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The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

“What do you want to eat?’”

On the surface, it’s such a simple question. And it has endless possibilities. But the simplicity combined with the variety is the exact reason why this question stops you in your tracks and makes meal prep — and deciding what to eat — feel much harder than it should.

The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect.

It can keep you standing still in long cereal aisles, staring at a restaurant menu, or sitting for in front of a blank page that’s supposed to be your grocery list.

The time you spend thinking about what you want to eat is considerable. Add it up across your lifetime and it probably feels like a lot of wasted time.

Making matters worse, these choices literally wear you down—and make you more prone to bad decisions. After all, willpower is an exhaustible quantity. Studies show that the same is true of sound decision making. Researchers have found that the more decisions a person made, the less self-control they had. Psychologists call the phenomenon “decision fatigue.”

Don’t think you’re a willpower weakling for falling victim to this. The phenomenon runs true for even the most trained of minds taking on their most common tasks. For proof, look no further than this analysis of parole board decisions. Researchers found that the judges were more likely to rule in favor of a parolee on two occasions: 1) earlier in the day, or 2) nearer to a meal. As the day wore on, judged drifted toward automatically choosing the easier decision: rejecting the application.

You’re not a judge, but each day, three times a day or more, you’re making judgments about what you should eat. And you know what happens when you run out of energy and start looking for easy answers. It’s drive-thru. Or a vending machine. Or a bag of nachos in the cupboard because it’s right there. And hey, pizza is a vegetable, right?

Look, when it comes to healthy eating and upgraded meal prep, less is more.

That doesn’t mean less food. In fact, sometimes the problem that’s holding someone back is that they aren’t eating enough—not enough calories to build muscle, or not enough protein, or not enough healthy fat to feel full. Coaching clients are often surprised to find out that they can eat more and get leaner.

No. What we mean is less thinking.

What if you could make healthy eating or meal prep so simple it was almost reflexive? Then you could give your body exactly what it needs, spend a whole lot less time worrying, and enjoy the results—both at the table (with delicious meals) and at the beach (hey look, abs!).

The good news is you can simplify the meal prep and planning process. Start saving time today by using these tips to declutter your grocery list (and your brain), and make it easier for you to choose the meals that are best for your body (and taste buds).

Break down recipes into simple blocks

When meal prep consists of choosing which recipes you want to eat out of a 500-page cookbook, the process is undeniably overwhelming. Here’s the thing: You don’t have to pick a new recipe for every single meal. Instead, you can follow a formula that hits on all of the macronutrients you need—and does so in a format you like.

Take stir-fry, for example. It really only has four elements:

• vegetables (broccoli, onions, bell peppers, snap peas—whichever ones you like),
• a protein source (chicken, fish, steak, or tempeh tofu for example),
• a carbohydrate (quinoa, rice, or sweet potatoes), and…
• healthy fat (olive oil or coconut oil) to cook it in.

You can pick what you like from each category and eat it the same way every time. Or you can choose different options and mix it up in almost countless ways. However you go about it, instead of having to write down a laundry list of ingredients, you can walk into a store knowing you just need those four things.

You can repeat this process with almost any meal. For example:

• Omelette

1. Eggs
2. Vegetables
3. Cheese (if you like)

• Soup

1. Protein
2. Vegetables
3. Stock (perhaps made by boiling the protein)
4. Carbohydrate

• Salad

1. Leafy Green
2. Protein source
3. Additional veggies (or even fruit! Ever tried blueberries or strawberries on spinach salad? They’re legit.)
4. Dressing (we like olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but go with what works for you)

When you narrow down your list of needs for meal prep, you free up brain space. You can use that extra RAM to get creative and put a new spin on your favorite standby. Or you can just speed through the grocery store for the four (or eight, or whatever) things you need, get in, get out, and get on with your day.

Embrace “last-minute” meals

Look, it’s fashionable nowadays in nutrition circles to say that you should “eat whole foods” and “avoid processing.” And yes, if all things are equal and you have the time, it’d be ideal if you could drive yourself down to a local, organic farmer’s market, pick out the items that look the freshest, then drive back to your house, chop all of them up, and turn them into a delicious meal. But let’s face it, there will always be days when don’t have time for that.

In fact, there are going to be days when you don’t have time for washing and chopping. And that’s fine—if you have a backup plan in place. Let’s go back to the stir-fry example.

If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take that same formula, combine it with a little bit of frozen convenience and make this 10-minute peanut stir-fry. It’s just frozen organic veggies, eggs and whatever carb I have available from meal prep day (more on that in a sec). You can make it more involved if you like, but if you’re in a hurry, that combo will get you a tasty meal in—you guessed it—10 minutes or less.

The takeaway here? Buy and prepare fresh whole foods when you can, but it’s also a good idea to have frozen veggies (or fruits for smoothies) that work in your meals on hand. And bonus points if you’ve got a healthy carb source ready-to-go thanks to…

Master Meal Prep Day (with imperfection in mind)

Instead of thinking, “What will I eat?” every day, draw up a plan one day per week (I prefer Sunday) for meal prep, and then follow your menu. That could mean putting together an entire meal (soups are especially good, since they keep well), or it might just mean preparing the more time-consuming essentials that you’ll know you’ll need during the week, like boiling brown rice or roasting sweet potatoes. The hour-ish cook times on these items is way less daunting when you already did it two days ago.

[Editor’s note: The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect. Look at it this way, if meal prep feels daunting, just focus on the meals that are most difficult for you. For many people, this means lunch. Try to prep 80% of your lunches for the week. This could mean just 4 meals (for weekdays). When 80% of your meals are covered, the day that you decide to go out for lunch or eat something different won’t derail your plan, and it can fit in perfectly with your goal. When you enable imperfection within any plan, it gives you the freedom to eat what you enjoy and see results. – AB]

Use simple cooking techniques

If you’re relatively new to cooking—or your relationship with the kitchen is less based on love and more based on need (as in: you need to eat)—then the seemingly endless array of ways to cook can feel pretty daunting. Roasting, steaming, blending, pan-searing—there’s a lot to learn. You shouldn’t expect yourself to master all of those techniques overnight. In fact, some of them you probably don’t need to learn at all. (Will you ever really broast something? Probably not unless you work in a restaurant.)

To make the learning process easier, choose one method of cooking (roasting, steaming, blending, etc.) and stick with that. You’ll be amazed at how far learning just one technique will take you.

Do you know what vegetables taste great roasted? Answer: All of them. Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus—they’re all seriously delicious. When you work your way up to pro status, then sure, go ahead and roast one thing while steaming another and blending together a sauce. But until then, simple and easy always wins.

