labor movement on raising auto parts jobs and wall masht jobs. we have a lot to do but the fast food workers have made us believe the seemingly impossible could be possible again in this country because so much change has happened in the discussion about what wages >> mary kay henry, president of the international union, our guest on "newsmakers" sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. now a panel of women food activists and filmmakers, some who started food safety organizations tuck about pesticides, genetically modified food and preserving our soil. his is an hour and 10 minutes. >> everybody got their wine. probably a better program with wine. it's actually organic wine tonight.

hello and welcome to tonight's program in the commonwealth club of california. my name is kevin o'malley, chairman of the business and leadership format the club and host for tonight. our program tonight, food fights for the 21st century, women voices driving change. our panelist are dab a coons garcia, director of symphony for the soil. mrs. honeycutt, executive director of moms across america. judy shields, executive director of teams turning green and our moderator is cindy dames, c.e.o. of text talk studio and moms determined. now i'll turn the program over to christy dames. >> thanks to the commonwealth club. we appreciate being here tonight and i'm excited to have these three powerful women, some moms, some not. powerful women, all the same. tonight we have a program about food and what's happening with our food. i'm asking my first question of

deborah coons garcia. you have two major award-winning films and have been a filmmaker since 1970 and are quite the vocal activist and speaker and have a famous husband, jerry garcia. how did you come to make films about food? you've been a filmmaker a long time. how did you arrive at food? >> in 1970 when i was in college, i started making films and also because of that era, back to the land and going natural and all that, i became vegetarian and stopped eating junk food and soda pop and became a genetic fanatic and felt better and became committed to that. so i knew at some point i wanted to make films and didn't start off making documentaries. i didn't make documentaries for many years after i started making films but always wanted to make a film about the food system and why people should demand a healthier food system and i had been informing myself of food and social justice and food and health many years.

the first film was "future of food. when i started filming it 14 or 15 years ago, no one was talking about the food system t about the perfect pear and lovely bread and that's important but i wanted to make it broader and let people understand the changes happening in the food system especially genetic engineering and buying up the feed supply and patent king and that stuff under the radar and i didn't know that and i was an extremely informed consumer and that film i did a lot of outreach and was very popular, netflix bought 50,000 copies and all the whole foods carried it and lots of communities used it and community screenings and we had a great program where people could buy bulk copies and people would buy 200 copies and give to their friends and after four years of that i decided to go deeply into that same realm. so i made the film symphony of the soil and the first part is oil and the middle part is the

relationship of the soil's point of view to agriculture. you don't want to poison it or kill it or get back to it and is promoting this idea of healthy soil healthy people, healthy planet which i think we need to demand and we deserve nd we should get it. >> beautiful. thank you. we have zen honeycutt from southern california, she is a mom and executive director and founder of moms across america and there's a moms across the globe that's taken off. every year fourth of july there are 172 parades that happen as part of moms across america. she is a major roundup. she was just invited to the e.p.a. a few weeks ago because

she had a major storm that happened around the country. how did you arrive at food activism. i got involved because i love my kids and like millions of moms across america today they had food allergies and still have food rrgs -- food allergies, dairy and wheat and gluten and nuts. the dairy, wheat, gluten and nuts allergies, i'd heard of that before but the carentean was a karen what? it was a sea wood food thickener in everything kids like, hot dogs sauces, organic food, unfortunately and when i found out that it can cause stomach ulcers and cancer, i realized what we don't see is extremely important as well because the inflammation on the outside is actually a warning light for what's going on in the inside. i started to research about ood.

i watched food inc and genetic roulette and found that g.m.o.'s are genetically modified organisms and are foreign proteins and knew it had something to do with my children's health. i got involved with prop 37 and within for months my son's allergies which is a red line around his mouth that swelled up for weeks, within four months it was almost completely gone. which i saw my children's health improved, i got very active in prop 37 and thanks for pam larry. it was election night and i was sitting in the back of the room and the this room leader had done landmark and i knew she'd done it and i had done it and thought why is she there as the leader and i'm back here.

and realized i'd been completely involved and was helping out and asked myself what if i took on, i'm the one to transform the food energy, not me by myself but my actions, i'm taking it on and knew in that moment the results would be completely different than being somebody who helps out. i asked myself how can i get as many people know about g.m.o.'s in the shortest amount as possible? i came up with the parades. not many moms will go to washington but we will go to the fourth of july parades where the port-a-potties are set up and the media can't ignore you and a lot are televised and we'll bring our kids and tricycles and hold a balloon and say moms across america march to labeled g.m.o.'s. and people ask what is a g.m.o. and why are these moms marching about it because everyone knows

the mom's only interest is the well-being of her children and why i believe moms are so important and why i got we've gone this and other things we'll talk about. >> judy shields is the founder and director of teams turning green and a mom, the mother of erin have rodey, a voice around the world as a young woman and the two of you did something amazing years ago, about 12 ears ago now i think and started a revelation in many ways. can you tell us how you came to food? >> all my life changed when my daughter was born and read a book called "diet for a foreign planet" by is gentleman name david stmbings einman and in a day my kitchen went from conventional to organic and never looked back and realized the child i was carrying in me needed to come into a clean world and she grew up and some years later i realized i needed

