Transcripts For CSPAN2 Bay Area Book Festival - Alice Waters

Outside sources as well as on the table. Half of nprs kitchen sisters producers of the kitchen series for the morning addition and i will your moderator for the conversation and child food is fundamental. Joining me are two of the most revolutionary food activists in the bay area. Case there the nation. Their mavericks in their field, Saru Jayaraman is a new book by beck people take on corporate food and winning. Directive you see Berkeley School Labor Research center, cofounder of the Restaurant Opportunity Center united and president of one fair wage. Alice waters is berkeleys mountain is 49th year. And the edible schoolyard project now in its 25th year. A program that has ignited a network of some 7000 Edible Education projects around the world. Alice is also the author of some 17 books including her upcoming manifesto about the power of food. Under sipping of the National Medal of honor from president barack obama. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Alice, lets start with you. Food is fundamental what is the burning issue to you now . I think that we have a Silver Lining possibility. Because we do all eat. We all eat. And we have the possibility of eating with intention. We could buy our food from the industrial food system, we could buy our food from a farmers market. We could grow our food. We could connect with the farmers to take care of the land. And we could say i want to buy directly from you. At the beginning i was looking to taste. I couldnt find food that tasted like the food i had eaten in france. And it led me to search for what was growing in and around the bay area. And the first thing we did was go to farm stands. When you buy directly from farmer doesnt cost as much because a retail component to i it. There are distributors taking the money. We would go to the stand and by the corn. And then ultimately we ended up the doorsteps of the organic movement in california. And the best tasting food was the food that was seasonally. Also the most affordable. So that is where we went. We went and got peaches brought them to the restaurant. And it was amazing, people would say were did you get that page . It is so delicious. And again making the connection of farm to table. Now come i dont if i answered your question. Host im wondering if there is a founding in this first early fruit trees and brought into the now, here we are six months into the pandemic so many food chains and food supply things have been completely disrupted. Everyones health is at stake. In thinking about these issues for decades now. What is the burning ember . Who to the real part is the fact that the industrial truth system has been exposed. In it for the money. They dont want to buy the food for the animals brothers and give the people who are hungry, i just got rid of the animals, they shot them and buried them. This was a real moment in the pandemic fry think everybody lives in this country. He saw that happening on the front page of the new york times. And you see the people who are struggling to find something to eat. It is happening all around. Were worried about her food security. And weve never really been worried before in this way. Maybe during the depression we were worried, i know my parents were worried during world war i ii. Its the reason they planted a Victory Garden at their home. And we ate out of that Victory Garden growing up. My mother would can the food for the winter. We ate ice it i always set wouldve been great if she was a good cook but she knew nothing about cooking food. That is the place where we have never been trained as a country. Yes, there are pockets of people, particularly in the south. We found we went to tennessee and we cooked for the chefs there for al gores climate underground conference. And i found that they had five different kinds of beans i had never heard of before. And they knew how to cook greens so beautifully. I was again, surprised by the biodiversity, the local bio diversity. The traditions of food that exists in this country. But in 50, 60 years of fast food indoctrination, we have forgotten about it. And this pandemic has brought it back to us in a way that we would want to know what is nearby. We want to help the people who need the food in our communities we need to think of everywhere that we can plant food. And i know that is happening in stockton right now. There is a project the mayor of stockton stressed if we could help connect the organic farmers with food boxes that could be given to people who need it living in stockton. And we found people to help us do that, well what could be better than people who need it most to get the help for food. But it has also exposed the whole health system. Big time. And the people who are the most vulnerable because of their poor diets and fast food are the ones who are most susceptible to the pandemic. Its really a moment that we need to Pay Attention to what we are eating. So in again you have such an astounding overview of the Food Industry. The lives of people who work in food and in restaurants. You have devoted yourself to their will being and sharing those issues. What is the burning issue food is fundamental, right now what is the burning issue we will fan out to both of you to discuss. There are so many of them. Where we need to go, where weve been, where we are headed. There is so much i could talk about. I think the burning issue for really millions of workers right now at least in the Restaurant Industry, for any part of the food system that you think are essential workers those essential workers are suffering. And the Restaurant Industry is the largest of the food labor system. And we in a lot of states there is this absurd minimum wage of 2. 