Fill your freezer with “in case of emergency” items

Making larger servings for everything can save you those times when you’re in a pinch. Freeze soups, casseroles, homemade breads, protein cookies, veggies, cooked proteins, etc. for grab-and-go meals. Think of these as your backup “911” options. That way, when life happens and you need something to eat right now, you don’t have to wonder what you’re going to do. The decision is made for you, and it’s healthy, homemade, and delicious.

McKel Hill, MS RD, is a registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Founder of Nutrition Stripped. 

Editor’s note: If batch cooking and meal planning for every day of the week sounds dreamy but like something that’s not gonna happen, then check out the NS Society: A Guide to Master Meal Planning can help you learn how to eat well for life with simple tools, a yearly meal plan, 100+ healthy recipes, cooking videos, and support from a global community. Born Fitness has no financial stake in Nutrition Stripped, but we do believe it’s a valuable resource and community. Learn more here.

The post The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time appeared first on Born Fitness.

from Born Fitness http://www.bornfitness.com/meal-prep/
via Holistic Clients

Mind Your Own Body: An Open Letter to Body Shamers

This Monstrous Machine That Chews Up Beauty And Spits Out Money

I have been teaching yoga for almost seven years now, and in that time, I’ve been lucky to be able to offer all of my public classes on a sliding scale. Sliding scale is a means of making yoga more affordable, by making it cheaper for those who need it to be, while those who can afford to pay more do so, with the folks at the top of the scale subsidizing the folks at the bottom.

from YogaDork http://yogadork.com/2017/04/29/sliding-scale-broken/
via SEO Totnes

[Infographic] Here’s the cost of getting lean. Is it really worth the trade-off?

Six-pack abs. Tight butts. Lean, vibrant, flawless health. That’s the image the fitness industry is selling. But have you ever wondered what it costs to achieve that “look”? What you have to do more of? What you really have to give up?

Make no mistake, there are real trade-offs as you attempt to lose fat and improve your health. In this infographic, we outline them. So you can consider how to get the body you want while living the life you enjoy.

Notes:

1. Click here for a fully [printable version] of this infographic.

2. For a complete explanation of this infographic, including a review of the latest research, check out our accompanying article: The cost of getting lean: Is it really worth the trade-off?

Want to learn more?

Most people know that regular movement, eating well, sleep, and stress management are important for looking and feeling better. Yet they need help applying that knowledge in the context of their busy, sometimes stressful lives.

That’s why we work closely with Precision Nutrition Coaching clients to help them lose fat, get stronger, and improve their health…no matter what challenges they’re dealing with.

It’s also why we work with health and fitness pros (through our Level 1 and Level 2 Certification programs) to teach them how to coach their own clients through the same challenges.

Interested in Precision Nutrition Coaching? Join the presale list; you’ll save up to 45% and secure a spot 24 hrs early.

If you’re interested in coaching and want to find out more, I’d encourage you to join our presale list below. Being on the list gives you two special advantages.

• You’ll pay less than everyone else. At Precision Nutrition we like to reward the most interested and motivated people because they always make the best clients. Join the presale list and we’ll give you over 45% off the monthly cost of Precision Nutrition Coaching, which is the lowest price we’ve ever offered.
• You’re more likely to get a spot. To give clients the personal care and attention they deserve, we only open up the program twice a year. Last time we opened registration, we sold out within minutes. By joining the presale list you’ll get the opportunity to register 24 hours before everyone else, increasing your chances of getting in.

In the end, if you’re ready to change your body, and your life, with help from the world’s best coaches, this is your chance.

The post [Infographic] Here’s the cost of getting lean. Is it really worth the trade-off? appeared first on Precision Nutrition.

from Blog – Precision Nutrition http://www.precisionnutrition.com/cost-of-getting-lean-infographic
via Holistic Clients

The cost of getting lean: Is it really worth the trade-off?

Six-pack abs. Tight butts. Lean, vibrant, flawless health. That’s the image the fitness industry is selling. But have you ever wondered what it costs to achieve that “look”? What you have to do more of? What you really have to give up?

Make no mistake, there are real trade-offs as you attempt to lose fat and improve your health. Let’s talk about what they are. So you can consider how to get the body you want while living the life you enjoy.

• Want to listen instead of read? Download the audio recording here…
• We also created a cool visual guide. Check out the infographic here…

A tale of two clients

Not long ago, one of our successful clients — we’ll call him Bill — came to us with a question.

Now that he’d lost thirty pounds (going from 22% body fat to 15%), he could run up stairs and haul heavy bags of garden soil without getting winded.

He could genuinely enjoy weekend bike rides with friends. He could wear clothes he used to be able to fit into but had long given up as hopeless.

But what next?

“Don’t get me wrong,” Bill said. “I’m happy with the way I look and feel.”

It’s just that he also wanted six-pack abs.

“Oh, I don’t have to look like a cover model,” he mused. “It’s just that I’m really close to looking… awesome.”

Bill figured that with just a little extra work, and a little more time, the abs would start popping and his physique would be “finished”.

Meanwhile, another client, Anika, had the opposite concern.

She just wanted to lose a little weight, and get a little more fit.

But she worried that in order to do so, she’d have to give up everything, become a “health nut”, and make massive changes.

Changes that probably included 6 AM bootcamps, kale shakes, lemon juice cleanses, and 1000 situps a day… forever.

“No way,” thought Anika. “That’s too much work.”

Two common misperceptions

Our two client stories reflect two common misperceptions:

Myth #1:
With just a few small, easy, hopefully imperceptible changes to one’s diet and exercise routine, you too can have shredded abs, big biceps, and tight glutes, just like a magazine cover model.

Myth #2:
“Getting into shape” or “losing weight” involves painful, intolerable sacrifice, restriction, and deprivation.

Of course, neither of these are true.

Reality #1:
The process that helps you lose “the first 10 pounds” isn’t the same one that’ll help you lose “the last 10 pounds”. Indeed, it usually takes a lot more work as you get leaner.

Reality #2:
If you do aspire to “fitness model” or “elite athlete” lean, you might be surprised. Images are photoshopped for effect. Bodybuilders only look like that for competition. And achieving that look comes at a high cost; one most people aren’t willing to pay.

Reality #3:
However, if you’re okay not being on the next magazine cover and aspire to be “lean and healthy” even small adjustments can — over time — add up to noticeable improvements. Sometimes these improvements can change, perhaps even save, lives.

Do more of this (and less of that)

With that said, we’re about to share something a lot of people in fitness and health don’t want you to see.

It’s a chart outlining what it really takes to lose body fat, improve your health, move from one fitness category to the next.