to do for her and for her peer group everything i could possibly do to sustain the world so we started teens turning green which is much more now college turning green and so many of our students are here with me tonight. but basically our goal is to march around to college campuses and advocate on college campuses and work with some of the most extraordinary young people on earth and affect change. and my role and daughter's role in that is to be mentors and identify the issues that are the largest issues in front of them and keep them how to fight the fight. food this year has become a huge one for us and there's food justice initiatives on college campuses and food policy committees, as there should be. the food being fed to our children from the time they're in preschool to college is some of the most horrific food there is and i think we know that, filled with everything we're hearing about and so this

particular year i decided to do something about food and for many years i've been standing up and talking about you absolutely can change the food in your school and absolutely change the food in your life and refrigerator but the school piece i never really saw happen. so i decided we were going to focus on a school in our community, very underserved, marin city, which is in marin county and we were going to set criteria that wouldn't waiver and the criteria was fresh, local, organic, seasonal and g.m.o. and zero waste and everyone looked at me and said it's out of your mind and can't happen and shot off an email to the superintendent at the time and said i want to change your food program, can i? and the response back was absolutely. and it was at that moment i thought who am i to change the food system? probably an epiphany much like you had. i didn't really know what i was doing. i partnered with a local chef that had a lot of buying power and pretty well known and he helped open a the lo of door with purveyors and farmers and

we started on august 28 against all odd. we had a chef start, the david lynch program started and basically we've done it for a year now and see healthy kids and we see kids that care about the land and we see kids learning about the garden and we're starting a farm on their campus. i think it goes back to each one of us had a passion and we each realized we had a purpose and that our voices were just as powerful as anybody else's and why not? our motto is see and do. if you can dream and realistically do something to change the world, you don't have a choice. >> thank you. >> deborah, you've had an enormous, right out of the box, a symphony of the soil so premiered in the smithsonian "new york times" critic pick, you're in universities,

education programs, can you talk about the state of our soil? what's -- what did you learn from this film or what did you bring through in the film? what's happening with soil? and then if you could also talk about the world congress of soil where you just spoke last week? >> right. one of the really interesting things i learned, i was telling people i was going to make a film on soil in interviews and when i spoke before i knew anything about soil and i had to learn about it. but one of the things i learned is that the united states is really gifted with a very high percentage of really good soil, the two most fertile soils and 42% of our soils are excellent and why we are the country's czar and because we have these resources and what we'd do in america is use the soil and use it up and move west because there was always so much we could always -- there was always more so it's actually shaped our character because we don't like limits and when people say to americans you

have to accept limits, they're like that's un-american to accept limits because in fact our soil and our resources were unlimited but now, if we keep farming the way we are, we'll be out of topsoil in 30 years. we're poisoning our soil, the whole agricultural system is very destructive to soil and the way that nature works is nature gives back and the leaf falls from the tree and the microorganisms break down and return the nutrients to the soil and can feed the plant that grows. there's a cycle in nature that has to do with giving back to the soil. you have to feed the soil. industrial agriculture just takes and takes and doesn't give back. the soil just becomes more and more depleted and they have to use more chemicals and fertilizer and is a very unhealthy system that deplease the soil and can kill the soil and deform it. organic agriculture is sustainable agriculture gives back. i think our society, we've mirrored this, you know.

society now people just -- a lot of people just take and take and take and don't have to give back. and i think that we need to change this whole system in america to make -- to actually bring out the other quality that we have which this is a really difficult challenge and we have to be really smart and courageous to face it. because we might not be able to do it and then americans go we can do it, you know. so i think we need to shift this idea of what it is to be american and patriotic and doesn't mean we can do whatever the hell we want but let's do the right thing for the right reasons. so this soil film is a really wonderful film and we'll be selling it afterwards, i'm in business. but i've shown it's now being sold at whole foods and i've shown it at film, food, farming festivals, communities use it. we've sold 30 copies just to schools in iowa in the past several months. and they show the belly of the

beast and they're showing it to farmers and the nrcs, the natural conservation soil service, part of our government, the department of agriculture, they bought copies for their centers around the country to show farmers to help them do things, like even small steps like cover crops, simple, cover crops and turn it back to the soil and returns nutrients and nitrogens to the soil so you don't have to use so much synthetic nitrogen, if any. so i'm happy about that and i love making films and i'm also we passionate about that change things because i think a lot of the problems people have with health is that as these women have been saying is because we're not growing food in the right way. toxin without the we're not returning nutrients to the soil. it's not nutrient dense and just junk. i was in korea showing the film at the world congress of soil

science where every four years they have this. it's a big thing for the planet and 2,400 soil scientists who are al kut in their plaid shirts and khaki pants and totally wonderful people were there. and so i was there. the film was shown as a cultural centerpiece of congress which was an honor. so what made me feel really good is the film is collaborative so you can brag about it, i was putting up a poster outside the big auditorium in the morning before it was showing and i'm putting up the poster and this woman walks by and she says are you deborah in this accent and i said yes, and she said i'm deborah, too, i'm from brazil. i teach soil science and diversity down there and i use your film in our classes and it's great and i said oh, thank you so much. and just as we were talking i said that's great, i'm really honored. as we were talking this other woman came by who was german and said are you deborah? and she said i'm from germany

and she was from europe somewhere and goes, i use your film in classes and name all these soil sciences and she's like we all use it and i was like right on. and it's being shown in whole foods because it's kind of like the next level. my philosophy is smarten up, don't dumb down. give people information in a way they can take it in and understand it and feel empowered and they get it and think yeah, i get that. therefore, i'm going to eat organic or i'm not going to put roundup on my garden or i'm going to show this film at thanksgiving dinner next year so we can all be on the same page and understand it because soil science is cutting edge. and if we change the way we do agriculture not only is it healthy for our bodies and for our planet but we can put a whole lot of carbon in the soil and help with global warming so there's all kinds of reasons to become soil conscious, to move away from being soil blind to

