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How food — yes, food — can be a tool for social change - Ted
Chef David Hertz is trying to build a movement that uses food to create jobs, increase empathy, and even address inequality.
Everything changed for Brazilian chef David Hertz when he visited a favela for the first time. It was 2004, and he’d just quit his job as a chef at an upscale restaurant on the most expensive street in São Paulo. A friend was visiting a favela in Jaguaré, and Hertz tagged along.
“That moment was my big insight for life,” says Hertz, a TED Fellow. He saw firsthand, for the first time, the scale of poverty, unemployment and social exclusion in his own backyard. When he learned that 11 million Brazilians live in these urban settlements, he decided he couldn’t go back to working in exclusive restaurants. “I felt that I’d found my mission, and my passion and my talent would serve that mission,” he says.
Chef David Hertz is trying to build a movement that uses food to create jobs, increase empathy, and even address inequality.
Everything changed for Brazilian chef David Hertz when he visited a favela for the first time. It was 2004, and he’d just quit his job as a chef at an upscale restaurant on the most expensive street in São Paulo. A friend was visiting a favela in Jaguaré, and Hertz tagged along.
“That moment was my big insight for life,” says Hertz, a TED Fellow. He saw firsthand, for the first time, the scale of poverty, unemployment and social exclusion in his own backyard. When he learned that 11 million Brazilians live in these urban settlements, he decided he couldn’t go back to working in exclusive restaurants. “I felt that I’d found my mission, and my passion and my talent would serve that mission,” he says.