Author of “Hungry City” Carolyn Steel gives TED.com talk on how food shapes the world we live in.

“A third of the annual grain crop gets fed to animals, rather than to us human animals, and given that it takes ten times as much grain to feed a human if it’s passed through an animal first, that’s not a very efficient way of feeding us…”

This is just a quick quote from Carolyn Steel’s TED talk on the history of how food has shaped our cities.  Being a New York City resident it’s impossible not to notice the amount of food wasted (at one point in the talk she notes that currently in America one half of all food produced it thrown away in America) or the monumental amount of food available to purchase, the whole of which obviously could never be produced in the amount of area given in the greater five-boro area.

It’s a quick video, rounding off at about the 15 minute mark, and Carolyn is clearly knowledgeable about not only the current state of food but the history of it’s effect on the layouts and cultures of larger metropolitan areas (which can be connected to her other profession, which is architecture). She ties in historical data with solutions to coexisting agriculture with urban areas and presses the concept of local farmers markets that bring in endemically grown produce, meats and dairy.

The main point of the talk is to stress humankind’s interrelated relationship with the planet and the food we take from it which sustains us and in effect keeps us connected to the natural world we live in.  Anyone interested in the growing problem of and questions arising from the overproduction/consumption/waste of food will enjoy this presentation.  You can also always visit the TED main site and view the talk there: How Food Affects Our Cities.

One last quote from Carolyn; “And when you think, that 80% of global trade in food now is controlled by just five multinational corporations, it’s a grim picture.”