13 exists in 43 states, not in california was an issue before the pandemic. But the issue right now is a lot of states that pay these workers to dollars are reopening at 25 or 50 capacity and asking workers to come back with their lives for 2dollar wage when chips are down 50 to 75 . They are being asked to enforce social distancing and mask rules with the very same customers for whom they are supposed to get tips to make up their minimum wage. It is an impossible situation. Its a Public Health disaster. The workers are either going to enforce these rules and not get tips and face the Food Insecurity alice is talking about. Literally thousands of workers telling us, i dont have money for gas to get to the food bank. When i get to the food bank there is no food, spoiled or its gone. I have people telling me im now stealing food for my children because i have no other way to feed my children. These are foodservice workers. These are people whose lives have been about serving us food are not able to feed their children. So either theyre going to reverse those rules because they are told they have to, and not get tips or they are not going to enforce the rules and get tips and feed their kids. Its an impossible choice. Its going to lead to a Public Health disaster either way. So the burning conditions continues to be how can we pay the largest workforce in america 2 an hour . It was never accessible. Now its literally a matter of life and death, literally. Like to s something about that becse this is all about food being cheap. Cheap and easy. An order for food to be sheep, only way is to buy food thats industrial pulled deuce. Not to pay the people who are preparing it or serving it. And that is why the food is cheap. Now since the beginning of time, food has always been considered precious, dont waste any little thing, save everything. I always think of jose when i say that because he said you know you by expensive organic chicken i can make for meals out of it he can make six, you know if you know how to cook. But the thing is the fast Food Industry has made money on taking advantage of the cheap price and in chasing people to buy that big food because it is cheap. And we need to really expose that right now for what it is. Its all wrong, its all wrong. Host so could you lay out for people who might not know i spoke with you a few months back towards the early days when people were actually getting kind of violence in those early days. Could you explain the situation for a lot of restaurant people what the conditions were. Could you do a quick sketch of that so people listening could get a sense of what people are going through . In the ongoing situation. So before the pandemic there 13. 6 million restaurant workers. It was the nations largest fastestgrowing private sector. It is also the lowest paying that was due to the absurd wage of just 2. 13 an hour. It originates from Restaurant Owners after emancipation not wanting to pay workers a minimum wage. Not wanting to pay black people a wage make them learn on tips. It was intention to be on top of the wage. So they change it to for the black female population that became law in 1938 is part of the new deal which says you get the minimum wage except for tip workers you could see were dollars as longest tips brings the full minimum wage. One from 01938 to 2. 13 an hour which is the wage today and was the wage before the pandemic. Before the pandemic was a source of economic instability and sexual harassment. Instilling mostly female population of restaurant worker workers, with the pandemic about 10 million of the 13. 6 workers lost their job. Weve done a lot of research could be started a fund we raise like 23 million to a and 20000 workers are applied for a low of them, 60 were unable to access Unemployment Insurance. Not because of immigration status the vast majority across the country were told that their wages and tips were too low to qualify for benefits. They had paid taxes to receive. It was such a slap in the face. These are states that refuse to raise their wages and then turned around and told them with the pandemic because we didnt raise your weight you cannot now get benefits because your wages are too low to meet the minimum threshold. That resulted in literally mass starvation, eviction, homelessness. Im sure you have seen there so many press reports with restaurant workers living in poverty across the country. Inability to pay utilities and heat in other states, winter is coming without heat people are going to die. People dont understand that people are going to die. Th cannot feed their kids. Theyiterally cannot be there kids. That has been an ongoing situation. When y compound on top of that thi incredibly impossible choice, either you take this 2dollar job and risk your life going t tryo Police Customers while youre trying to tip them orou refuse the job and you dont get to keep your benefits. If you got benefits. Because unempyment insurance was set up the 30s it was set up to encourage people to take any lowwage job it came your way so that means you are forced to take that job. Otherwise you lose yr benefits. About al the restaurant workers facing tse conditions or health risks, i talked to restaurant worker today whose mother died of covid school he was working a 12 hour shift in a resurant. These a communities of color with very high risk of everything from diabetes to l kinds of health conditions. They are being told if you dont take that job, we dont care about your health situatio if you dont take that job and goack to work for 2dollar weight you will lose any benefits that you got. Becauseost of those workers were denied andppointed by the state. Some were able to get the 600 in a federal government which then disappeared and is not come back. And so here you are the very impossible choice. Im going to risk my life and my familys life or lose my benefits. There iso good option there. I just dont think people derstand the scale or the intensity or severity seeing and about toee even more of. Alice so what is going thugh her head . What is going through my hea head . A massive strike. Just a massive strike. Every restaurant needs to just say no. We wont open up our restaurant restaurants. We have to be sort of in solidarity is what was going through my head. Truly. Because i mean we are in a very vulnerable situation to. I mean we are very lucky that