Best to read my article from Medium on this subject. As a food science major, I'd be curious to hear if you agree. You can also see my answer to audreyk2.

https://medium.com/food-is-the-new-internet/gmo-s-just-like-your-local-politician-241514af0702#.h3s3atgmy

I believe we have really lost our local connection to food and for the benefit of everyone in society we need to get it back. But there will always be a role for non-local foods in the future of #realfood. I wouldn't go down the path of chemistry to improve ripeness (I'm sure that's a fine path that people are already working on).

What I love about local is that you get more connection to your food by knowing the farmer. And the farmer is going to look after their animals, food and land better, because their community is their buyer. Everyone wins when we are more connected as a community.

The GMO debate is a frustrating one for me. I'm a scientist at heart, but don't see much benefit from the vast majority of GMO products. 99.999% of GMO use is either for animal feed, or for high calorie, low nutrition processed food and as a result is a key player in our obesity epidemic. I honestly don't know much about Greenpeace's role in the debate, but we need the debate to open, honest and transparent to get us to the right food future.

For additional info, see my Medium piece:
https://medium.com/food-is-the-new-internet/gmo-s-just-like-your-local-politician-241514af0702#.h3s3atgmy

We rocking it in Chicago! Check out tkc.com to learn more about our work there. The TKC team have done amazing things to get us to 114 schools there, reaching over 60,000 kids every school day!

And of course, I have my model 3 and I get goose bumps everytime I think about it. :)

It has become a popular marketing term and I really do hope that most of these restaurants do support local farmers in earnest. That being said, I am starting to see a lot more accountability out there and those restaurants that are not delivering on their promise won't be able to market themselves that way for much longer.

I love my life. honestly feel so blessed to be surrounded by the people I work with and the companies I am involved in. I do my best to be helpful but I also don't stick my nose in when it's not needed (or at least I hope I don't! ;) ).

My time is about 90% on Learning Gardens. 10% on The Kitchen, which is run by an incredible team. The other 50% of my 150% is Tesla, Chipotle and SpaceX. I couldn't ask for better companies to be part of.

I love working in Memphis. While Boulder is awesome, back in 2004 when we started it had virtually no connection to local farmers, and no school gardens teaching kids about food. 12 years later it is a beacon of what can be done and it's well on its way to being connected to its food.

Memphis is just getting started. It's wide open to change and the people of Memphis love their city more than anyone else I've met in the country. We are opening three restaurants there in the next 6 months which will provide incredible buying power for local farmers. And we are already at 60 Schools with Learning Gardens, reaching about 40,000 kids. Within 2 years (instead of 12 in Boulder), we hope to see incredible change in the community. It's willing, excited and we believe the plan is coming together!

I love being asked to come to any community. Where in NYC do you think we'd be most successful?

The lamb burger misses you too! ;)

I am super excited about the role of technology in food. From automation if farms to simply the amazing information we now have access to through the internet. People learn first hand what they are putting in their bodies. I believe that the 21st Century will be the century of Real Food, driven by information, technology and land stewardship.

Freezing foods will always have their place. I love getting frozen fruits for my kids that would not be available out of season.

What is really having difficulty are the frozen processed foods. Those are created with only price in mind, and are high calorie, low nutrition foods. As people learn more about their food through the Internet, they are choosing those foods less and less. And that is a good thing for them and for the planet.

we discuss this everyday at TKC. While there are so many important pieces of the puzzle that need to be solved, we know that we are very good at building Learning Gardens. When we look at other areas that need help (e.g. School Food), we have to think hard on whether we are the right players to work on it, and how it would hurt our focus on Learning Gardens.

In 5 years, I hope to have at least 10 communities in America where every child is growing up around a Learning Garden. We are in LA, Chicago, Memphis, and Denver. And adding Indianapolis and Pittsburgh this year. We're well on our way!

In a decade, we hope to be across the country!

Honestly I hope not. Food to me is about community. Breaking bread with friends, family dinner, working a Learning Garden together.

Soylent and other liquid food products are pretty depressing.

I would love to see a larger role played by the big companies. I still haven't seen much, but even the smallest effort on their part will move mountains. I think we will start to see more as the internet gets more and more powerful and we are able hold everyone up to higher standards over time.

Learning Gardens are almost entirely focused on the economically disadvantaged in Memphis (and all our communities). Our goal is to get those kids connected to real food and have an understanding that they really do have a choice. We have quite a few years to work with them (from Kindergarten to 12th grade), so lots of time to build up trust and understanding of what real food is.

But honestly I've not seen the skepticism that you describe. Probably because we work with kids that are fairly young at the start. They all want to be the best they can be, and real food is an exciting part of that.