soil conscious and we are creatures of the soil and we should treat the soil as if it's part of us which in fact it is. >> beautiful. thank you. so speaking to soil zen, perfect segue to you because one of the things that you and moms all across this country who have educated themselves and know what's going on, they see it in their families and children, the number one thing or one of the number one things really hurting our soil is chemicals and what's going into the soil. so you are specifically around anti-g.m.o. and what that means. can you talk about the passion that you have around that and the moms all around the country that are here with you on this? >> sure. first i'll clarify g.m.o.'s are genetically engineered to withstand pesticides. it either is a pesticide, the pesticide is inside of the food itself, or it's genetically engineered to withstand

pesticides. last year alone there was a 73% increase in roundup which is the number one herbicide used in the world and that -- the active chemical ingredient in roundup is called glyphosate, talk about taking and taking, t actually takes from the soil and means it draws out or hold and makes unavailable the vital nutrients of any living thing it suches and is indiscriminate and therefore causing vitamin deficiency and any living thing it touches. dr. huber, plant pathologist for 50 years said it essentially gives the plant aids and kills its up mune system and therefore the normally harmless bacteria in the soil kills the weed. so what is it doing to our children? that's our question. nd glophosate is being used to 500 million pounds around the world. it has just been explosive in

its use and in fact don't just use it on the soil before the crap is planted and don't just use it on g.m.o.'s but spray it as a drying agent on our rice, r wheat, our sugar and dried peas and on your hummus and tea and your steve yeah. the levels a-- stevia. and the levels allowed are far beyond what is used to destroy gut bacteria in chickens. scientifically proven. we allow on our food, the e.p.a. allows three parts per million on sweet potatoes and five parts per million on regular potatoes and 40 parts per million on the canola oils they cook with in the restaurants and 400 parts per million on the grains that the animals eat that we consume. so, you know, and the soil is getting inundated with this chemical sprayed on g.m.o.'s as

a drying agent and we're extremely concerned about the health risk to our children. and what we're seeing is our children are having all kind of chronic health issues. >> it goes to the point of a highly respected researcher at m.i.t., stephanie sinif who came out with alarming statistics and said quote, at today's rate, by 2025, one in two children will be autistic. and she has a chart that shows ne-on-one the use of that. >> we have testimonies of mops. moms across america, within four months we had a reach on facebook of over 300,000 a week.

thousands of people come our website with testimonials about how they get better when they get off g.m.o.'s. cindy of rhode island found out about them when she was 11 and was severely autistic and within two weeks her father that would visit often said do you have him on a new drug and she said in, we just went organic. two years later he entered high school and not one of his teachers could tell he was severely autistic. not one. we have mores with children with asthma and autoimmune issues and call kind of health issues across the board. the stigmatism in his eye went away and the doctor said because there was probably some form of inflammation. she said i know what it was, g.m.o.'s and glyphosate. we know this is the issue happening with our children. >> judi, please talk about what you're doing in the schools.

you have so much reach, but now, you are doing something different, and you said this feels like the most important work of your life right now and when you are engaged in. can you talk about that? and why do you think that's so? >> just sitting and listening to you allows me to know more about why we are doing what we are doing. moms can attempt to take care of their children when they are not home, but they are in school a big chunk of their lives, and 16 years, at least, and they are being fed gmo food. they're being fed the worst food they can be fed and everyone thinks it's ok. part of what we're trying to do is mobilize food policies on these campuses and encourage kids to fight the fight. one of the things we created is a nong.m.o. pantry. and we showed the chefs the differences they could make by eliminating soy, corn, canola

and transitioning it to non g.m.o. and they're probably eliminating 0% of the impacts that we're having. i think part of what we all have to do as responsible citizens and especially moms, is we have to fight the fight in our schools. we can't keep hearing that we can't afford to do this because we're killing our kids at the same time. we are killing off the next generation. we are impairing their ability to have children. and if each of us as responsible citizens really works to do what we can, whether it's in our local community and stopping roundup of being sprayed in our common areas and parks and every place else, then we're reducing the impacts our kids are feeling and for me personally, if we change the way we're feeding our children and did it this year in one little school for 150 kids but the most underserved kids in our population, the kids that are eating the worst food three meals a day, so i personally

wanted to start there because we can make a difference. and in all of our communities, the populations look like that. and what's our responsibility as citizens in these communities to take care of these kids? it's been interesting because our whole career as teens turning green, we typically work with wealthier white people and people are saying why aren't you working with the underserved populations and my response is we're all underserved when it comes to these issues, nobody is taken care of. and i think there are some of us worse off than others but i feel like the opportunity to know you can effect change and now my opportunity to stand in front of people and say you can do this in your schools, you can do it within budget, you can do it within the usda guidelines and can do it at public schools and don't have to go to a private school is a really important next step for all of us because we can now go back to all of the superintendents and leaders of school districts and say, you

