Whenever there are new TED Talks it’s always interesting to see who ends up speaking and finding the most interesting of conversations. I think this year there was easily one man that caught my attention the most, and that would be chef Jamie Oliver. I remember Mr. Oliver from his very first cooking show, The Naked Chef, which I was quite excited about because he’s very cute, but sadly he was never cooking in the nude, no matter how dangerous that may be.

The reason Mr. Oliver was speaking was because he’s currently trying to fight the rising tide of obesity here in the United States and across the world. Obesity is becoming one of the major causes of death around the world and especially here in the States and this is because of a few reasons. The first is that our diets are comprised of mostly fast food.

100 years ago if you were overweight it was a sign of wealth, that you were able to feed yourself well and probably ate three meals a day. These days it’s the exact opposite. Fast food has given the country an endless supply of calories to consume, thus getting fat, while the wealthy are able to by organically grown produce and eat finely crafted, healthy meals which keeps them trim.

As Mr. Oliver points out this isn’t entirely our fault. There’s a severe lack of knowledge about food and options when it comes to fast food and the foods we can buy at grocery stores. Basically we’re killing ourselves because of our diets and something needs to change.

I’ve kind of just summed up the main ideas but I implore you to take 20 minutes and watch the video above. I cooked all of my meals yesterday, thinking about each ingredient I used and checking every label, seeing just what I was consuming.

Bobby

My buddy Dave Franzese sent me an email with a hysterical little promotional video his studio Dark Igloo did for New York eatery The Pump and I can’t stop laughing. The video centers around the fictitious Crap corporation, with ads featuring Crap being put on all manners of foods and made to look like modern day twists on old advertisements.

When watching the video you should watch all the way through the first time, then watch again but pause each at each new scenario so you can read the copy that was written, it’s really funny. The ads themselves area also really well done, looking like something you’ve definitely seen before but with a more demented angle to them all.

I’d also suggest checking out The Pump’s menu as well, which looks absolutely delicious. I wish they had some of these here in Los Angeles.

Bobby