This documentary series is not Hedayat's first rodeo. In fact, just 15 percent of the annual food waste in America could feed 25 million people, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. As often as I was shocked to see the blatant disregard and illegality of the things we were discovering, I was even more dumbfounded by the legal things that go on within the industrial food complex that apparently people signed up for. Last year, she made headlines for her award-winning docuseries, The Traffickers, on Netflix, in which she uncovered the underground world of illegal trafficking of precious minerals, counterfeit drugs, endangered species, and even people around the globe. They keep the fish that they can sell.
One of the tour leaders, David, explained to me that this is part of the capitalist system, that the food thrown out is built into a consumerist way of life. The show tackles that very question in episode two which finds Hedayat speeding across the Gulf of Guinea on the hunt for illegal fishermen piloting trawlers: giant commercial fishing ships that cast massive nets ââand drag them across the ocean to snatch up all of the marine life that they can. Be plant-based or a flexitarian if you can. About five years ago I was vegan-curious and was doing a lot of research about where my food was coming from. This is the best way to help yourself, the people and planet around you. Know it All but my god was I shocked and surprise throughout. Food Exposed is about that.
Have you changed any of your eating or cooking habits since filming? I really just want to get my hands dirty, literally. It's really hard for me to sit in front of a computer and feel like I'm nailing it. All food comes with a cost, not just in terms of dollars and cents, but also who and what is sacrificed to produce it. Hosted by award-winning journalist Nelufar Hedayat, the eye-opening series examines how our appetites shape our world, investigating the global food chain and the origins of our favorite ingredients. His early interviews ranged from Jim Henson and Dick Van Dyke to Phil Collins and the Dixie Chicks.
Give me an old-fashioned trafficker any day over a multinational and their lawyers. The show is currently in its 1st season. It wouldn't have been informed by how I was brought up or where I am from. What I do want to change is the one-sided narrative that the corporations presents us. The eight-part series also taps the talent of celebrities who are doing their own part in changing the food systems, including Nicole Richie, Jordana Brewster, Moby, Dominic Monaghan and others.
Here, volunteers cook up a feast made entirely from food that otherwise would have gone to waste. Hosted by award-winning journalist Nelufar Hedayat, the eye-opening series examines how our appetites shape our world, investigating the global food chain and the origins of our favorite ingredients. But we have our own part in it as well: I was shocked by the scale of our culpability as consumers. Of all the things she uncovered, Hedayat was most troubled by the season finale, an episode on the pork industry. Hedayat has a natural heightened curiosity and the spirit of adventure in her veinsâsomething she believes comes in great part from her upbringing. She examines the origin stories of our favorite ingredients and the regulations or lack thereof that drive our global food chain. We had to be there to capture it and show that these locals are right in their grievances.
What do you want viewers to get out of the show? Nelufar was also a reporter for Channel 4 News, covering domestic issues for the program. Not one to sit in a cubicle, the young journalistâwho was born in war-torn Afghanistan before moving to London with her parents at age 6âtraveled the world, from the North Pole to China, West Africa, and Asia, to uncover the shocking truths behind the food we eat every day. Nelufar speaks four languages including Farsi, Hindi and Dari. I completely see their point. As she travels the world, Nelufar reveals the true cost of food to people, animals, and the planet. And all it takes is people at all levels, from producer to plate, to just care a little bit more, be more transparent, and accept responsibility to cause the most amazing change.
And it is here where the cost comes into focus, in terms of the land, water and energy needed to produce the food and then on the back end, the methane a greenhouse gas that is emitted when it rots in a landfill, thus contributing to climate change. But what was more malign and insidious was the systems that allowed this to happen. Our voracious appetite for cheap meat is going to cause serious problems for our health. I think that the most shocking was how little I knew. And she speaks to a mother who confesses how much of the produce she buys at the local farmers market gets tossed, week in and week out. They want a society made fair and a food system that values the resources used to make the food we throw away.
This was a thing that I do ritualistically. When you pull a loose thread from your favorite sweater, it can be difficult to let it go. My aim with Food Exposed was a selfish one in that truly I was finding these things out for myself. Nelufar Hedayat will host this new series coming soon. Everything is now done on an industrial scale.
She has contributed for The Mirror and The Guardian. Individual episodes including Killed for a Horn and Fake Parma were finalists for awards including the Edward J. They want us to buy as much as we can. In fact they are compassionate, very enlightened folk who see clearly the mask we all put on so effectively. I found myself exasperated as the freegan tour leaders were taking orders from the crowd and heading to stores and restaurants where they knew food would be plentiful.