Some fitness people think you’re too afraid. Or too weak. Or that you won’t buy their products and services if they’re honest with you.

We think otherwise.

We think it’s necessary to weigh the pros and cons so that you can make informed decisions about your body and your life.

Let’s start with the benefits and tradeoffs with each fitness level.

Now let’s talk about what you might consider doing more of (and less of).

[Bonus: We even created a cool infographic that summarizes this article. Click here for: The cost of getting lean illustrated. Is it really worth the trade-off?]

Your body, your choice

At some point, many of our coaching clients decide that being severely out of shape costs them too much energy, health, quality of life, and longevity. So they choose to change their behaviors and choices. With our help.

Other coaching clients decide that they want six-pack abs. Then, they discover that this option costs them something too. Some folks are willing to pay that cost. But most aren’t.

Even if you think you’d like that six-pack, it might turn out that you actually want something else a little bit more. And we wouldn’t blame you.

Here are the two basic principles:

1. If you want to make further changes to your body, you’ll need to make further changes to your behaviors.

2. The leaner you want to get, the more of your behaviors you’ll have to change. 

What you decide to change, and how much you decide to change it, is up to you. What’s most important here is that you understand what it actually takes to do what you want (or think you want).

What’s a healthy level of body fat, anyway?

First, for the sake of context, let’s take a look at some numbers.

Data tell us that most men can be healthy somewhere between 11-22% body fat. For women, it’s between 22-33%.

Right now in the U.S.,  the average man is about 28% fat, and the average woman is 40% fat.

In other words, the average adult in the U.S. (and throughout most of the West) is carrying a lot of excess body fat. Unhealthy levels of body fat.

Getting the process started

The good news is that it’s not that hard to go from over-fat to the higher end of “normal”.

You can do it with a few relatively small, easy-to-implement changes.

For instance:

• drinking less soda or alcohol each day
• not overeating desserts and fast foods (instead, just eating them in reasonable amounts)
• taking a daily walk or adding a yoga class

Assuming there are no other factors involved (such as a chronic health problem), if you make a few small changes like these, and do them consistently, in six months to a year, your body fat percentage will drop and fall into a much healthier range.

Cool!

Now of course, not every change will feel simple, small, or easy. Especially when you start out.

You’ll need to put a little extra effort and energy into making those changes happen every day. And having a trainer or a coach support you — and hold you accountable — will probably help you feel more confident and on-track.

Nevertheless, if the changes are small enough, and you practice them consistently, you’ll probably find that eventually they’re just part of your regular routine.

In fact, one day in the future, you might even say, “I just don’t feel like myself without my daily walk!”

“Overweight” to “no-longer-overweight” to “lean”

Suppose you’ve made a few changes like this.

Maybe you pack an apple in your lunch instead of apple juice. Or you include a salad with dinner, or you stick to one or two drinks with friends.

And you’re feeling good! Your knees have stopped hurting, plus your pants now button comfortably.

Now you’re somewhere in the zone of “a little extra padding, but not too bad”. You’re more mobile, healthier, and high-fiving yourself.

What’s the next step?

Well, if you’re a man who wants to reduce body fat from 18% to 14%, or a woman who wants to go from 28% to 24%, you’ll need to make some bigger changes.

You’ll need to invest more time, energy, and effort. You’ll need to plan more.

And you’ll also have to make some trade-offs.

From “lean” to “leaner”

If you’re a man and you want to go from say 14% to 10% body fat, or you’re a woman and you want to go from 24% body fat to 20%, it’s all a question of doing more…and less.

You’ll probably need to do more stuff, such as:

• get more exercise and daily-life movement, and perhaps make that exercise more intense
• eating more vegetables and lean protein
• choosing more whole foods
• doing more meal planning
• getting serious about rest and recovery
• learning your physical hunger and fullness cues

You’ll probably need to do less stuff, such as:

• drinking less alcohol and other high-calorie beverages
• eating fewer processed foods
• not eating when you’re not physically hungry

And you’ll need to make these small changes consistently, over a period of time.

Many folks will decide that these changes are worth making. They want to look and feel better, get a good night’s sleep, get off medications, and so forth. So they’re ready to compromise.

Other folks will decide that they’re not yet ready to make more adjustments. And that’s fine too.

The most important thing is that you realize: In order to change… you have to change.

What it takes to get “super-lean”

At the next stage — going from athletically lean to bodybuilder lean — the tradeoffs get even more serious.

Here’s something that you may not realize:

Elite bodybuilders getting ready for a contest and models getting ready for a shoot are basically in a slow starvation process.

Adhering to an extremely strict and precise regimen of eating and training (and perhaps adding some drugs into the mix) is the only way way they can drop their body fat to extremely low levels.

Males can get to body fat levels under 6% with this process, and females can get to under 16%.

But this process is not for the faint of heart.

It goes against biological cues. It requires exercising when exhausted. It demands ignoring their desire for food in the face of powerful hunger cues. It involves intense focus and dedication.

And it often distracts from other areas of life that these athletes might enjoy and value.

Imagine all the practical things that are involved in very strict dieting and training.

• You have to make your own food and measure every meal down to the last gram.
• That food is generally very plain — lean protein, steamed vegetables, plain potatoes or rice, etc.
• You have to carry that food with you so you can eat at a precise time.
• You cannot eat in restaurants.
• You have to do a specific workout on a given day, exactly as specified.
• No sick days, no slacking.
• You’ll probably be training 2 or 3 times per day.
• You have to sleep and recover precisely.
• No parties or staying up late.
• You can’t think straight because you’re always hungry and tired.
• Your whole life revolves around making food, dieting, training, and recovery protocols.
• Did we mention you’re slowly starving?

So forget having a sex life, social life, parenthood, school, and probably a regular job.

Is that level of leanness worth it?

Having a six-pack doesn’t automatically make you healthy. In fact, getting too lean can be actively unhealthy.

You might end up with amenorrhea, low libido, disordered eating, bones like Swiss cheese, social isolation, and a host of other problems.

Some elite bodybuilders rely on drugs like stimulants, diuretics, and other drugs just to keep themselves going.

Many folks even rely on cosmetic surgery. Which creates its own health risks… and certainly doesn’t add health on its own.

In short, being really lean has almost nothing to do with being really healthy.

Indeed, being too focused on getting lean may lead you away from good health.

Meanwhile, on the subject of six-packs, it might surprise you to learn that even among the super lean, not all abs are created equal.

That’s right. Strip away all the excess fat, and some people will never reveal a magazine cover set of abs.

