“It’s not enough to just have knowledge and not have access to food”

“It’s not tasty, flavorful or palatable. It’s difficult to digest, but it’s necessary”, warned chef, writer, activist and presenter Bela Gil, a few minutes after starting her talk, which closed the Tutano Festival last Sunday (22), at the Oscar Niemeyer Museum.

Bela’s calm voice and gentle manner, an iconic figure on the Brazilian gastronomic scene thanks to her approach to healthy eating, disguise well the almost revolutionary ideas she carries within her. During the lecture, there was no shortage of criticism of the ultra-processed industry, the eating habits spread by agribusiness and the economic and social issues that make good food a privilege for few in Brazil. “It is a silent and silenced genocide”, she said, lamenting the 54% of Brazilians who live in a situation of food insecurity.

The devaluation of domestic work, the theme of her sixth and most recent book, “Who Will Make This Food?: Women, Domestic Work and Healthy Eating”, was also the subject of the conversation, in which Bela also presented five measures to make eating healthy – something that is good for the body, the environment and the rural producer – something accessible to everyone.

In an exclusive interview with Good Gourmet, granted ten minutes before taking the stage at the Poty Lazzarotto Auditorium, Bela Gil spoke more about the topics covered in her lectures and about the fruits of her more than ten years of work in defense of unrestricted access to quality food.

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Today you will talk about the democratization of healthy eating. That alone presents two enormous challenges: educating people about healthy eating and making it reach everyone. What are your strategies?

You put it well, the first tool is knowledge. People need access to information, to what we understand as healthier eating. First, to make a decision to choose what to eat, we need to have knowledge, knowledge is a right. Then, eliminating poverty, with access to your own food – being able to find healthy food to buy -, having time to cook. All these questions form the link between knowing and doing, because it is not enough to just have knowledge and not have access to food. And it is not enough to have access to food without having the necessary knowledge to be able to choose. There are many things, but I think these are the tools, starting with knowledge, with knowledge, so that we can move forward until the food arrives on our plate.

What role does making your own food play in educating people about healthy eating?

I think that when we know a process, for example, we know the best way to eat. Cooking brings us literacy, in the sense that we understand what good food is, what a nutritious dish is. When we know what to do, we know the ingredients that go into that recipe, the way it is prepared, we also value that food, that meal, more. So, I think that cooking has a very emancipatory role in our lives, in our society. Knowing how to cook your own food is the first step towards a path towards greater independence, especially from industry, the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry. I think it is a good path towards our emancipation.

And how do you analyze the importance of family farming in this process?

Well, family farming is fundamental, because most of the food that reaches our tables comes from family farming, from these small producers, from peasants. So, we need to increasingly value and recognize the work of these people, and encourage them, make sure they don’t leave the field, don’t give up. And greatly improve their knowledge and their working tools in the field. Not only does the consumer have the role of going after more local products, of getting to know the producers – this is for those who can, obviously, for those who have this opportunity to choose -, but mainly the State, the government has a fundamental role in encouraging production of these small producers with public purchases, helping with distribution, providing access and ensuring that the food they grow actually reaches Brazilians’ tables.

In your talk, you also talk about food waste. Brazil is one of the countries that wastes the most food in the world [10 ° lugar no ranking de desperdício, segundo dados da ONU]. How do you approach this issue?

I think waste is a side effect of our food system. The way we produce, distribute, consume and dispose of food means we have a lot of waste. But it is mainly an economic factor. Many times, we see a truckload of tomatoes, potatoes, being thrown away, because it is not worth the farmer carrying this food to a distribution center, because at harvest time, the price of potatoes has fallen, the price of tomatoes fell, so there is a very strong economic factor, it is a chain, a very intertwined web, that we need to observe. So, it’s not enough for us to just talk about using food in a comprehensive way, because this is a palliative issue. We need to ensure that food is not wasted, especially in the fields, because that is where the greatest loss occurs, almost a third of what we produce is wasted. So, we need to improve a lot in this place. And of course, as a consumer, we also have a great responsibility not to waste and one of the ways we can work to avoid waste is, for example, by having a compost bin at home. I think it’s a great way out, because banana peels, watermelon peels and pumpkin seeds become fertilizer for us to feed the land and produce more food. It is a way of recycling food. So, I think this is also a good solution for the consumer, who feels completely tied up, unable to solve the bigger problem, which is systemic.

Over the years that you have been talking about these topics, have you noticed any changes in behavior or a greater openness to discussing healthy eating and food recycling? Do you think you have already managed to plant a seed in this direction?

I think so, I think it is changing, it has already changed a lot. I’ve been talking about this for over ten years. I think that ten years ago what I said was seen with different ears, acceptance was much less, so to speak. People thought I was talking about otherworldly things, or very utopian things, or very inaccessible things that now we see are becoming priorities. In fact, it is not only a priority for people, to have more knowledge so they can make better choices, but even the role of the government, which understands that it is not enough to just have food on the people’s table, but quality food, because food bad is killing just the same. I see a very significant change in the behavior and choices of people who have already had this access to information.