use mazel's hierarchy of needs a lot and i i also knew about that as well we you might know i'm a sustainable development goal advocate and so i truly believe the paris agreement and the sustainable development goals are a real map of plan of action targets indicators and goals that really can get us to keep keep our planet below 1.5 degrees of warming but as a better operating system for us to move towards for a nicer future come december 2030 we need we're all feeling this deus dis ease this unrest with societal and cultural and political areas and that's why we're kind of grasping for some more control we're we're looking at it for it in technology but then we're also going offline and say how can we grow our own food ron finley from from california says growing your own food is like printing your own money but even further you kind of set it so nicely connecting ourselves with food growing our own food or having that reconnection is a sense of control it's a sense of resilience and security where you say hey my basic needs are not met i know where it's coming from i know how to do it i'm going to be okay because i have the basics met and then once i have the basics met or my family has the basics now i can go to my community and add more value to and have that identity the self actualization and and sometimes that that way that that transformation or that enlightenment maslow's pyramid on the on the top is also there are a few steps before is this right a passage that adults and youth and and that transition into adulthood or experience their form of how do you connect with that community how do you how do you find your purpose in your place in life and and in your book you talk you mentioned that and you you kind of talk about those things as well but how sometimes belonging in your diets and your identity are formulated what you eat is part of your identity and what tribe you belong to is part of your identity and that we share our experiences with one another but and maybe you and maybe you have a an answer for this what do we really need to feel well it is it is those three core core pillars you know and those come to life in different ways for different people um but you know something that i really love about this concept of gardening is that it actually hits on all of our core human needs so it provides a sense of control because you're learning a new skill you are growing things for yourself providing for yourself but there's also a sense of community that's created both between you and the people that you actually feed or work with to to create that food but also a sense of community with the land itself that's really satisfying right seeing that you are feeding the soil and the soil is giving back to you to feed you um and then there's the feeling of purpose of you feeding others or taking care of the soil if you are actually leaving the earth better than the way that you found it um and again building skills learning something new that's very much about about creating a sense of purpose having a tangible output a lot of the time in the book is also spent talking about you know why a power point presentation is just not viscerally as satisfying as making a loaf of sourdough bread or or growing a cucumber there's it's hardwired within us we want something that we can see and feel and taste and touch and physically share with others and i do think that there is this kind of notion within our society right now that it is a rite of passage into adulthood to do these things but i gotta tell you my daughter's 20 months she really loves to garden she really loves to feed people she really likes to help people when they're feeling down and i think that there's no reason why we should have to wait until uh we've achieved all these different things to really find that sense of of purpose and meaning i do think you need to be be providing control and community along the way but they can be tied together and you know something that's also really beautiful in all of this is you know a sense of of lea pennamon often talks about food sovereignty um but that's also about a sense of control it's also about a sense of community it's also about a sense of purpose um and it's also creating a more sustainable vibrant world so again i mean there's a lot in life that can get us down right now but i am consistently on a daily basis inspired by the fact that there is a really simple beautiful instagram worthy delicious solution for our physical and mental well-being as well as the planet's well-being and that's what i'm so excited about and you know really when you look at the sdgs they are inspiring a whole host of people right to take action i also think that there's limitations to the way that they've been presented i think that it's all it's speaking to the choir right it is motivating the people who need to be motivated but there's also ways of presenting a lot of these goals in a way that will make someone think oh i want to do that you know in my kitchen or with my kids or maybe that's a way of reframing um something we're talking about at church or the way that i am interacting with my kids there's ways of really drawing the lines between the the sustainability goals that that industry and people kind of in our world um are talking about these things they resonate with the masses we're just not talking about it the right way it's a communication as a as a big key i'm really excited for the food for climate league and what you're kind of hoping to do there and moving towards and that you've created this and i know you're working with some other greats and and you're surrounded by great people but it's just to provide no-brainer good ways for us to eat