Food Journalist Ori Shavit on Vegans on Top at TEDxHiriya (Full Transcript)

Food journalist and blogger, Ori Shavit talks on Vegans on Top at TEDxHiriya conference. Here is the full transcript of the presentation.

Listen to the MP3 Audio here: Vegans on top by Ori Shavit at TEDxHiriya

TRANSCRIPT:

What if I told you that you can change the world every time you go to the supermarket, prepare dinner, or visit a restaurant, and even enjoy every bite?

Well, if you said that to me only two years ago, I would have laughed in your face. Back then, if I went to a restaurant, I would order a big, red, juicy steak. If you say to me, like, whatever you want to choose to eat, I would prefer to sit on a bar and, with my bare hands, tear a crab apart, bit by bit.

I was a restaurant and bar critic, and food to me was an adventure, pleasure, passion, satisfaction, memories, and home. Changing the world was not on my plate.

But as I became a conscious eater, I discovered I can save lives, improve my health and contribute to protecting the environment. I put the world on my plate. So, I am changing it every time I go to the supermarket, prepare dinner or visit a restaurant.

And if you’re thinking, like I did, that conscious eating means giving up all the pleasures of food, I have good news for you. I took all these ingredients of tastes, flavors, aromas, textures, and added in values of helping, giving and protecting. So, food is still an adventure, still a pleasure, still a passion, and I still enjoy every bite.

We’re all eating from the moment we were born throughout our lives. It’s breakfast, it’s lunch, it’s dinner, and personally for me, it’s everything in between.

Before even I finish one meal, I’m already fantasizing about the next. But how do we choose what we eat? Based on advertising? Your mother’s cooking? Habits? Culture? Taste? Most of the time, we don’t make a conscious choice. We eat and eat, and never stop to think about all this food we put into our bodies. What’s in it? How it was made? Where it come from? Who suffered for it? Who died? What is its real cost?