Hey Alex. Please call me Kimbal!

There is incredible need out there, but our focus is to go deep in the communities that have chosen to work with us. We are at 114 schools in Chicago, but there are 550 in total. We need to get to all kids in the city as our primary focus. Same goes for Memphis, Denver, LA and our new cities coming up. Long term, we do plan to reach every child in America, but we'll do it community by community and going deep.

on question #2, send me a note and let's get a coffee when I'm in Chicago next!

I love this question. If you haven't found your passion yet, my advice is to focus on finding the right people to work with. If you're surrounded by inspiring, energizing people, you'll never be wasting your time. Through that process, you will probably get the mindspace and inspiration to find your passion. And then when you do pursue your passion, you'll have an instant team of people to bring along with you!

Vertical Farming is the area I am most excited about in the future of #RealFood. Ping me on Twitter in a few months and I will tell you how to get involved. Some super cool things happening that will be unveiled for people exactly like you to get involved in vertical farming.

I'm happy to stand in for my mom anytime. ;)

Love your question #3!

It is the reason I got into food in the first place. When I was a kid the only way I could get my family to sit down and connect was by cooking the meal. If I cooked, then my family would sit down and enjoy it. I've kept that passion all my life and nowadays I cook for my kids and family dinner is my favorite time of the day. I always find time for it.

I wish you were right ZHrolfr! Unfortunately, Industrial Food has been so good at calorie dense food that the issue we deal is not hunger but malnourishment combined with obesity. That is a pretty awful outcome of cheap, calorie dense foods.

Our Industrial Food system did a great job of solving yields for high-calorie, low nutrition foods. We can still learn from them, but the future has to include nutrition in the outcome of our food. I believe with a combination of learning from the past and working towards a #RealFood future, we'll get the prices down and nutrition up and get a balance in our society that everyone is happy with.

RealFood is about nourishing to the body, the farmer and the planet. We'll get there by applying the best and brightest to the problem over the century. It's going to be super exciting to watch!

Vegan has never really appealed to me. I love food in all its forms and see vegan as an exercise in deprivation that is not truly needed. But I would never tell a vegan to do anything else if that's their personal decision.

For meat, my preference is less and better quality meat. The quantities that we eat are extraordinary and not needed in a healthy diet. One of my favorite examples is our Roasted Veggie Salad at Next Door with lamb kofka. The lamb is only 2-3 oz and it is delicious with the roasted veggies.

Prosciutto! It will hold up well and I never get tired of eating it. Or maybe Jamon, because it is meant to cut thicker (I'm guessing I won't have a slicer on the island). lol!

I've been wrong about a few things in my life, but the one thing they have in common is that the answer didn't come from my heart. I dove into businesses that weren't my passion, or I did things out of mania to just keep busy. I've learned over my life to slow down in my thinking and constantly do a check in that what I'm doing really matters to me. It may not be that interesting to other people and that's okay. When I love it, I put 150% of my energy into it, and no matter how things work out, I know I wouldn't have wanted to do anything else.

Growing up in Africa, the most common reason for hunger was leadership in the government. We have actually been producing enough food for everyone on the planet for decades. We just can't get it to those in need because of the leadership in those countries. And in America, we have so much over supply that we are becoming obese as a society. What's worse is that the food is not nourishing, just high in calories, so people have the awful reality of being fat and hungry at the same time.

With a future of #realfood, I'm really hopeful that we can bring back nourishment into our vocabulary and get people to a happier and healthier place, and solve world hunger at the same time!

Food waste is the topic of our day. There are so many easy things we can do to make a difference right now. From composting our food waste to finding immediate buyers of expired foods (if a food is expired, you can still cook it the day of expiration without any food safety concern). Sending it to our landfills should be the definition of insanity.

With thoughtful management of food waste and expired food, we can improve our supply of good, healthy #realfood to those in need, and also make a dramatic improvement to food's effect on climate change by keeping it out of landfills!

We have found amazing success in our Next Door restaurant concept, which keeps almost everything under $10. It is a casual dining and our three locations in Colorado we serve about 10,000 people per week, and we do it profitably. Over time we hope to really expand this concept and have it be a #realfood alternative to restaurants like TGI Friday's, Applebees, etc.

This is a great question. Honestly if there was one thing that I have always struggled with is collaborating with others. It's not that I haven't. Every business I've ever done has been a collaboration. But it's the hardest part for me.

What I've done to help me be better is to include my peers in the process as early as possible and/or join their process as early as possible. When someone's contribution is missed, and we should not have missed it, I do everything I can do acknowledge this mistake and keep the person inspired to stay a part of the process.

But I believe I'll be learning how to do this better every day of my life until it's time for me to check out. ;)