we have all of these years and wonderful clients who support us no matter what. We are trying to get food to them. Were trying to social distance and all of the above. But whether we can keep it together sell enough food so that when we open back up, when we are able to we will have the staff to do it. But think about that kind is kind of unbelievable to me. It is kind of unbelievable also to think about the food children are being served at schools. And of course for that school there is food for the kids. And that is something that we are scrambling to take care of in berkeley. I am just thinking about all around the country the children dont even have free or reduced lunch. It is a time when i think we can make decisions about how to feed all children three Healthy School lunches every single day. And when we open up need to be prepared to do that. We really need to consider food and the values that come with that food. What we are teaching our children. And stewardship any quality and nourishment are key to that. How the food is grown is a big part of it. I am looking for leadership from the industry in california. I am. There we have a very big buyer of food. What if they purchase their food with discernment . What if they decided they would support all of the Small Farmers that take care of the land . It would put young people back into farming. Put young people into farming. What if we bought directly from the farmers, what the end of the state of california did that. Select not just uc berkeley. I am not talking uc berkeley. Im talking much every campus. It could be an incredible stable buyer. It could connect all of the students with the farms. I mean that is what happened. We would go up to the farm pick up it was a real education and we had to learn how to cook differently at the restaurant and completely seasonally. But it is such a resource for research. You imagine what food could repair our immune systems. Its good for our health. And its good for the health of the planet. It directly pulls the carbon down and it restores climate. And i dont know, i am very hopeful in that place because it is a chain around the state of california. And i guess i really was in berkeley at the right time in the 60s. And i felt the power demonstrating at that point. The hope that we had. The hope of stopping the war in vietnam. The hope that we could really attract civil rights. The hope that the university could provides free speech for everybody. And we accomplished a lot. We did that together and i have never lost my hope since then. So, that is where i am going. Im going to the place of education which i think is her last truly democratic institution. All children go to school or should. Im afraid our schools have been industrialize like our farm. We need to make an intervention right to the cafeteria door. We need to come in with the diet that is so fundamental. Promote the university come for the fronts and appreciation looked grateful to the people who bring us our food. You have such an organizer a systemic mind all these kind of things just having heard what she said she has the vision using the system as an economic while connecting the universities to farms good for the climate regenerative agriculture. How would you implement that . Help me implement this. What is on the first first things that comes your mind hearing that vision customer curing that mission . Speech i think this crisis has created such an opportunity to push for transformative change at all levels. As on that question i would say elevate the crisis that children are facing. Accessing food right now its elevate the crisis of children in the bay area or around uc campuses that are not able to access food. I know my childrens Public School is shut down there facing a charter school. Most corporate food and those corporate education trying to impede on the Public School system. These can definitely play a role in changing all of that. I think elevating the crisis is a way i would go about doing it. I think thats true on these issues beyond the food system in america. I think elevating the crisis that all workers in the food system are facing whether they are in the meatpacking plants on their processing the meets at their table. Subbing from high rates of coronavirus were there the restaurant workers trying to afford social distancing on a 2dollar wage for theres an opportunity right now given that word essential there is a new awareness. That these workers are essential. We cannot live without them. So think its time to push on the awareness. I think its time to lift up the Silver Linings. Think theres real silver linin lining. Because she is one of many Restaurant Owners that have said, like she just said things have to change for workers and for employers at the same time. I just want to lift up. Weve been having this extraordinary moment or Restaurant Owners who fought us on raging wages in the past about two or 300 of them have come over to our side in the last several months, during the pandemic and after the murder of george floyd have common said its time to and this 2dollar wage. And so we have created the unit he deals we came together in a crisis order that multiple states at the federal level. We sang for sakes if we as independent restaurants and workers were typically on the other side of the aisle if we can come together and say we need both the restaurants and raise the wage act which provides a 50dollar minimum wage in an oblate elimination we both we protection for workers why cant our elected officials lead to an agreement to bring back the 600 Unemployment Insurance we should bring back stimulus on the verge of closin closing. They may hear the data we could lose between anywhere from 15 to 85 of independent restaurants to the pandemic. I think that is so horrific. As another data data point when you hear that data point is ultimately means 50 to 80 of low wage workers will be unemployed. So have Unemployment Insurance livable wages and relief for restaurants. We found a way to bring independent restaurants together to make thes