Why? Because — quite apart from that airbrushing we referred to earlier — we’re all built differently.

Some folks have staggered abdominals. Some have angled abdominals. Some people might really only have four abdominals that are visible no matter how lean they get.

Don’t believe us? Go to any amateur physique competition for a first-hand view.

Who knows? The experience might prove enlightening. It might even contribute to greater body acceptance and self-compassion.

Because what you’re sure to notice is that in real life, nobody’s “perfect”.  Not even elite bodybuilders and fitness competitors.

Getting clear, getting real

Clarity is essential in change.

If you think you may want to change how much body fat you have, start by getting a clear idea of where you’re at.

• Figure out your goals and priorities. If you don’t know what your priorities are, now’s a great time to explore that.
• Decide what you’re willing to do right now in order to serve those goals and priorities. Why?
• Decide how often, and how consistently, and how precisely, you’re willing to do those things.
• Decide what you’re not willing to do right now. Why not?
• In the above steps, be brutally honest and realistic yet compassionate with yourself.

Now you have your action plan.

And you know where you are on the cost-benefit continuum.

In the infographic you saw earlier in this article, we provided rough estimates for what it might take to achieve specific levels of leanness or muscularity — or even simple health improvements, like getting off medications.

This is just a general guide. It’s a start. Something to get you thinking.

You may need more tailored guidance or coaching. Age, gender, genetics, medical conditions, and pharmaceuticals can all affect what you’ll need to do to get and stay lean.

If tracking your body fat is important to you, make sure you have a valid way to do it, such as a skinfold caliper measurement by a trained professional. If you don’t care, and use other indicators like your belt notches, that’s cool.

What to do next

1. Take the long view

Whatever change you want to make, remember: It will take time.

Eating one big, calorie-dense meal won’t make you wake up overweight. Fasting for 24 hours won’t give you six-pack abs.

A simple plan followed consistently is better than a complex plan followed intermittently.

2. Review what’s involved

To reduce your body fat from unhealthy to healthy levels

You only need to make a few changes, and follow them about 80% of the time.

To go from normal to reasonably lean

You need a few more changes, and a bit more consistency.

Now you might need to eat protein and veggies at every meal, and get 7+ hours of sleep 85% of the time.

To go from lean to very lean

You’ll have to put in more time and more effort. Plus, you’ll need to follow your plan even more consistently — with almost obsessive accuracy.

This means adding a few more habits, such as monitoring fat and carbohydrate intake, and exercising at least 5 hours per week 95% of the time.

For instance, if you eat 4 meals per day, in any given month you’ll need to ensure that 114 of your 120 precisely calibrated meals are perfectly executed, in order to achieve your desired level of leanness.

That’s a serious commitment right there.

3. Get clarity on what YOU want

Review the “getting clear, getting real” list.

What matters to YOU?

What are YOU willing to do… or not? Why?

There’s no right answer. What’s most important is that you understand what it takes to get a certain outcome.

And now YOU have the power to choose. Healthy, athletically lean, or super lean: It all depends on your priorities and goals.

Now you can make the decisions — and get the body you really need, while still living the life you want.

[Bonus: We created a cool infographic that summarizes this article. Click here for: The cost of getting lean illustrated. Is it really worth the trade-off? If there’s someone you think might benefit from seeing it, please pass it along.]

Want to learn more?

Most people know that regular movement, eating well, sleep, and stress management are important for looking and feeling better. Yet they need help applying that knowledge in the context of their busy, sometimes stressful lives.

That’s why we work closely with Precision Nutrition Coaching clients to help them lose fat, get stronger, and improve their health…no matter what challenges they’re dealing with.

It’s also why we work with health and fitness pros (through our Level 1 and Level 2 Certification programs) to teach them how to coach their own clients through the same challenges.

Interested in Precision Nutrition Coaching? Join the presale list; you’ll save up to 45% and secure a spot 24 hrs early.

If you’re interested in coaching and want to find out more, I’d encourage you to join our presale list below. Being on the list gives you two special advantages.

• You’ll pay less than everyone else. At Precision Nutrition we like to reward the most interested and motivated people because they always make the best clients. Join the presale list and we’ll give you over 45% off the monthly cost of Precision Nutrition Coaching, which is the lowest price we’ve ever offered.
• You’re more likely to get a spot. To give clients the personal care and attention they deserve, we only open up the program twice a year. Last time we opened registration, we sold out within minutes. By joining the presale list you’ll get the opportunity to register 24 hours before everyone else, increasing your chances of getting in.

In the end, if you’re ready to change your body, and your life, with help from the world’s best coaches, this is your chance.

 

The post The cost of getting lean: Is it really worth the trade-off? appeared first on Precision Nutrition.

from Blog – Precision Nutrition http://www.precisionnutrition.com/cost-of-getting-lean
via Holistic Clients

Apple and Berry Crumble Tart (Nut Free)

The post Apple and Berry Crumble Tart (Nut Free) appeared first on Deliciously Ella.

from Deliciously Ella https://deliciouslyella.com/apple-summer-berry-crumble-tart-nut-free/
via Free Spiritual Marketing

In Case You Missed It: The themes that echoed through TED2017

On Day 5 of TED2017, one two-hour session included a in-depth conversation with Elon Musk and a powerful talk from writer Anne Lamott. The themes they shared echoed throughout the conference. Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED

Over the past five days, the TED2017 conference has explored the theme “The Future You.” This has spanned an incredible number of ideas on a huge array of topics. Below, a tour through some of the key themes that emerged — through the week and in the double-stuffed session of day 5.

All eyes on AI. How will artificial intelligence reshape our world? TED2017 brought many answers. The conference kicked off with a dance between a robot and human, followed by chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov’s call to add human purpose and passion to intelligent machines’ ability to calculate and parse. Then, in a session called “Our Robotic Overlords,” Noriko Arai showed the secrets of an AI that can pass a college entrance exam, Joseph Redmon revealed an algorithm (called YOLO) that lets AI identify objects accurately, Stuart Russell outlined a plan for aligning AI values with our own, and Radhika Nagpal imagined AI based on the collective intelligence of schools of fish. Later on, Martin Ford warned that, with AI mastering the ability to learn, humans are headed toward a future without work — which will require radical adjustments in society. And Robin Hanson brought us to a trippy possible future where “ems,” emulations or uploaded human minds, run the world.