know, stop. and i think the more of this kind of information deborah is talking about soil that's the most vital piece of our lives and talking about roundup and the exposures and autism rates, like who is going to take care of these kids with autism? who is going to school them? eventually the externalities about what we're paying the end of the day, like we might not spend the money now but so spend it later and it's getting worse, and i think for me, food is the core issue and the seminal issue of our lives and all owe it back and what i try to do every day. >> i want to add to how important it is because there are 31 million g.m.o. meals that are served each day in our schools. so what jude judi is doing is -- so what judi is doing is crucial to the integrity of our entire culture so we're going to be promoting the whole entire process with moms across america to our moms all across

the country. we've had 246 leaders in 44 states so we want to get that out in the fall in our back to school campaign. it's just crucial that they are empowered in our home towns, all of us are empowered in our hometowns to do things like what you're doing, judi and make it happen and make it real and we can. >> i have this dream of a map with red dots for every single school that's gone g.m.o. free. ours is the first, this m.l.k. academy is the first school to be g.m.o. free but i know that within the year we're going to start seeing dots all over this map. and i think if we can see it and it's tangible and if one of us does it and makes the next person brave and courageous, there will be a ripple effect and the world will change. moms will -- >> absolutely. let's take all moms here for a second. because i'm involved with a moms determined project and i am just astounded at the moms and their power. and so i've had people say,

talking about how we're represented in the press, in the media. so first we're women but then you're just a mom. like what does she know? she's just a mom. i've been meeting with moms who are the mothers of autistic children who go to bed at night with a medical text and can eak to myochondriac disorder like nobody's business. the thing that the media, the portrayal of just moms or just women and we run 85% of the spending of the home is spent by the woman. so can we talk about moms and their power and how -- and women in their power and how are we gaining it? are we at a stand still, what is blocking it, any of you? >> there's a huge movement of oms right now. moms have been the ones to

determine the longevity of the human race. it may be a bold statement but i say this because fathers provided, they protected and would provide for the tribe or the community but mothers were the ones that decided what the tribe in the community ate and if they did not trust their instincts and fed the tribe rotten meat or questionable berries, then their entire lineage would perish. mothers have been able to trust their instincts until about 20 years ago which is when they introduced pesticides and g.m.o.'s in the food without labeling it. others have not known. and therefore contributes to the decline to the american health population. we are 17th, the bottom of 17th topmost developed countries. we have rates across the board one out of two of our children have a chronic illness and our babies are dying at

astronomical rates. we're number one in the world for u.s.a. for infant death on day one. we have 50% more babies that die on day one than 50% of the industrialized world combined. mothers are noticed. and we have so many birth defects and miscarriages and i believe the world is starting to take notice and we're not going to stop because the love for our children never will end. >> two weeks ago you had how many women call the e.p. and you were asked to go there? >> we were fed up with this glophosate issues affecting our kids with autoimmune and allergies and asked the doctors to test but they didn't have testing and i got one lab to do the first testing in america. we asked our mom friends to send in their urine and water d breast milk and we found

glyphosate in breast milk at 1,600 times higher that which is allowed in the drinking water in europe. and these are levels higher than shown to destroy gut bacteria in a chicken which is the same size as an infant. we sent in the report and they didn't get back to us for a month and we did a five-day call the e.p.a. campaign to recall roundup because when a product doesn't do what they said would do and they said it would not accumulate in the body and pass harmlessly through the urine regardless of the toxicity issue so it accumulated in breast milk and should be recalled. the e.p.a. did not respond and we did the campaign and said wednesday, can you please stop, 10,000 women have called. by friday they said we have to do our jobs. i said your call is to recall roundup and they said we prefer

to meet principals in d.c. we've gone and met and they've made some promises but they're not following through and we'll go back next week and stand outside the e.p.a. and meet with whoever we can on their ay in and offer them free gl ophosate testing and continue to demand to recall roundup. >> dr. warren porter researches pesticides on effect on people and he says one of the things it does is basically ties your hand behind your back so the other chemicals, the pesticides in your food like atrozene become more powerful. there's a really nasty cinergy going on between roundup and all these other chemicals in the soil. there was a certain level of roundup they allowed on foods and because of g.m.o.'s, you genetically engineer something so it can be poisoned and not

die. roundup kills everything green. so it kills everything but the thing genetically engineered to withstand poison. they had to up the amount they would allow on plants because they were spraying so much roundup that they were competing -- exceeding the original standards. >> it does not wash off or cook off. >> and the reason why the first genetically engineered product, that monsanto brought up was roundup because it was going off patent and they had to find a way to continue their monopoly on roundup which was very popular because it's supposed to be so harmless which obviously wasn't true. so they decided to have -- create seeds that they would -- you'd have by contract have to so roundup on these seeds makes it easy to weed so you can weed, one person on a

tractor can weed 1,000 acres by spraying roundup and did it to extend or manipulate and make people continuing to buy specifically roundup rather than just the generic brand. antibiotic. as an and it destroyed gut bacteria yeah and can cause birth defects and cause infertility and sterility. there are many things people don't know. >> i'm watching the faces of the young women i work with every day and thinking about this is the next phase of young women. we're not talking about little children being impacted, we're talking about young women going to be giving birth in the future and who knows what that will look like and we're talking about students that want to make different choices

but in their schools it's not happening and i think between the moms and army of students, the thousands and thousands of students on campuses all over the country, the noise has to be so loud. well, this is interesting, too, because deborah, i wanted to talk to you about being a filmmaker, about the power of being a filmmaker and what that means and today, so many people have access to equipment, digital, everything, to be able to make films. our are we diluting power through film, gaining power through film? how is that today? >> well, film is obviously a very powerful medium and because of technology now, filmmaking has become like writing was a couple hundred years ago, everybody could write but not everybody could make a living as a professional writer, and that's fine. so i mean, i've been making films a lot of years and i got my m.s.a. from the art

