TEDx Manhattan: Changing the Way We Eat

Confirmed Speakers

• David Wallinga
  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.
• Patty Cantrell
  Patty Cantrel is a community organizer and a journalist focused on making the business case for local and regional food. As Regional Food Solutions LLC, she works with nonprofit and educational clients to communicate new food and farm business options and public policy directions.
• Marianne Cufone
  Marianne Cufone is the Executive Director of the Recirculating Farms Coalition. She is an environmental attorney, and long time sustainable food advocate. Marianne is also a professional chef, trained by the Natural Gourmet Institute in health supportive culinary arts and theory. 
• Laurie David (Host)
  Environmental activist, producer and author Laurie David has worked over the past decade to bring the global warming issue into mainstream popular culture. Declared the Bono of climate change by Vanity Fair.
• Mitchell Davis
  Mitchell Davis is the vice president of the James Beard Foundation, a cookbook author, a food journalist, and a scholar with a Ph.D. in Food Studies from NYU’s Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health.
• Wenonah Hauter
  Wenonah Hauter is the Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. She has worked extensively on energy, food, water and environmental issues at the national, state and local level.
• Paul Lightfoot
  Paul Lightfoot is the Chief Executive Officer of BrightFarms, which designs, finances, builds and operates greenhouse farms at grocery retailers, eliminating time, distance and costs from their produce supply chain.
• Gary Oppenheimer
  Gary Oppenheimer, a CNN Hero, Master Gardener, Rutgers Environmental Steward, Huffington Post “Greatest Person of the Day” and 2011 Game Changer, winner of the 2011 Russ Berrie Award for Making a Difference and founder/executive director of the AmpleHarvest.org Campaign.
• Wayne Pacelle
  As President and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Wayne Pacelle leads the nation’s largest animal protection organization with 11 million members and constituents.
• Urvashi Rangan
  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.
• Cara Rosaen
  Cara Rosaen is the Co-Founder of the crowd-sourced nationwide food guide, RealTimeFarms.com.