The need to erase the boundary between ‘me’ and ‘us.’ Some cultures worship many gods, others one. Us? We worship the self, said Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks — we think in terms of self-realization and partake in “that newest religious ritual: the selfie.” Sacks challenged us to replace the word ‘self’ with the word ‘other’ and see what happens. “The only people that will save us from ourselves is we.” That thought boomeranged through the week. His Holiness Pope Francis delivered a beautiful message of solidarity: “If there is an ‘us,’ there is a revolution.” Anna Rosling Rönnlund took us to “Dollar Street,” where the world’s poorest people live on the left and the richest on the right. “The person staring back at us from the other side of the world actually looks like you,” she said. Luma Mufleh shared her experience coaching a soccer team for refugee students in Georgia, and how she wished everyone people could stop seeing these young people as others to keep out and embrace them as they rebuild their lives with determination, resilience and joy. In a scathing look at ageism, Ashton Applewhite pointed out, “All prejudice relies on ‘othering.’” Finally, Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, summed it up this way: “The Future You will depend on how much The Future Us brings opportunity to every child on Earth.”

The future is now. Want a robotic dog that can deliver packages and fetch you a soda? Marc Raibert showed it to us. Waiting for your personal flying machine? Todd Reichert demoed the Kitty Hawk Flyer, a 254-pound personal electric aircraft, and Richard Browning showed us an IronMan-like suit designed for hovering. Meanwhile, Elon Musk said that the future of Earthly transportation isn’t above our heads, but below our feet, and talked about building a high-speed tunnel network under Los Angeles. Tom Gruber, co-creator of Siri, wondered if a superintelligent AI could augment our memory by helping us remember everything we’ve ever read and every person we’ve ever met. Ray Dalio shared how, at Bridgewater Associates, every meeting and interaction is recorded for other employees to watch and assess — and algorithms help employees learn strengths and weaknesses. Wang Jun is creating digital doppelgangers that would let you see what would happen if you, say, ate less meat or took a certain medication. And Anne Madden introduced us to microorganisms that can make sour beer and, oh, potentially vaccinate against PTSD.

Marc Raibert showcased SpotMini’s many talents, including running an obstacle course. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

The connection between learning and health care. Coaching is not just for athletes — it’s for healthcare workers too. Atul Gawande shared how it can save the lives of pregnant women and newborns in birth centers lacking basic supplies. “[Coaches] are your external eyes and ears, providing a more accurate picture of your reality,” he said. Shortly after, TED Prize winner Raj Panjabi shared his wish for the world: the Community Health Academy, a global platform to modernize how community health workers learn, update their skills and share insights with each other. This academy will empower workers, helping them to deliver health to the doorsteps of the one billion around the world without access to adequate care. And in a slightly different spin, Lisa Genova said that Alzheimer’s doesn’t have to be your brain’s destiny, as the latest science shows that learning new things — say, a new language — can make the brain more resilient.

The missing stories in art. Titus Kaphar took a paintbrush full of white paint and painted over the main figures in a 17th-century Dutch painting (yes, a copy). He did this to bring the unseen story of the painting into view, an almost hidden figure of a young black man. “Historically speaking, I can find out more about the lace [on the woman’s dress] than I can about the [black] character,” he says. The dominant narrative is coded in the art. But what happens when we look further? Laolu Senbanjo also encouraged us to look beyond the artwork — to think about the artist who created it. “Every artist has a story, and every artist has a name,” he said. And for Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU, the viewer took center stage. He placed us in the middle of Lorenzetti’s room-scale fresco, The Allegory of Good Government and Bad Government, to accept the artist’s warning about tyranny — and act.

And finally: how to wrestle back life from tech. One very everyday concern wove its way through the conference: the feeling that our tech is has become addictive. Podcaster Manoush Zomorodi shared what happened when she challenged her “Note to Self” listeners to embrace boredom and be more purposeful in their smartphone use. “The only people who refer to their customers as ‘users’ are drug dealers and technologists,” a UX designer told her. Tristan Harris further dug into the effects of the competition for our attention is having on us — and called for a “design renaissance” in which tech companies no longer prey on our psychology for profit but to encourage us to “live out the timeline we want.” Adam Alter advised us to designate specific times away from our phones — putting them in a drawer during dinner or on airplane mode over the weekend. Cathy O’Neil warned us not to think of algorithms as magic or benign but as,“opinions embedded in code.” And Laura Galante cautioned us to recognize how our information consumption makes us susceptible to manipulation. She said, “We must recognize that this place where we increasingly live, quaintly termed cyberspace, isn’t defined by ones and zeros, but by information the people behind it.

Even if you missed today, you can still be part of the TED2017 excitement. Watch a Highlights Exclusive in movie theaters on Sunday, April 30 — a best-of compilation of talks from the conference, edited on the spot this week, with behind-the-scenes footage. Find tickets at a cinema near you.

from TED Blog http://blog.ted.com/in-case-you-missed-it-the-themes-that-echoed-through-ted2017/
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The biology of behavior: Robert Sapolsky speaks at TED2017

Robert Sapolsky speaks live via video, with help from Prezi AR, at TED2017, April 28, 2017, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

Robert Sapolsky is “your basic confused human when it comes to violence.” He’s for gun control but loves shooting people in laser tag. He doesn’t believe in the death penalty but has specific fantasies about how he would kill Hitler. He’s also a neuroscientist who studies stress and its effects in primates. So, naturally, he wanted to figure out what this dichotomy in human nature is all about.

Sapolsky explains our confusing relationship with violence as the result of two complications. The first: “We don’t hate violence; we hate the wrong kind,” he says. “Because when it’s the right kind, we cheer it on, we hand out medals. We vote for, we mate with our champions of violence. When it’s the right kind we love it.” The second is that “amid us being this miserably violent species, we’re also extraordinarily compassionate and altruistic.”

Sapolsky attempts to answer the question, “How do you make sense of the biology of our best moments, our worst and all the ambiguous ones in between?” The answer, he says, is you trace it back … all the way back.

Take, for instance, this scenario: you’re in a riot and see a person running toward you holding what you think is a gun. You have a split second to decide what to do. You fire. Immediately afterward you see that what they were holding was not in fact a gun but a cellphone. How do we explain this glitch in behavior?

First, ask what was going on in your brain seconds before the event. Specifically, how active was your emotional control center, the amygdala. From there, move on to minutes before, analyzing the environmental factors that stimulated your amygdala in the first place, such as the race and gender of the person running toward you or even how hungry you were.

Zoom out from hours to days and you’re at the hormonal level. If, for example, your levels of testosterone were high, you would have been more likely to interpret the face running toward you as threatening, sending an important message to your amygdala to pull that trigger.

The past weeks and months also come into play in explaining your actions. Prolonged stress at work or home could have enlarged your amygdala and increased neural connections amplifying the signals instructing it to act.

