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How many of you take insulin or
know someone who does?
Wow, a lot of you.
And how many of you eat hard
cheeses like Parmesan, Swiss, or
Cheddar?
Yes, now, would you care if I told
you both insulin and hard cheeses
are made from genetically modified
organisms?
I cared.
Insulin is great because it saves
lives.
Cheese is great because it makes
life worth living.
>> [LAUGH] >> But when you add GMOs
to the equation, I feel uneasy,
scared to steeple even.
Yeah, I wouldn't have been able to
tell you why.
I couldn't have given you
the rational basis for my feelings.
This is an example of using mental
shortcuts to decide what is good,
and what is bad.
We all take shortcuts,
every day often without realizing.
They're necessary to avoid
cognitive overload and
often helpful as they build on
stories we've heard before, but
they're not foolproof.
The consequence of using mental
shortcuts is that we don't stop to
weigh the pros and cons.
And we don't stop to check if our
conclusions are consistent with our
beliefs, and that can get us into
trouble especially with high stakes
decisions like what food we eat.
Food is core to our survival,
its sustenance.
By 2050 the global population is
expected to rise by 50%,
while arable land is expected to
degrade even faster.
And our food system already
accounts for over a third of global
greenhouse gas emissions.
How can we possibly feed the world
in a sustainable way?
Technological innovations like
lab-grown meat or RNAi pesticides
are few budding answers to that
question, but they're novel and
uncertain to many of us.
And our shortcuts tend to push us
to reframe innovation as scary or
risky.
Let's talk about reframing food
innovation.
Because for these technologies to
be successfully developed and
adopted, the science needs to work,
of course, but you and I also need
to see them as part of our future,
because we have a say through our
wallets, social circles, and
elected officials Over the last
eight years,
I have studied how our shortcuts
can lead to rational decisions,
as well as how to override them.
With this expertise in behavioral
science, I helped design marketing
strategies for
Fortune 500 Companies with the goal
of changing consumer behavior.
Most notably, I helped a COVID
vaccine manufacturer understand
the shortcuts leading to vaccine
hesitancy and
design a communication strategy to
cut through them.
The key to changing behavior I
learned, is to change the framing.
I'll share my own story
of recognizing
then overriding shortcuts in order
to reframe genetic modification,
one example of food innovation and
share why reframing
is important for all of us.
Genetically modified organisms have
had their genes altered in a lab
sometimes by introducing genes
from other plants or animals.
When I heard that my
mind went to Franken food,
a tomato with fish gills,
a corn cob with caterpillar legs.
>> [LAUGH] >> I didn't want to
know more.
>> [LAUGH] >> I was averse to
ambiguity, in this case,
a less familiar form of food
production regardless of whether or
not it could be good for me.
I also remember hearing
about Monsanto,
one company behind GMO development.
The media mentioned it sued farmers
for replanting rather than rebuying
their genetically modified seeds.
When I heard that,
my mind went to David and Goliath.
Monsanto was Goliath,
Monsanto was the face of GMOs,
therefore, GMOs were bad.
I didn't want to know more.
Instead, I reactively devalued any
information from GMO companies
after that, including the research
on GMO safety because they didn't
like the source.
Ambiguity aversion, and
reactive devaluation are two
of the many shortcuts I took in
evaluating GMOs.
Wasn't until last year when I was
researching my own answers to that
question of how can we
possibly feed the world in
a sustainable way,
that I was forced to revisit GMOs.
As part of this research,
I spoke to nearly 50 Food experts
from plant geneticist to organic
farmers, and learnt that GMOs
can actually help us tackle big
global issues like climate change,
nutrition, food security.
Farmers in India and
Bangladesh may not lose
their entire rice crop to flooding,
they're genetic modification to
withstand submergence.
And a farmer in Tanzania can feed
his family and send his kids
to school with the tripled yield of
his maize crop through genetic
modification to tolerate drought.
And nearly half a million children
around the world may not go blind
every year due to vitamin
A deficiency if Golden Rice,
a genetically modified variety that
can help combat this deficiency
were widely available.
It was developed in the 1990s and
yet grown for consumption for
the first time only in 2022,
nearly 30 years later.
Now, not all GMO's have been
rejected by us though.
Nearly 200 million people around
the world take insulin,
which is made from
genetically modified bacteria.
And nearly 90% of the hard cheeses
eaten in the US are made with
genetically modified enzymes called
rennet, which previously,
we could only get from killing
young cows and that also
made cheese more expensive.
The framing of saving lives for
insulin and
making cheese more affordable and
humane for rennet, nudged me to see
the benefits of this technology,
whereas Franken food and Goliath,
push me to only see its risks.
The difference in framing led me to
view the same technology as good in
one case, and bad in another.
When I changed the framing of
genetic modification to
saving lives,
I started to see the benefits.
It made me wonder, what other
innovations could I be holding back
due to my own shortcuts?
And if all of us are doing this,
then what is the opportunity cost
on a global level?
We need to reframe food innovation.
Here's what helped me.
First, I push myself to articulate
the rational basis for why I don't
like a particular technology.
When I couldn't,
I knew they were holes in my frame.
Second, I tried perspective-taking
of those with a different view.
In my case, experts who advocate
for this technology to combat my
confirmation bias.
And third, I changed my reference
point from what we have to lose to
what we stand to gain, to not
be too anchored on the risks.
Consider trying this approach too.
Next time you're facing
an unfamiliar food technology,
ask yourself, am I being rational?
Why might someone have a different
view than mine?
And what can be the upside of
innovation?
Then, We can make choices rooted
in rational hope rather than
a rational fear, and we have so
much to hope for because we have
budding solutions to not just feed,
but nourish future generations.
Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
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