What is the Food Revolution?

28 April 2016

Access to good, fresh, nutritious food is every child’s human right. It’s easy to agree with this, but the reality is an astounding 41 million children under the age of five are overweight or obese, while another 159 million kids are too short for their age. None of these children are growing healthily. I’m calling on us all to join a global Food Revolution in order to provoke debate and inspire real, meaningful, positive change in the way our children access, consume and understand food. We want to shout about important food issues, encourage everyone to take part in impactful change and push governments to improve their food and nutrition policies. This is a space for us all – individuals, parents, policymakers, communities and businesses – to come together, make a noise, share our stories and debate the issues that can provide our children with access to good, fresh, nutritious food for generations to come. This is a global revolution – wherever you are, join us. OUR PRIORITIES FOOD EDUCATION Good food education enables people everywhere to develop a better, more understanding and balanced relationship with food, in turn empowering them to make responsible, healthy, sustainable food choices, for life. With better food education, people can make better choices with what is available to them, wherever they are in the world. COOKING Cooking is a vital life skill. Knowing how to cook from scratch empowers people to appreciate the value of food, to understand what they are putting in their bodies and, therefore, to nourish themselves and their families with fresh, nutritious food. NUTRITION Ensuring children have access to good, nutritious food is vital to helping them grow up to be healthy and happy. Without proper nutrition, children are at risk of becoming either overweight or obese, or suffering from undernutrition, which impacts their health, growth and development and puts them at increased risk of disease. Understanding food and nutrition and the dual role they play as part of a healthy lifestyle is essential. MORE ISSUES WE CARE ABOUT ETHICAL BUYING Supporting food that has been responsibly produced, with the environment, animals and people in mind, supports a healthier, more sustainable food system for now and the future. In doing so, our food choices are a vote for the system that produced it. Everyone should understand what they are buying, and have the knowledge to make conscious, well-informed decisions. FOOD WASTE Globally, we waste enough food to feed the world’s hungry four times over. Not only is food waste immoral, it’s unnecessary. Through better food education, teaching us to value our food and manage waste better, as well as the promotion of better production practises from farm to fork, we believe that food waste can largely be avoided. OUR PLANET Sustainability really matters. To sustain nutritious food for now and for the future, we need to care for the planet that produces it, linking up individuals, food and the environment to create a sustainable, healthy food system on both a commercial and a domestic level.