sustainable and to to to make it a much better option for our world and to help us you know to move forward in that guys of of of doing that i also want to know because we're at a pin pinnacle time not only is it the craziest of times but it's also the the biggest bubbling up and organizations communities coming together to solve those problems the un was supposed to launch the un food systems summit in 2020 but because of the pandemic it's been moved to this year the pre-summit is in uh july in roam uh at the f a o future food institute with our our mutual friend and colleague sarah reversi is involved in that and and she will be there you you've done uh your kind of a book club videos with the future food institute and and presented that as well but are you involved in this uh uh un food system summit and i i guess in new york in september they'll have the actual food system summit there and there's a lot of action groups and and things there that are talking about all different aspects of the complex food system i have to be honest with you i think your voice is missing the the research the data the the the things that we need in that aspect are really failing and so i'd love to have you invite you but also have you be on board but are you doing anything with that already it's a very good question uh so first i would also like to plug sarah reversi and say that future food institute was our founding partner for food for climate league so we exist because of their support we still exist because of their support they kind of incubated us provided us with the team members um and intelligence and um anyway they've just been an amazing support system so so props to sarah who has her finger i feel like in in everything she's everywhere i don't know when she sleeps um i don't think she does um we're not intimately involved in the un food system summit we've been trying to find a way to to get involved we've proposed a number of different uh ideas to people who are directly involved we do think that our voice in our perspective is important um we would love to be providing trainings to people who are speaking even to help them reframe uh the way that they're talking about this we would love to to have a platform uh to talk about the opportunities really that that are before us and really kind of paint this picture not just of something dire but of something beautiful um that we can really grasp onto um you know it was a it was a dream of ours to do some original research to be able to present by that that period of time that opportunity is still there we're looking for the funding right now if anyone's interested in supporting food for climate league in our research we are eager to get more collaborators and sponsors and just like-minded passionate people on board so we can further our mission um but we would love to plug in uh to to the un food system summit and all of the great work that that's happening there to really just ensure that these messages don't remain niche and become more palatable and more accessible to the general public because at the end of the day that's what we need we need to get people jazzed about these ways of eating and see it as something that's affordable that's instagram worthy that's immune boosting um that is socially just i i definitely know you will have some opportunities to do that and it is really for everyone so not only can anyone get involved in the five action tracks and the food systems dialogues and create their own dialogues there's some set templates and guidance on how to do that and do it on a community local level as well as on that national and international stage and and sarah is probably the perfect partner to help you um whether it's the pre-summit or some others she's plugged into that system as one of the champions as part of that as well as well as many other people that you're associated with and affiliated with um i know sophie egan is somehow also uh connected with you yeah director of strategy and she she's done some things for the eat foundation the eat form which is a big form they're also plugged into the un food system summit so we just need to pull on some of those guys's ears and make sure that you have your seat at the table as well as anybody else we're all invited to have our voice at the table especially if we we we have a message if we can communicate it if we are not just shouting or or or be in mean or or or but if we have something that oh this could help everyone could help all humanity to get a step further to a better food system one that stops human suffering and dis ease of humanity and solves our climate problems in many different ways um so and i'll make sure to to push that as well but i'm sure regardless of that you're going to continue your message in your work and i i expect to see beautiful wonderful things coming from you a lot in your book you you you use everyday terms and laws but it's it's something some things that we might not have always heard and you explain them so no more phobia for me i guess i'm too much of a grandpa i it's basically it's a no phone phobia if i understand it correct yeah it's the fear of not having or not being able to use your smartphone um and there's there actually a push right now to get it entered into the dsm so that psychiatrist psychologist can formally diagnose patients with this so this is uh mark you might not feel this if you're not terribly attached to your devices but most people do feel no phobia so it's a sense of panic that can set in when your battery bar goes red or when you realize you've left the house without your phone uh if people really feeling like it's an appendage that they can't live without i when i was younger i used to