institute so i love the crafty films. so my films are highly drafted and beautiful and i see film as being an emotional medium so they're informational but also impact people emotionally so that they transform them so they want to make changes. so, you know, there are all kinds of films. there are some films so simple, you press the button but what they're filming is so powerful that they move people. i love making films. i like, for example, the symphony so i love the challenge of taking soil which is dark and innert and film which is light and movement and bringing them together in a film that people like seeing. so i think film is a powerful medium. i also think i'm an older generation person, so i like getting information by reading it. i don't necessarily want to watch a video interview and would rather skim through the interview myself and i always like long form documentaries

where you can go deeper and there are short films, and i didn't take short films seriously and someone asked me for their ort film nonprofit night and i made it and thought short films, yeah, short films, 10 minutes, 12 minutes, i can do that. but it's a very powerful medium and think it affects people in different ways but the great thing is is that if you have an audience that wants information, you can get it to them so immediately now, it's like magic and you know, they can just get it right on their computer and watch it and i know that my work, one of the things i like is these community screenings people do where they pay a fee and show the film and they bring their so they can ther discover this information together and meet work and network and have food afterwards or before and so making a film is a way and having the film seen rather

than just on the internet is a way to bring people together so they know who else in their community is interested in their issues and make alliances and get all head up about things and change things. i think there are a lot of ways that films can be useful and a lot of different kinds of films and i think everyone who makes films should get an award because it's really a challenging thing to make something that people are going it's a hrough even if simple film. good luck, girls. >> let's talk to the point of education and how you all are educating women, moms, families, communities >> the first thing i suggest is to have a movie night. if you have a g.m.o. movie night with 10 moms and i figured if they share with only five moms and they won't it will be like 500 but let's say they share with five moms and those share with five, then you educated 1,270 people in your

community. and i figured out if they just switch to organic food, maybe $200 a week, that's $13 million of food maybe local organic food in your community. one movie night can make a huge difference and that's a wonderful way to take on. want to plug in g.m.o. n.r.g. "unacceptable levels." we have the producer here, it's a fantastic movie and there will be a new movie coming out called "a new resistance" which will be about roundup. i've been watching and we have 26 interns working with us this summer and we're changing the world and to watch them use the mediums we're using whether it's social, we put out 100 days to an event, one of the kids made a stop action in a few hours and never done it before.

i'm watching the power and opportunity they have to not only change the world but minds of everybody they live with on a daily basis and to talk to all their friends and families and really have that ripple im pact go far fast. i think the opportunity to educate now is so quick. these guys can say whoever they want to whomever they want like that and we'll sit and come up with an idea about a project we want to do and 10 minutes later it's done and out the door and it's rippling all over the world because everybody is telling their friends. so i think all of our collective opportunities to tell the stories that we need to tell and to engage in the people and power we need to engage, a perfect example, 10,000 moms call the e.p.a. and say stop, show up, we'll talk to you. so i think we have to use every tool we have and every arsenal we have and the world will look a lot different. >> and at the same time, one of the campaign managers from washington state when they did the g.m.o. labeling up there said 60% of the team still

don't use facebook regularly. so we need to get out in person, we need to be, you know, connecting locally. so that's one reason why we're promoting the parades because when you get in a fourth of july parade, three people deep for three miles equals 49,000 people. person to person, mom to mom and you're handing them a flyer that says everything about glyphosate. you'll offer their life when you give a mom about g.m.o.'s when their child has you a advertise. if their parents have alzheimer's and you hand them this flyer. we encourage you to be the one. i like to say be the weird one that brings organic food to the picnic. be the one that brings integrity to the table, the one that speaks truth, brings truth to the conversation. e the light in this food

fight. >> i'd like to remind our audience listening at home it's the commonwealth club of california, i'm kevin o'malley, chairman of the business and leadership form and the program tonight is food fights for the 21st century, women's voices driving pain, judi shils and our moderator christy dame and will turn it over to audience questions and if you're here, if you wouldn't mind going out the back and coming around the hallway so we don't have you on camera. deborah, i'm asking the first question that a lot of people, you had a fairly famous husband who is an important part of your life as well. a lot of people wanted to know, what did jerry think about rganic foods and eating right? >> well, yeah, when i first met him back 40 years ago, you know, they weren't really into organic food but i was. i was pushing and a health

fanatic and stuff, so it was very hard to eat well back then, especially if you're a vegetarian or trying to eat healthy food if you're on the road a lot. by the 1990's, things got better and i was telling them before, we had -- you're a near rock star and can do whatever you want. a private chef would travel with the band and get what food we wanted and the hotels would have a special grateful dead menu that was organic and superhealthy and that stuff. but i'll probably say it again but jerry with his eating was like a lot of aspects in his life, when he was very, very good, but when he was bad, he was horrid. he probably should have been good more often, he'd still be here. but it's very hard when you're working a lot and there's a lot of demands on you. it's much easier now to be able to find organic, healthy food. one of the reasons is whole foods and this thing, people are demanding it and you can find it in these places where