From there, head back to adolescence before your brain fully matured, when your experiences and environment were shaping the future you. Then go back further to fetal development, when epigenetic changes were deciding which genes got turned on and which got turned off.

And that’s just your own brain. Sapolsky instructs us to look back centuries ago into the lives of our ancestors, analyzing how those cultures affected the values that have been passed down to present-day you. Your last stop is millions of years ago during the evolution of genes that lead to our branching off from our ape ancestors.

So basically, Sapolsky says, “If you want to understand a behavior, you need to understand everything from one second before to millions of years before … it’s complicated.”

It may seem like a lot of work went into informing your decision to pull that trigger; the culmination of your life and neurons and all the lives and neurons before you. But that doesn’s mean it’s predetermined. In fact, Sapolsky says, the key to trying to understand any behavior is understanding that we are constantly in flux. “Brains change and thus people change, dramatically,” he says. Some of the most incredible stories come from people who have demonstrated this plasticity.

Sapolsky introduces us to Zenji Abe, a Japanese pilot who bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. Fifty years later, despite this violent and polarizing attack, he met with some of the American veterans who survived and apologized. They formed a once-unthinkable friendship.

Zenji Abe’s transformation took decades, but it doesn’t always take that long. It can take as little as minutes or hours. Sapolsky tells the story of the Christmas Truce during WWI, when British and German soldiers stopped fighting to help each other carry and bury bodies. It only took hours to change a trained “us vs. them” mentality.

He points out that we are no different than Zenji Abe or those soldiers in WWI. While we have been told to study history so as not to let it repeat itself, Sapolsky proposes the opposite: “Those who don’t understand the history of phenomenal human change, those who don’t understand the biology of how we go from our worst to our best behaviors, are destined not to be able to repeat these incandescent, magnificent behaviors.”

from TED Blog http://blog.ted.com/the-biology-of-behavior-robert-sapolsky-speaks-at-ted2017/
via Sol Danmeri

The future us: The talks of Session 11 of TED2017

Kelly Stoetzel and Chris Anderson invite all the TED2017 speakers back onstage to close out TED2017: The Future You, April 28, 2017, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

In the final session of TED2017, we look ahead to the future we’ll build together. Below, recaps of the talks from Session 11, in chronological order.

A design renaissance for our apps. “There’s a hidden goal driving all of our technology, and that goal is the race for our attention.” says Tristan Harris. He would know; he used to work in Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab, studying firsthand how tech engineers are using psychology to steer our thoughts. From Facebook notifications to Snapchat streaks to YouTube autoplays, technology orchestrates our time and attention for its own profit. But what if our phones “empower[ed] us to live out the timeline we want?” Harris calls for a “design renaissance,” one in which our apps encourage us to spend our time in a way compatible with what we want out of life. Imagine if instead of just commenting on a controversial Facebook post, you had the option to click a “Host a dinner” button in which you could have the same conversation but in person and over a meal. Harris believes that fixing the way our technology guides our thoughts and behavior is “critical infrastructure for solving every other problem. There’s nothing in your life or in our collective problems that does not require our ability to be able to put our attention where we care about.”

Jim Yong Kim speaks at TED2017, April 28, 2017, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED

A global convergence of aspirations. Jim Yong Kim wrote a book he describes as “a 500-page diatribe against the World Bank.” Today, he’s the president of it. This isn’t as crazy as it sounds — he was nominated for the role because of his critiques, and he’s given it a central goal to end extreme poverty by 2030 and boost shared prosperity around the world. Why? Because everywhere he travels, he sees the same thing: kids gathered around a smartphone. Access to the internet has led to increases in reported satisfaction — but it also ups people’s reference income, or the income to which they compare themselves. Globally, this is leading to a convergence of aspirations. “Are we going to have a situation where aspirations are connected to opportunity?” he asks. “Or are aspirations going to meet frustration?” The World Bank is aiming for the former. “We’re trying to use tools … that rich people use every single day to make themselves richer, but that we haven’t used adequately on behalf of the poor.” They’re aiming to de-risk investment in developing countries, to boost private capital going to them. This has led to a company scaling solar energy in Zambia, so the price for a kilowatt hour dropped from 25 to 4 cents. And to another using drones to deliver blood anywhere in Rwanda in an hour — saving lives while making money. This kind of thinking could have a big effect, he says. Kim grew up in South Korea, one of the poorest countries in the world at the time, and the World Bank expressed low aspirations for it. He refuses to do the same to anyone’s country now.

Making music together. “For all of us,” says Found Sound Nation (FSN) co-founder Christopher Marianetti, “music making is our birthright.” This week at TED2017, FSN gave conference participants the opportunity to step inside their geodesic dome, the Ouroborium, and create a piece of music with eight other people — no prior musical training or experience required. In this talk, FSN co-founder Jeremy Thal present a short film about the project scored by a week’s worth of musical co-creation produced by this year’s TEDsters. You can watch the video and check out more about the project here.

“Laughter is carbonated holiness” and other life lessons. A few days before she turned 61, Anne Lamott “decided to write down every single true thing I know.” Lucky for us, she shares her findings at TED2017. In this list of twelve nuggets of knowledge, she explains how “all truth is paradox,” which chocolate is best used “to balance the legs of wobbly chairs” and the meaning of God. In a talk full of wisdom and humor, she dives into the nuances of being a human who lives and feels in a confusing, beautiful and emotional world. Read a full recap of her talk here.

What will the future look like? In conversation with TED’s Head Curator Chris Anderson, serial entrepreneur and future-builder Elon Musk discusses his new project digging tunnels under LA, Hyperloop, Tesla, SpaceX and his dreams for what the world could look like. Read a full recap of his talk here.

Noah Feldman speaks at TED2017 – The Future You, April 24-28, 2017, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

Why US politics isn’t as bad as we think. Today, three things are commonly said about the political situation in the US: one, partisanship has never been so bad; two, it’s geographically distributed for the first time; and three, there’s nothing we can do about it. “I’m here today to say that all three of these propositions are not true,” says constitutional law scholar Noah Feldman. In fact, geographically spaced partisanship runs deep in American history — and we have a powerful tool to manage it. To explain, Feldman recounts the feud between James Madison and Alexander Hamilton that gave birth to partisanship in America and how the constitution helped diffuse the intense divisions the feud created. “Partisanship is real, it’s profound, it’s extraordinarily powerful,” says Feldman, “but the design of the Constitution is greater than partisanship.” It worked for the founders and many subsequent generations, and it will work for us, too. He encourages us to stand up for what we believe in, support the organizations we care about and speak out on issues that matter to us. “It’s only by working together that the Constitution can do its job,” he says. “It’s going to be OK.”

