The foods humanity forgot — and how we're bringing them back | Helianti Hilman
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Indonesia, with its some 17,000 islands, is one of the luscious and most fertile places in the world. And yet all the healthy and nutritious food that is grown there doesn't get to the people who can consume it or even benefit the farmers that grow it. In her 2024 talk, edible entrepreneur Helianti Hillman explains how prioritizing food biodiversity is healthier for people and the planet, and not just for Indonesians, but all around the world.

After the break.

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Indonesia does not have a food crisis. What we have is actually a food policy crisis. We have the answer, actually, in our food biodiversity. We have over 1,200 grains, over 600 edible roots, not to mention more than 550 fruits and 1,600 seafood and many more. And we can find all these food sources in different landscapes.

So Indonesia has a very diverse landscape. We have over 17,000 islands across the archipelago, from sea to the mountain, including rainforest, mangrove area, peatland area, arid land area. You know, everything is there. So actually, there is no need for one-fits-all diet because each of these landscapes have their own food sources. For a lot of indigenous communities,

This landscape of supermarket without the bills. So I started Javara 15 years ago with the mission of bringing back forgotten food biodiversity to help indigenous and smallholder food farmers to improve their lives while also providing consumers with healthier diets, with products that are also ecological.

So, of course, I got to travel across Indonesia, spending time with indigenous communities. And to my surprise, places that are so remote and not even touched by the government food policy programs are well fed and healthy. Yes, they may not have much gas, but there is no lack of healthy, nutritious food as long as the natural environment is not being destroyed.

So let's look into the carb diversity that we have. We have grains, we have edible roots, we have fruit base, we even have tree trunk. And all of these are gluten-free. So another example is on our sugar diversity. We have at least four native food trees.

including coconut for the lowland and coastal area, orangutans in the forest area, we have arid land with the lontar or parmilla sugar, and then we have nipah in the wetland. But by the way, nipah also produces salt. How bizarre it is. The same plant produces sugar and salt. And every single of these sugars are low-glycemic,

providing slow-release energy, and they are very sustainable. They can easily be productive at least for another 50 years. Yet the government decided to come up with massive food estates on sugarcane plantation. So let's deep dive into an example of Owee or Greater Yum.

Owie can be found in the wild, easily domesticated, can grow under the shade of the tree, and it can easily, you get over 40 kilos each harvest. So this is the type of staple food which you don't need to destroy the forest, you don't need to poison our soil, and basically you don't even need to introduce new type of crop.

Unfortunately, the government, the policy for over 40 decades, chose to ignore our food biodiversity. And instead, monoculture of rice prevails. Over 98 percent of Indonesians are consuming rice right now. Let's compare with 1954, where actually it was only 53 percent. The rest was based on cassava, corn, sagu and other edible roots. So I have to say this is embarrassing.

And at the same time, very frustrating that a country like Indonesia where the food are abundant, we have such high rate on stunting and malnutrition, not to mention the impact of our food policy towards deforestation, land degradation, climate change, natural disaster, impoverishment of our farmers, and also poor diet among the population. And now back to the episode.

We do have a vision, actually, on how the policy should be. We need to shift from monoculture to food biodiversity. We need to revive back the heritage food that actually can provide good nutrition for all while also keeping intact the nature. It is time for us to give a center stage for the food biodiversity to be able to find the solutions that we needed.

This is an example of a small village in central Java which decided to embark on a journey to notify its community, making sure that every household have a food garden cultivating chicken, fish, vegetables, fruits, herbs. And this is interesting because once they did that, they can reduce their grocery cost by 30%, improving their household income by 20%,

increase class attendance, and also improving the student grades. So, nutrition matters. Feeding the nation is one thing, but notifying the community goes a very long way. So, children is our future. It is also time for the food policy to also include food culture education into our curriculum.

teaching our children about where their food comes from, what are the food biodiversity available around them, to embrace their food culture identity, to understand the nutrition that they have and how our food relates with the sustainability. So basically, if we can shift the policy to include the food biodiversity, we can

provide good nutrition for all without jeopardizing our nature. It is time for us to invest more on food biodiversity, on the mainstreaming of food biodiversity, as one of practical, inclusive solutions for the future of our food.

Not only that we have a food policy crisis, we also have a food identity crisis. For decades, we have been ripped off from our relationship to culture and nature. We have to help the people to go through this crisis of identity

allowing them to understand the importance of heritage food to become the answer, and also to understand that it is the food of the future, rebranding it, making it sexy and hype, so that it is no longer perceived as a poor man's diet. Thank you.

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That was Helianti Hillman recorded for TED's Countdown Dilemma series on the future of food in 2024. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines.

And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Autumn Thompson, and Alejandra Salazar. It was mixed by Christopher Fazi-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening. PR.