before, we'd go to the health food stores and see apples that looked like they were 10 years old. i'm sorry that. whole foods, big corporation, thank god for whole foods because you can go there and choose what you want and if you eat in season and you seat simply, you can actually -- it's not that much more expensive. so with we have the best food in the bay area and so it's great being at home because we can grow stuff in our gardens year-round and have to realize not everybody has that ability but we do and need to celebrate it and support it as we all do which is why people look to us here to see what will be happening. >> i wanted to say as a quick aside, we spend a chunk of time going to the college road tour in the spring and go to cities and states and towns you never heard of. i live by the light of whole foods but there aren't whole

foods in every place and what we found is the proliferation of farm to table restaurants. we're seeing chefs literally change their worlds because of what they put on their menus and because they're buying from the farps and demanding organic, suddenly farms are transitioning from conventional to organic. the more of this we see, the more we can really tell that change is happening and coming. >> and we've interviewed a restaurant owner in dallas named patrick stark who said he switched over to 98% nong.m.o. food and one year later his sales increased $10,000 a week because the longevity of the oils is longer and people just want healthy, clean, pesticide free nong.m.o. food and we will you r it. because when get autism or cancer, you'll pend $10,000 a month more.

that will cost society as a whole. glyphoste won't allow you to produce tryptophan and can produce diabetes which costs the government $270 billion a year. in 13 years if it continues at the rate it's going we won't have any money left for anything else except for diabetes. so this is a health crisis that needs to be attended to now and the more that buy organic, the cheaper it will become and the more plentiful and the people who can even afford it, at least the g.m.o.'s will not be in the food anymore or at least the pesticides won't be in that food anymore. so that's what we're going for. >> take our first question. >> i have two. ne is is any of you ladies working the church circuit? you're going to reach a lot of people through the church, through religious affiliation?

>> especially the future of food was shown a lot by evangelical christian churches and get the screening rights and screen it. because they thought it was a bad idea and also the pope, the previous pope, he called genetic engineering an abomination where everyone was going right on. i agree with you, that that is. i have done some -- i have had my films shown at some churches and i've shown it at some churches and it's important because it has to do with respect for life. >> i'm not big on that but i think that's an excellent avenue for you. the other question is do you realize that america's economy is based on killing people slowly and that's what you're ighting. >> thank you. >> i guess what he means by that is that when our people get sick, it's by the chemical

companies who actually not only make the chemicals, they make the pharmaceuticals to make us feel better so there's a bayer, profit circle, pfizer, there's many chemical companies that make chemicals and also the pharmaceuticals to make us feel better. and that's not a profit circle we want to support. i was going to start by saying that it's the upstream medicine. thank you so much for this wonderful program. [applause] >> it brings tears to my eyes. so i thank you, and tell us as an audience, what are some of the things we can be doing to be activists in our own local community? >> well, number one, if you don't mind if i go first, number one, you can march in your parades, right? that's just around the corner

and you can have movie night. number three, we have things like what we've done in the past is baker creek heirloom brought us seeds, and stop spraying roundup because it's affecting our bees, we have a 30% loss of our bees. every third bite of food is affected by -- is created by bees. so we have these little seed packets and you can go around neighbor to neighbor and just say here's a free gift for you, please stop spraying roundup. you know it's been found in breast milk and urine and water? people start to think about it when you have a one-on-one conversation. and i really mean that. every single person's voice, every single person's vote, every single person's phone call. you know, bigger man mom tanto -- bigger than monsanto we're up against the doubt of the american people. too many of us think that we don't matter, that we won't count, that our phone call won't make a difference or our

letter won't make a difference and it's absolutely not true. all you need to do -- i had a cultured food party. if you do he to culturedfoodlife.com and tells you how it heals your gut. have your friend over, ground up some sauerkraut and make some cultured food. it's fun, it really is. you might have more ideas. >> i'm watching. we do that. i think you need to pick a passion and figure out what matters to you in your community and find out what's going on around it. earlier a woman watts mentioned by the name of pam laurie and was 62 years old when the prop 37 was starting to happen and she drove her car around to every county in california and mobilized the team that fought the fight to get prop 37 passed in every single county in california. and she was one woman. she's never done anything in her life but cared that much. and i think if we really look at our communities, if we really look at our kid, get

involved in your kid's school and change the way they're being fed. start a community garden. think about what you care about and then find your avenue for making the change in your communities because it's taking us, our feds could care less. they're not the people fighting the fight for us. our communities are and our community leaders have to listen. they're close to home and know you and live down the street and their kids go to school with your kids. i think if we each take something on, every one of us, i think everybody sitting at this table and probably many of you sitting in the audience are one person that fought the fight that we believed was worth fighting so i think for me that's the best answer. >> and i think that i know with my films, i try to, by the end of the film, people say oh, i won't use roundup or like with the future of food because it was the first one about genetic engineering and patenting and the alternative to that and my best friend saw it growing up and she said we need a farmer's market here. we don't have a farmer's

market. and she started a farmer's market and now it's amazing and a big success, they actually close down the square where it is and people come there and they have bands there and all these people are growing organically because now they have the market and she teaches people in our suburbs how to start farmers markets. and really it was because she saw this film and said i want that, too. but i think that when you try to say to people who aren't from where we are and are not food conscious, really think about the consequences of your food choices, if you buy this or eat this rather than that, what are the consequences of it. you know, this, you know pesticide laden comes from god knows where, supports god knows what, this, local, organic, healthy, yummy, feels good, helping farmers. so when people really become conscious of it and realize at even the smallest thing they do is in deciding what to