feel that way if i left the house without my watch yeah there you go but but i've never felt that with my smartphone um although it is very hard because nowadays everything you do on there you can rent cars with your phone you know and and what if you lose your charge then the car you rent all of a sudden dies i don't know what happened but then there's also so um do it yourself diy which everybody kind of knows but this euda immonia euda monia euda monia which is human flourishing if i understand and um that that's really what what sparks me is because um in the conclusion of your book you kind of you you give us a synopsis of some tools some things that are available some opt very bright optimism of where we're going and how we can grab control of this and solve it um but you talk about human nature and human flourishing and not to go too far into doom and gloom do we have a human condition or human nature that drive us in this addiction or these negative things or is do we have this more human flourishing direction that we can go so this goes back to your comment about homo sapiens and the definition of being wise men i don't think that we're very wise i do think that that greed and self care and self interest are deeply embedded into us um i do think that there is though the opportunity for a counter culture and i do think that that native tribes provide that alternative narrative right saying if you are born into a position in which you don't feel like you need to fend for yourself when you don't feel like you're out for yourself then we can thrive in fact thrive to a whole new degree um and so i do think that there is a a opportunity to kind of remake culture with community at the center that is fulfilling those other core needs so that the greed the self interest is not even something that people are really thinking about because there's no need to be greedy right you you are provided for there's no need to be self interested in fact if you are maybe you're going to get kicked out of your tribe and that's going to be a real problem for you um so you know there are these there's a multitude of ways of existing and being in the world and a multitude of philosophies but one that has lived on right are these indigenous tribal cultures and there's a reason there's a reason why they've been around for so long why a lot of these tribes are still thriving if they can keep these western ideas out um you know i that's really the challenge for a lot of them um and i don't mean to to paint you know a picture of utopia right there's still suffering there's still problems even within those indigenous cultures but guess what there's a lot of problems and a lot of suffering and some major issues that need to be solved um again we are not flourishing right now um you know on a personal level on a physical level on an emotional level we are not flourishing uh when it comes to the way that we treat our environment our planet is not flourishing um and there are plenty of people who will say you know the world is is safer and more peaceful now than it was in past times and and maybe maybe that's true um but i also think that because of the technologies especially that that we've developed we are more fearful we are more anxious and maybe there were kind of horrible things that were happening but we didn't know about most of it we know about what was happening you know in our immediate tribe we were not taking in the horrors and the ills of the entire world um which also are kind of you know further pushing us towards this this mentality of self-interest because the world feels so dangerous right now um but i do think that there is the opportunity using these same technologies in fact to cultivate that sense of interconnectedness um with one another with the earth um and so i do think that there is an uplifting ending that is possible and if i didn't believe that i wouldn't be doing this work um you know there's certainly days where i where especially if i'm if i'm watching too much news about politics i i start to feel the other way um and i need i need a reminder um but no i do think that that when if we follow the path to human flourishing we will be doing the right thing for us and for the planet in your book there's a lot of you know obviously psychology sociology um captivating investigative reporting but it's also you if you go to your website a lot of the things that you've done and you consult clients with there's some tools the study is actually downloadable and you can go in and die take a deeper dive into the information which is kind of tickled upon in the book okay we don't want to be bored by a lunch of research stats and data but um should you want to have that deeper dive there are some tools and that stuff on your website and i'll put that in the show notes and description um that people can take those deeper dives and also to to the food for climate league so that they can find out more about that i'll put all those links in the show notes or descriptions tell me if we've left anything out specifically about the book that we still need to address because i have one and you're probably the last really really hard hard question that's gonna that smoke's gonna come out yours no i'm just kidding you've you've got this and and then three other questions for my listeners but i want to make sure that we've covered everything um that you'd like to let us know yeah i mean just kind of you reminded me so in conjunction with the hungry book i did run an original study with data central it's available for purchase you can download the executive summary for free online um it's a 75 page report that really digs deep into the way that technology impacts people