The Pope and a Rabbi walk into a TED Conference. Julia Sweeney is back for her comedic summation of the conference. She says that she can’t remember most of the speaker names, so will forever think of them as: the artist who whitewashes people out of paintings, the Alzheimer’s woman, the mud architect, the robotic dog guy who has no fear of the military using his creations, the graph lady and the woman who’s teaching a robot to pass the SAT equivalent in Japan. As she takes us through her notes from the conference — session by session — she also shares some lessons she’ll take away. Like that she’s not being slothful when she’s just lying around, she’s in default mode. And that all living things must die, except pond scum.

from TED Blog http://blog.ted.com/the-future-us-the-talks-of-session-11-of-ted2017/
via Sol Danmeri

12 things I know for sure: Anne Lamott speaks at TED2017

Anne Lamott speaks at TED2017, April 28, 2017, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED

Author Anne Lamott recently turned 61. So she’s compiled the following list of “every single true thing I know.” A brief recap:

1. All truth is a paradox. “Life is a precious unfathomably beautiful gift, and it is impossible here,” she says. Life is “filled with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together.”
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2. “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes.” That includes you.
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3. Nothing outside of you will help you in any real, lasting way. Radical self-care is the only thing that will get you through. It’s hard to admit, but it’s true, and it works the other way around too. “If it is someone else’s problem, you probably don’t have the solution,” she says.
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4. “Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy and scared. Everyone, even the people who seem to have it most together.” So don’t compare your insides to someone else’s outsides, she warns.
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5. “Chocolate with 75% cacao is not actually a food. Its best use is as bait in snake traps or to balance the legs on wobbly chairs.”
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6. Every writer puts down terrible first drafts. The trick is that they commit to sticking with it. They take it Bird by Bird, her father’s advice that became the heart of her bestselling book. “Every story you own is yours. If people wanted you to write more warmly about them, they should have behaved better,” she says. “You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
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7. Creative success are “something you have to recover from. They will hurt, damage and change you in ways you cannot imagine.” And that brings us back to #1, because creative success is also amazing. “It is a miracle to get your work published,” she says. “Just try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, will fill the Swiss cheesey holes inside you. It can’t. It won’t.”
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8. Families are both astonishing and hard. Again reference #1. “Earth is forgiveness school,” she says. “It begins with forgiving yourself — then you might as well start at the dinner table.”
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9. Speaking of food: try to do a little better. “I think you know what I mean.”
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10. Grace is a powerful thing. “Grace is Spiritual WD-40 or water wings,” she says. “The mystery of grace is that God loves Henry Kissinger and Vladimir Putin and me exactly as much as He or She loves your new grandchild.” Grace doesn’t always come in the forms you expect. Lamott sees it most in laughter. “Laughter really is carbonated holiness,” she says. “It helps us breathe again and again, and gives us back to ourselves.”
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11. God isn’t that scary. Rather than getting trapped in the mundanity of our own lives, she tells us to “go look up.” Now. “My pastor says you can trap bees on the floor of a Mason jar without a lid, because they don’t look up,” she says. “If they did, they could fly to freedom. Instead, they walk around bitterly, bumping into glass walls.”
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12. Death is incredibly hard to bear, and you don’t get over losing people you love. “We Christians like to think death is a major change of address,” she says. “But the person will live again fully in your heart, at some point, if you don’t seal it off.” Memories of the people you love will make you smile at inappropriate times, but their absence will also be “a lifelong nightmare of homesickness for you.” Again, see #1.

She takes a deep breath. “Okay, I think that’s it. But if I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.”

You can watch this talk in cinemas starting Sunday, April 30. Get tickets.

from TED Blog http://blog.ted.com/12-things-i-know-for-sure-anne-lamott-at-ted2017/
via Sol Danmeri

FOR THE LOVE OF FOOD: GMO skepticism isn’t anti-science, Pubmed takes on conflicts of interest, and how parents encourage emotional eating

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week GMO skepticism isn’t anti-science, Pubmed takes on conflicts of interest, and how parents encourage emotional eating.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• Skepticism About Biotechnology Isn’t Anti-Science – As a trained scientist I’ve long been skeptical of the idea that the way to fix our broken industrial food system (that it killing people in ever greater numbers) is to add even more industrial food products. Yet I often get chastised by other scientists for this viewpoint as being anti-science, as if the only relevant data is whether or not GMOs or pesticides directly hurt people. I’m happy to finally see someone pointing out that there’s more nuance here than just pro vs anti-science. (Slate)
• The Struggles of Writing About Chinese Food as a Chinese Person – I dare you to read this and not start fantasizing about a trip to Taiwan. Also, really great essay on the racism and politics inherent in food. (Vice)
• Too many studies have hidden conflicts of interest. A new tool makes it easier to see them. – This is fantastic! Pubmed, the search engine for scientific articles in biology, has started listing conflicts of interest in the abstracts of scientific articles. Until recently you had to have access to the full article to read the conflicts section, which meant you needed either a subscription to the individual journal or to pay for the individual article. (Vox)
• Parents’ use of emotional feeding increases emotional eating in school-age children – Emotional eater? Blame your mom! Seriously though, it looks like emotional eating is learned at a young age and may be something that is avoidable. (ScienceDaily)
• The Best Thing to Eat Before a Workout? Maybe Nothing at All – At least in the morning. Interesting new research suggests exercising in a fasted state may help improve metabolism, though at the cost of burning fewer calories during the workout itself. (NY Times)
• The Best Exercise for Aging Muscles – Super interesting. Looks like there’s a large benefit of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) for older adults. (NY Times)
• ‘Diet’ products can make you fat, study shows – It’s worth reading this whole thing. To me the most interesting finding is that both groups ate the same amount of calories, yet the low-fat/high-sugar group stored fat twice as efficiently as the regular, balanced diet group. This was in rats, not humans, but still very interesting. (ScienceDaily)
• How Gut Bacteria Tell Their Hosts What to Eat – The bacteria in your gut significantly contribute to your nutrition status, and can compensate for nutrient-poor diets. Sadly, nutrient-poor diets also decrease the diversity of your gut bacteria. It stands to reason that eating more pre- and pro-biotic foods can make you more resilient nutritionally, offering a substantial health advantage. (Scientific American)
• Mission control: Salty diet makes you hungry, not thirsty – This is one of the most interesting nutrition stories I’ve read in years. What’s better than mixing space exploration and human nutrition studies? (ScienceDaily)
• Sugary Drinks Tied to Accelerated Brain Aging – Again, sugar isn’t just a problem for your waistline. Ween yourself off the stuff and save your indulgences for when it’s really worth it. (NY Times)
• How to get adults to eat their vegetables? Study explores potential of spices and herbs use – Revolutionary new study shows that people prefer to eat foods that taste good. LOL (ScienceDaily)
• The Next Gluten – Just in case this lectin trend really takes off, I want your skepticism to start now. Tomatoes and beans are bad for you? Pfffff. Give me a break. (The Atlantic)
• A Clever Trick for Roasting Nuts – So simple and so brilliant. Definitely trying this for my next party. (Stone Soup)