have for ludge or what milk to buy, it's part of the food system and many farmers are going organic because it's what people want and what they're choosing and drives the whole industry crazy because no one is buying their propaganda anymore. they want what they want and we cannot wait for the government to do it. indeed, we should get these things banned and all that stuff but you can't wait for them to do it. you just have to do it and they will follow. we have to do it and they will go like whoa, i guess we'll have to go this way. i just think even people that aren't aware that may eat junkie food, you know, just to say why don't you try eating another way for a while and see how you feel? see if you feel better? just try it. try it, you know. and then they can feel good about themselves and they want to do more and then it goes on d on and they become activists. and they become fanatics and activists and take it on. >> it's perfect because it's also about pick that thing

that's so important to you that has to do with food. for me, i'm working on a project called the moms determined project and we have a film, moms determined. of i interviewed 25 mothers autistic children and for three days we were locked in the rooms and was the most amazing experience. and when people see the teaser and they ask me, oh, well, clearly, you must have an autistic child, i say no. clearly there's autism in your family. i say no, there isn't. my own personal journey started unlocking these canaries in the coal mine, these children who are absolutely screaming with medically -- medical illness. that is coming from food and toxins and chemicals and all kind of assaults on these children that i was so moved that that story had to be told. so my own personal journey led me to open my eyes to what was happening there. that was very powerful for me and these moms will always say

to me, you don't have any connection to autism, yet you're involved here? they say i will forever be grateful and love you for this because these voices are not being heard. and so -- and they're very powerful. there's a group, the thinking moms revolution. they are powerful. and they are teaching people and educating and conferences like autism one. these things are happening everywhere. and people who are looking at long-term chronic illness are looking at autism for answers. alzheimer's, looking at autism for answers because it's all connected. and that was the most powerful thing. so even for me it was taking on something that isn't me or isn't in my world. that's not affecting me. but the impact of it is enormous. so please, sir. >> this is a follow-up to both the last two and i like the idea of reaching out to churches and faith-based people because we really have to do more and i admire you all for everything you're doing but the fact is we lost prop 37.

we lost 522 in washington more recently. these are the two blue states. and so i guess the question is how do we get that critical mass to get more people as part of this who under this message because we're up against millions and millions of dollars of monsanto and the grocery manufacturers leading the charge to file suit against vermont who passed the labeling initiative there and might start with safeway and every grocery store that's a member of the grocery manufacturers and say if you're a member of this group, we're not shopping here because we're losing. how do we start winning? >> one of the issue with g.m.o.'s because i've been dealing with this issue for 15 years now, one of the things the propaganda is we need g.m.o.'s to feed the world. that's what they say and all the liberals say oh, if we need to feed the world, i want to feed the world so i want g.m.o.'s. case closed. they don't have to think about it anymore.

>> they also say the labeling will increase the cost of food. >> yeah, the labeling will -- they have to say labeling will increase cost of food which is complete nonsense. the other thing is i think you should label it because it really will save the world and feed the world and the people who actually believe you can seek them out and eat them. war you afraid of? we know what they're afraid of. once we know who is eating it and who's not. the people eating it have more illness, then we can start tracing it and why they don't want it. they don't want it to be phrased -- to be traced. that's the problem. we have to keep at it, keep at it, keep at it and be more focused. especially these liberal, in quotations, sacred cows like we need to feed the world and if you don't want genetic engineering, you're a snob who can afford only the most

expensive food and you go bullshit, let's look what's going on here and we need to subsidizing subcy corn and stop subsidizing food that makes us sick and need to subsidize the programs going on in schools. we need to be pointed with people and not let them get the upper hand of putting the guilt trip on us. they are the guilty ones, they're the ones doing harm. the tide is turning. and i think we just have to keep at it because they are squared and there's a very influential person, i'm not saying his name but i heard him speak recently and said when he first started dealing in the organic fed arena, he first started talking to monsanto and were so arrogant, like we are the top cat. he said, now they're worried. they're worried. we're like yea, they're worried. so i think that's only because

they're getting pressure from every possible side, every possible side. >> and have literally said the biotech industry has a woman problem. there are mom bloggers and women who are saying their kid get better when they're off g.m.o. food and don't have medical records, by the way, we are gathering medical records. that's part of the issue. but we are not giving up and to answer the gentleman's question, california is not giving up. we have sb-1040 right now. we need you to call your representatives today. they're voting on it on thursday. we're not giving up. we are going forward. we have a legislative initiative to get g.m.o.'s labeled. there are 27 states there are 27 states not giving up. this is not going away. there is a recent poll that said 92% of the people strongly feel that gmo's should be labeled, so there is no giving up. >> i think if you look back historically, there are many fights that have been fought long and hard, and i totally agree, and we have a lot of

younger people now that are able to help fight these fights on their smart phones and really get the word out, and they are all of voting age, and i think for us, part of the reason we aim all of our efforts at the college campuses, they are the leaders, and if we can support things that change the world, good for us. >> and as we know, the great thing about food, you can do something about it. you can eat this food rather than that food, where things like energy and nuclear, what can you do about that? well, we can do something about food, which is why i think it is such a popular movement. once you know the right thing to do, you cannot not know. you know it is the right thing to do. you cannot go back, want to understand that organic and healthy food is the way. you just cannot pretend it does not matter. people only go the other way, getting more and more insistent.