emotionally but then how that shows up in food culture and the reason and and also our relationship with nature interest in diy um activities the reason why i did this is because i've been doing you know research as a journalist essentially as a you know creative non-fiction writer for 10 years which mainly is interviews shadowing evaluating a lot of academic literature reading other people's work coalescing all of that together but i developed a lot of these theories about human behavior and how all of these different threads were interconnected and i reached out to jack lee's the ceo of data central and said can i test this can we run a survey and thank goodness he said yes so we surveyed 1,100 people across the united states um asking them these questions about their food behaviors but also their anxieties their sense of connection to their community their obsessions with influencers um and the number of wild plants they can identify in nature the number of hours they spend outdoors all day and we found some really really interesting insights as it relates to restrictive diets and levels of anxiety attitudes towards gmo's um the the connections as well between people who are eating foods at their desk um and connection to technology as well as you know we found it we found one group of people who were closer to reaching eudaimonia and i'm going to leave it as a cliffhanger as to who what group of people those were um so yeah that's great the only part that's great you you also took some notes when i interrupted you did we get a cover those did you answer those okay great i just don't didn't want to be rude and interrupt you on that the hardest question i have for you today is the burning question wtf and it's not the swear word like you're probably thinking although maybe during this crazy time you've said it a few times pulling out your hair when your child was not around i hope um it's the question what's the futures and i don't want to know for someone else or the german politicians or the us government what's the futures where are we going to give us the roadmap what do we have to look forward to well i mean i think that there is a need to understand that at our core we are all motivated by those three human desires right and that's just not that's not going to change and so what what does change is the environment and how well that's being fulfilled by the societal structures that we've developed so in the immediate future i think without question right you're going to see kind of the food trends of immune boosting foods i think the number of eating disorders has unfortunately skyrocketed this past year as people have been searching for that desire for control which also means that interest in restrictive diets like gluten-free soy-free sugar-free what have you um is is also going to probably continue on we're going to see probably a lot of nutty interesting different ways of eating that that will emerge uh with people trying to create that sense of of order um i do think that that restaurant culture is going to come back really strongly you know at the beginning of all of this people were saying that restaurant culture was over and i'm like are you kidding me right think about the foodie movement was born out of the 2008 recession that was when people didn't have money right it started with food trucks and we want to invest in experiences that make us feel good and restaurants can provide that place for also community bonding and i think when it's paired with the racial justice movement this greater interest in in local talent and local flavors which i do think is happening i think it's really this moment that that restaurant culture should be building on and taking advantage of and allowing people to celebrate to connect in this whole new way and i do believe that people people are starting to understand that you as an individual can have a legitimate impact on the outcome of our of our world of our health and safety and i you know i'm heartened by the fact that interest in climate activism has gone up over this past year i think for a lot of people they're like oh this is what a global crisis looks like and this might just be a very tame version of what's to come but i also think that there's been a really clear line drawn for people of you know if you take responsibility here are all the people that you can protect if you don't take responsibility here are all the people you can infect and i think that that has in many ways created a sense of empowerment for a lot of people that can be leveraged and in terms of you know where we go in the future i i'm you know i'm i'm no more uh uh uh what do they call the soothsayer um i i can you know i can't say where exactly we are heading but i do think that we are at this really pivotal moment in humanity where we are going to have to decide are we going to be seeing each other as equals as valuable people who deserve food and nutrition and shelter and love and respect uh of equal amounts no matter the situation you were born into or are we a specie that just wants to self protect by surrounding ourselves with people who look and sound and eat things that are familiar to us and i do think that that is going to determine how long homo sapiens are around um and this is you know it's we we are at a really pivotal moment in in the story of of humanity and i hope that i'm not leaving people with a sense of dread because the reality is a lot of what's happened over this past year has been really uplifting people are taking on sustainable behaviors they are standing up for people's rights they're marching in the streets and i think that we are by and large on the right path but it's going to take conviction and