This mini-season of the Chefs’ Manifesto, produced in collaboration with The Rockefeller Foundation, focuses on food choices – and such that are climate-friendly and healthy!
In the three episodes of this season, the two podcast hosts Chef Anahita Dhondy and Chef Tom Hunt take a close look at what climate-friendly and healthy food actually IS and how it connects to the Chefs’ Manifesto’s Thematic Areas and the SDGs.
And we’ll discuss individual choices and choices along the value chain:
-
how do people choose what to eat?
-
how as chefs can we influence food choices to ensure they are good for both people and planet?
-
and how should we move forward and drive the change the world and its food systems urgently need?
EPISODE 1
The first episode discusses the topic of climate-friendly, healthy food choices mainly from the perspective of cooking. The guests in this episodes are Chef Arthur Potts Dawson, Chef Alejandra Schrader, and Professor Bruce German.
EPISODE 2
In the second episode, listeners hear from another food systems expert – Dr Namukolo Covic, and the amazing Food System Vision Prize winner Jian Yi from the Good Food Fund, who alongside other winners has been developing visions of regenerative and nourishing food systems that they aspire to create by the year 2050.
EPISODE 3
🎧 Listen to Episode 3 (Deepdive) Now!
This bonus episode features a conversation between podcast host Chef Tom Hunt and Chef Douglas McMaster – an inspirational chef who has been pioneering zero-waste cooking in the UK for over a decade. They speak about the ins and outs of zero waste and how it relates to climate-friendly healthy food choices.
Our Partners:
The Rockefeller Foundation
This Chefs’ Manifesto Podcast Season is produced in collaboration with The Rockefeller Foundation.
The Rockefeller Foundation is a pioneering philanthropy built on collaborative partnerships at the frontiers of science, technology, and innovation to enable individuals, families, and communities to flourish. The Foundation works to promote the well-being of humanity and make opportunity universal. Its focus is on scaling renewable energy for all, stimulating economic mobility, and ensuring equitable access to healthy and nutritious food.
Through its ‘Good Food’ strategy, The Rockefeller Foundation seeks to improve the diets of 500 million people through an equitable and regenerative food system by 2030. To achieve this, the Foundation is working with people and organizations across the globe to bolster science and data, support policy changes and leverage existing funding in order increase the availability and accessibility of food that’s good for people and the planet.
Chef Anahita Dhondy
Our first Podcast Host is Chef Anahita Dhondy. Anahita is an Indian chef who received her training at India’s Institute of Hotel Management Aurangabad and Le Cordon Bleu. Chef Anahita is a well-known champion of her traditional Parsi food culture, the rich cuisine of India’s Zoroastrian community. Additionally, Chef Anahita works to promote lost recipes and ingredients, such as the traditional grain millet, in her cooking.
Chef Anahita was involved in Tasting India’s Eat Like Your Grandma campaign – a chef-led campaign that aimed to popularize and reintroduce ‘forgotten foods’ into India’s diet. At age 23, Chef Anahita became the former chef–partner, SodaBottleOpenerWala, the Bombay Irani Café and Bar chain that promotes Parsi cuisine. Chef Anahita aims to be a youth icon and inspiration for aspiring female chefs in India and around the world.
A passionate cook since the age of ten and Le Cordon Bleu Grand Diplome holder, she has won several awards and accolades, including featuring on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list 2019. Her Book – The Parsi Kitchen, out in 2021, is her first book. She is a champion of sustainable grains like millets (an ancient grain found in India and Africa) and local, seasonal and regional ingredients from India.
Chef Tom Hunt
Our second Host is Tom Hunt – an award-winning chef, food educator, writer, climate change activist and author of the new book Eating for Pleasure, People & Planet.
Hunt prioritises people and the environment within his work and believes in a world with a fair global food system where our actions benefit other people and nature. He works to protect biodiversity and promote equality by raising awareness about the issues affecting our food system whilst empowering people and businesses to act responsibly through his workshops, consultancy, food writing, presenting and events.
In response to the global food waste scandal, Tom has developed an holistic approach to food called Root to Fruit Eating that educates and enables everyone from home cooks to industry chefs to tackle climate change through the food they cook and eat.
Episode 1
Chef Arthur Potts Dawson
Chef Arthur Potts Dawson has been cooking for over 35 years, starting his career as a chef in 1987 with a three-year apprenticeship with the Roux brothers. Since then, he has worked at Kensington Place, as head chef at the River Café and alongside Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall and Pierre Khoffman. Chef Arthur’s two restaurants – Acorn House and Water House – have both won numerous awards for their excellent food and sustainable practices such as rooftop gardens, low-energy refrigerators and wormeries, proving the profitability of an eco-friendly approach. Additionally, Chef Arthur founded The People’s Supermarket, a supermarket that connects the urban community with the local farming community by stocking high quality and environmentally friendly produce from trusted, local suppliers.
Chef Alejandra Schrader
Chef Alejandra Schrader is an author, plant-based nutrition certified food champion, culinary entrepreneur, and activist. After having grown up in Venezuela, Alejandra moved to the US where she used food as the conduit to connect to her culture and heritage. Over the years, she has been featured in many US television networks, using her platform to showcase plant-based meals that are cooked smart and packed with amazing flavour and nutrition. Alejandra’s advocacy centres mainly around sustainable diets and environmentally friendly farming practices. And most recently, she published her first book – the low-carbon cookbook and action plan.
Professor Bruce German
Dr Bruce German is professor and chemist of food science and technology at the University of California and the director for the university’s Foods for Health Institute. Dr. German in his work uses breastmilk as the model for the genetic blueprint for foods that support health, as breastmilk evolves for the purpose of nourishing growing mammals. This evolutionary logic forms the basis of his team’s research for discovering physical, functional, and nutritional properties of milk components and applying these properties to other foods.
Episode 2
Jian Yi
Jian Yi, an internationally acclaimed filmmaker and founding president of the Beijing-based Good Food Fund, whose Mama’s Kitchen project is the second top visionary of the 2050 Food Systems Vision Prize we’re hearing from today. Jian Yi served on the core leadership team of Action Track 2 of last year’s UN Food Systems Summit and is a Fellow at several world-renowned universities. His films have won many international awards and been shown around the globe including at New York’s MoMA. Under his leadership, the Good Food Fund has become a leading initiative in China to promote a plant-forward dietary shift, and has co-founded the Food Forward Forum with Yale Hospitality, along with The Culinary Institute of America, University of Massachusetts, Harvard, University of Connecticut, and Google.
Dr Namukolo Covic
Dr Namukolo Covic is a Registered Nutritionist and the Director General’s Representative to Ethiopia for the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). She is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where her work included contributing to African Union and Ethiopian Government efforts to address food systems for better food security and nutrition. With a dual background in both agriculture and nutrition, her expertise spans the areas of policy, dynamics of agriculture and food systems with a special focus on Africa. Namukolo is inspired by Africa’s untapped potential for a better future and loves traditional African storytelling and the lessons they teach.
Chef Douglas McMaster
Douglas McMaster was born in 1987 in the Northern English town of Sheffield. He won a BBC competition at the age of 21 and was named Great Britain’s best young chef. In 2010, he then opened a zero-waste pop-up cafe in Sydney, Australia; started his first zero-waste restaurant in Melbourne two years after, and – once returned to the UK – founded Silo in Brighton in 2014 (now relocated to London). Douglas is also the author of The Zero Waste BluePrint – A Food System for the Future, giving an insight into the dramatically reducing waste and creating a closed loop system.