>> next question. >> i just had a question about organic. with the revolving doors, i feel like organic is becoming more watered-down. what is going to keep them from allowing more harsh chemicals from getting into our organic food that we are spending a lot more money buying? your involvement with the national organic standards board would help. they decide what is going to be in organic foods or not, they have been historically allowing more and more, like carrageen, but it does not allow glyphosate or roundup, so organic food is not gmo, and there are no toxic chemicals, so our involvement in

this cause is what is going to make the difference, the calls to the national organic standards board. you can show up and say what ever you want. everyone gets time. you can show up at your school board. you get three minutes. you can say what ever you want. you can show up at your city councils, and you can say i want organic food in my schools, hospitals, my childcare centers, but it takes individuals, people like you and me that go and say these are the standards that we want for organic food, and it must be protected. >> also, there are some really good organizations, your gannett consumers organization the , center for food safety another one, and i get their e-mails every day. if there is some issue coming up about weakening the organic standards, i always signed those petitions, and then i know what is going on, and they have

representatives that go. who wass one lawyer arrested because she was protesting. alexis was arrested. >> she is a mom. >> but i think it is really good to support these organizations that are working on this a full-time and filing the lawsuits, because that is really what it comes down to. we need to use the courts and public pressure and a think also supporting places like whole foods, the good earth in fairfax, supporting people. we need teeth. organic has teeth now because it is big money, and i am for that, because i want them to have teeth, and i am going to support those organizations, so it is individuals, but it is also great to have the organizations that know they have got some chops that they can bring to the table.

>> we have reached the time were we only have time for one more question, and then we will go back to our moderator. this is the commonwealth club of california. my name is kevin o'malley, the chairman of the business and leadership format the club. our program is "food fights for the 21st century: women's voices driving change." and our panelists are judi shils, zen honeycutt, deborah coons garcia, and christie dames. i will turn it over for the last question. >> thank you. thank you, ladies, for all of your activism for all of us. the question i have pertains to coexistence. oregon is trying to map out where all of the organic fields are and where all of the gmo fields are, but the biotech industries are pushing back. they say they want coexistence. can we have coexistence and still have truly organic foods? >> of course not.

it is absurd. it is ridiculous. because the gmo flows across. i was able to question tom vilsack at a conference i was at a couple years ago, and so i said, "you have allowed gmo in alfalfa. it was a perennial. they do not need to spray it, and now it can contaminate non-gmo." and he was, "we all have to get along. i have two sons, and i love them both equally, organic and industrial," and i said, "with all due respect, one of your sons is a bully." and he said, "we can get along. we can live together." and i said, "gmo's can contaminate organic, but organic can't contaminate gmo." but i know a person who met with, from a seed company, who met with monsanto like 15 years

ago when this started, and they were promoting coexistence, and he said, "you know, there really is no such thing as coexistence. they would just contaminate the field," and the guy looked at him and smiled and said, "i know," and when he told me that story, it was a totally private, not recorded, and i just thought, oh, man, that is their strategy, is to promote this false idea of coexistence, which know isbut a would know absolutely unnatural and impossible to do, and then gradually just have gmo creep, and then it is game over. there he dangerous. coexistence, that entire idea should be busted. and you understand what plants are? do you understand seeds? really, only an incredibly stupid person would believe

that, and that is why they are saying that. some say that sounds stupid to me, but maybe i do not know how it works. no. >> animals eat the seed, and they very easily deposit it in fertilizer somewhere else. >> it blows. >> it blows in the wind. >> so in addition to that, a doctor from hawaii had a homeland security man visit him after 9/11 talking about fume safety -- food safety. the homeland security man said, i agree, gmo, monoculture, that is the most dangerous thing of all, because when a plague or a pest attacks a mono cropped, then we are all wiped out, and i said, can i quote you on that? why do we have this in the united states? he said, you do not understand. we need to have our enemies have this so we can control the food supply. and he said that we need to

prove that it is safe, so they will have it. >> those countries do not want it. >> china does buy 50% of the gmo soy and corn. they have it in oils and just feed it to animals, but they are wising up to this, and they are starting to cancel shipments, so they know that it contaminates. >> well, thank you very much. on closing tonight, i would like to ask for your twitter comment. if you were going to be tweeted right now. just in a short sentence or a few sentences, what you really want to leave an entire world audience with tonight, that is most important for you to get across, what is the most important thing tonight? >> well, i would say because i have turned into a soil freak,

i would say help the soil healthy plants, healthy people, , healthy planet. that is it. >> and i would say -- sorry, i am losing that thought. it really is that we can, every single one of us, can make a difference. just pick that one thing. start with one thing somewhere, and just start. you don't have to know how to do it. just do it and make a difference. >> and i guess i would follow. i would say dream it, vision it, and do it. [applause] >> i would like to ask our moderator for your closing remarks, as well. >> as a neighbor, your mom, if you're going to be a mom, find

that mom and help her, educate her. let her help you. find that mom, because these moms are absolutely taking it on, so find those moms, because they are nursing all of us, and mom in the greater sense of the word, right? the planet, the earth, mom. whoever mom is for you today, find that mom and help her. >> i would like to thank all of our panelists tonight. our program has been "food fights for the 21st century, women's voices driving change." our panelists are judi shils, zen honeycutt, deborah coons garcia, and christie dames . my name is kevin o'malley. thank you all for being here tonight, and with this, i would like to close this program on the commonwealth club of california, celebrating over 125 years of enlightened public discussion. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captig