it's going to take passion and it's going to take excitement and it's going to take um all of us especially us within this industry creating a new narrative to invite people into this movement as stakeholders and make sure that we're not the only ones who feel empowered that everybody feels empowered to make these changes for themselves in their community well first of all ding ding ding you got the answer right you got it right so correct no actually that's one of the best answers i've received in a long time i ask all my guests that and for me what's the future is what's the plan what's the roadmap where we're going how are we going to get there you know if a ship doesn't have a course a plan it's never going to get there it's just going to drift around and i really like the the wisdoms that you gave us i think they're they're wonderful and it's not too much doom and gloom there's a lot of optimism in there and i think we can do it and the tools are there the things are in your book i i i think i want to throw another hard question in there for you it's not too hard it's very similar to the one i just asked but maybe you could give a little bit shorter answer even if this is possible what does a world that works for everyone look like for you oh look for me personally yeah that's a good question i think it's a harder it's a hard one i think that i would be living in and amongst a stronger community i think i would know my neighbors i think i would be eating entirely with the seasons unless there was something to celebrate in which i wanted to pay a lot for a pineapple flown in from someplace i think that i would be surrounded by people of all different age groups and races and backgrounds and so would my daughter and she wouldn't think anything of it i'm trying really hard to create that world for her right now but honestly it's hard i think that the foods that we eat would also be representative of a greater diversity of cultures that were reflective of the people who surrounded us and the cultures from which they came from i think i think that i would be spending way more time outside and less time with screens yeah less screen fatigue zoom fatigue i totally agree with you these last three questions are for my listeners there if there was one message that you could depart my listeners as a sustainable takeaway that has the power to change your life what would it be your message i have two things that's fine that's fine okay first of all recognize that you are a part of earth and that you evolve to be a part of earth every single thing that you eat came from earth and everything that you waste has an impact on earth which connects to my second point if you want to make an impact on the climate crisis the most important thing you can do is to waste no food think about the energy the time that people but also the sun and the soil put into the foods that you are eating try to utilize all of it think of it as a culinary challenge and also you're going to save money you're going to eat more nutrients it is a win win win all around and it is according to draw down the number one thing we can do to combat the climate crisis and that's not something that corporations are responsible for it's you so go out there find some new recipes explore your foods buy foods that have the leaves on them that have the roots on them use all of it and have some really great food adventures and save some money while you're at it that's perfect what should young innovators investigative journalists reporters authors foodies in your field be thinking about if they are looking for ways to make a real impact i think it really is about how to make sustainable food culture relevant and accessible to all people because we're just not going to get to the end goal if this remains a topic that is mainly targeted at white western and wealthy audiences everyone has an opportunity to take part there are affordable delicious ways to take part but oftentimes we're not making that terribly apparent to people we're not really making it super accessible for people so it doesn't matter in my mind whether you want to do that through synthetic biology or you want to do it through regenerative farming or you want to do it through storytelling or or even an app if you are going to to democratize sustainable eating i think that that is a way to live your life with purpose i love that what have you experienced or learned in your professional journey so far that you would have loved to know from the start i think it's up to each of us to define what success looks like in our careers and this does go back to meritocracy um i wish i hadn't been so focused on my SAT scores necessarily and i hadn't been so focused on um pulling in certain accolades um but then again i'm very very fortunate to have support financial support from from family to feel like i have uh people to fall back on i do have that strong support network um but i really do think that i was raised in it with a mentality of you know seek to do something that's good for yourself instead of what's good for your community and i am now just now starting to feel like i am a part of a community and it's the most fulfilling time in my career that i've ever had so i think that if i i just wish that i had had that message earlier on eve thank you for letting us inside of your ideas it's been a shared pleasure we could talk for hours but that's all i have and i really thank you for your time and i wish you a wonderful day unless there's anything else you'd like to tell us or we missed that's it i'm done no thank you mark for these really fantastic questions and for a great uh a great conversation i appreciate that you're most welcome thank you bye bye