She seems right at home commanding a rooms attention.
I just didn’t know that I had anything to say for a long time, she says.
And that gave me further confidence [to get involved with activist causes].
Im thrilled to be able to speak to you for Well+Goods annual Changemakers issue.
I think the figure is only12.3 percentof Americans are getting enough fruit and vegetables into their diet.
That means that 88 percent of us are not.
…
I think a lot of it has to do with accessibility and has to do with costs.
And we are seeing food prices just skyrocket; it’s been hard for a lot of families.
And I just don’t think that it is a lot of the time.
That has to do with food sovereignty, food accessibility.
It’s often cheaper to go to a fast food restaurant to feed your family.
It’s often cheaper to buy a package of something than a bunch of carrots.
Another piece of it is teaching children about food, how to make a healthy meal.
What are the foods we should be eating more of?
They can be synonymous.
…
Its Amazing How Its All Connected.
If you look at Thai cuisine or many of the Asian cuisines, it’s totally vegetable-filled.
But yes, the whitewashing of ethnic foods for credit is a big subject with me, too.
I’m Indian, but I don’t only cook Indian food.
I think it’s important to give credit where credit is due.
No, of course you could.
Its important to give a notation of where you discovered it instead of acting like you invented it.
How are you bringing some of these stories of cultural significance to life on ‘Top Chef’?
From the start weve employed a very obvious affirmative action policy in our casting.
The food world is famously male dominated.
I think the only sector of our culture that’s more male dominated would probably be the military.
But we’ve always cast an equal amount of male and female contestants.
I also think in our culinary schools, we should be teaching Indigenous food.
Those are all immigrant foods.
Brown people were living here before anybody else.
So let’s teach their food.
Let’s learn from their food.
Let’s learn to live in harmony with the seasons.
PL:No, I don’t think I ever shied away from it.
But I just didn’t know that I had anything to say for a long time.
Every issue that I’ve spoken out about has come from a personal connection to it.
Perhaps that’s given me the courage I needed to speak with some authority on it.
That started with theEndometriosis Foundation of America(EFA).
I also had this problem.
I didn’t know what the hell it was, and doctors werent finding solutions."
My own journey with advocacy has been just a continually growing one since we started the foundation in 2009.
And that is what gave me my voice.
What do you think needs to happen?
PL:Unfortunately we are seeing the opposite of progress right now.
They have to be able to decide what happens and doesn’t happen to their body.
I think we can just start there.
And until we have that, we don’t have much else.
Whatever my personal feelings are about abortion don’t matter.
What matters is that we all have the same rights.
So I think anybody is capable of being a changemaker.
The best thing that you might do for your family’s health is to eat at home.
It’s all connected, and the more we make those connections, the better off we’ll be.
Is this something that you feel like needs to happen at a policy level, a public health level?
I find the onus so often falls on individuals or individual businesses.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
…
Got it, you’ve been added to our email list.