What inspired you this week?

from Summer Tomato http://www.summertomato.com/for-the-love-of-food-gmo-skepticism-isnt-anti-science-pubmed-takes-on-conflicts-of-interest-and-how-parents-encourage-emotional-eating
via Holistic Clients

What will the future look like? Elon Musk speaks at TED2017

Elon Musk talks about his work to shape the future of transportation, energy, home energy and space at TED2017, April 28, 2017, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

In conversation with TED’s Head Curator Chris Anderson, serial entrepreneur and future-builder Elon Musk discusses his new project digging tunnels under LA, the Hyperloop, Tesla, SpaceX and his dreams for what the world could look like.

Below, highlights from the conversation.

Why are you boring?

“We’re trying to dig a hole under LA, and this is to create the beginning of what will be a 3D network of tunnels to alleviate congestion,” Musk says, describing the work of his new project, The Boring Company. Musk shows a video of what this system could look like, with an electric car-skate attached to an elevator from street level that brings your car vertically underground into a tunnel. There’s no speed limit in the tunnel — and the car-skates are being designed to achieve speeds of 200 km/h, or about 130 mph. “You should be able to get from Westwood to LAX in 5-6 minutes,” Musk says.

Why aren’t flying cars a better solution?

“I do rockets, so I like things that fly,” Musk says. “There’s a challenge of flying cars in that they’ll be quite noisy. If something’s flying over your head, a whole bunch of flying cars going all over the place, that is not an anxiety-reducing situation. You’ll be thinking, ‘Did they service their hubcap, or is it going to come off and guillotine me?'”

How will these tunnels tie in with Hyperloop?

The Hyperloop test track is the second biggest vacuum chamber in the world, smaller only than the Large Hadron Collider, Musk says. The proposed transportation system would propel people and freight in a pod-like vehicles in a vacuum, and tunnels end up being great for creating vacuum. “We’re cautiously optimistic that it’ll be faster than the world’s fastest bullet train, even over a .8-mile stretch,” Musk says.

What’s happening at Tesla?

Tesla Model 3 is coming in July, Musk says, and it’ll have a special feature: autopilot. Using only passive optical cameras and GPS, no LIDAR or radar, the Model 3 will be capable of autonomous driving. “Once you solve cameras for vision, autonomy is solved; if you don’t solve vision, it’s not solved … You can absolutely be superhuman with just cameras.”

Musk says that Tesla is on track for completing a fully autonomous, cross-country LA to New York trip by the end of 2017. “November or December of this year, we should be able to go from a parking lot in California to a parking lot in New York, no controls touched at any point during the entire journey.”

More news from Tesla: a semi truck, which Musk reveals with a teaser photo. It’s a heavy-duty, long-range semi meant to alleviate heavy-duty trucking. “With the Tesla Semi, we want to show that an electric truck actually can out-torque any diesel semi. If you had a tug of war competition, the Tesla Semi will tug the diesel semi uphill,” Musk says. And it’s nimble –it can be driven around “like a sports car,” he says.

What else is going electric?

Showing a concept photo of a house with a Tesla in the driveway, Powerwalls on the side of the house — and a solar glass roof, Musk talks about his vision for the home of the future. Most houses in the US, Musk says, have enough roof area for solar panels to power all the needs of the house. “Eventually almost all houses will have a solar roof,” he says. “Fast forward 15 years from now, it’ll be unusual to have a roof that doesn’t have solar.”

And to store all that electricity needed to power our homes and cars, Musk has made a huge bet on lithium-ion batteries. Moving on to a discussion of the Gigafactory, a diamond-shaped lithium-ion battery factory near Sparks, Nevada, Musk talks about how power will be stored in the future.

“When it’s running full speed, you can’t see the cells without a strobe light,” Musk says as a video of the factory pumping out Li-ion batteries plays behind him. Musk thinks we’ll need about 100 such factories to power the world in a future where we don’t feel guilty about using and producing energy, and Tesla plans to announce locations for another four Gigafactories late this year. “We need to address a global market,” Musk says, hinting that the new factories will be spread out across the world.

 

Let’s talk SpaceX.

At TED2013, Musk talked about his dream of building reusable rockets — a dream he’s seen realized with the success of the Falcon 9, which to date has had nine successful launches and landings. Earlier this year, a used rocket completed a second successful landing for the first time in history. “It’s the first reflight of an old booster where that reflight is relevant,” Musk says. “Reusability is only relevant if it is rapid and complete, like an aircraft or a car … You don’t send your aircraft in to Boeing in between flights.”

What about Mars?

Showing plans for a massive rocket that’s the size of a 40-story building, Musk talks about what it’ll take to get to Mars. “The thrust level for this configuration is about four times the thrust of a Saturn V moon rocket,” the biggest rocket humanity has ever created, he says. “In units of 747s, this would be the thrust equivalent of 120 747s with all engines blazing.” The rocket is so massive that it could take a fully-loaded 747 as cargo. While it may seem large now, “future spacecraft will make this look like a rowboat,” Musk says.

And when can we can hope to see it? Musk thinks the Interplanetary Transport System SpaceX revealed earlier this year will take 8-10 years to build. “Our internal targets are more aggressive,” he says.

“There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing,” Musk says.

But why work on projects like getting to Mars when we have so many problems here on Earth?

Sustainable energy will happen no matter what, out of necessity, Musk says. “If you don’t have sustainable energy, you have unsustainable energy … The fundamental value of a company like Tesla is the degree to which it accelerates the advent of sustainable energy faster than it would otherwise occur.”

But becoming a multi-planet species isn’t inevitable. “If you look at the progress in space, in 1969 we were able to send somebody to the moon. Then we had the space shuttle, which could only take people to low-Earth orbit. Now we can take noone to orbit. That’s the trend — it’s down to nothing. We’re mistaken when we think technology automatically improves. It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better.”

What’s your motivation?

“The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question,” Musk says, “But I want to be clear: I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad.”

from TED Blog http://blog.ted.com/what-will-the-future-look-like-elon-musk-speaks-at-ted2017/
via Sol Danmeri