Gunhild Stordalen

Gunhild Stordalen    (doctor, activist)
Born	Gunhild Anker Melhus 15 January 1979
Nationality	Norwegian
Alma mater	University of Oslo
Spouse	Petter Stordalen
Member of	WEF/Young Global Leaders/2015
Founder of the EAT Foundation, a Davos for Food", with the mission of letting "stakeholders" transform the global food system, from a meat-centered one to one with heavy emphasis on vegetable-based heavily processed foods and bioengineered synthetic meat.

Gunhild Anker Stordalen is a Norwegian physician and founder and executive chair of the EAT Foundation, a "Davos for Food" . The Foundation was started with the mission of letting "stakeholders" transform the global food system, from a meat-centered one to one with heavy emphasis on vegetable-based heavily processed foods. It works closely with some of the biggest synthetic meat companies and other biotech companies, and also some of the biggest food and agrobusinesses in the world.

Stordalen was selected a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2015.

Background and personal life

Stordalen graduated from Kongsberg secondary school in 1998. She enrolled at the medical faculty of the University of Oslo in 2000. She received her MD (cand.med.) in 2007. During her time at University she worked with sexual awareness information for youths (Medisinernes Seksualopplysning) as well as an expert panelist on NRKs radio program Juntafil, a show that answers young Norwegians sometimes very explicit sexual questions. In 2007 Stordalen enrolled in the PhD program at the Institute of Pathology Oslo University Hospital (Rikshospitalet) and in 2010 defended her doctoral thesis in the field of pathology and orthopedics.

Her former husband, Petter Stordalen is a Norwegian billionaire businessman, hotel and property developer and self-proclaimed environmentalist. He has an estimated net worth of US$1.3 billion stemming from investments in hotels, shopping centers and property.

She is also the co-founder and chair of the philanthropic Stordalen Foundation, the founder of GreeNudge and serves on the board of several commercial and nonprofit organizations. She has also been engaged in public debate on issues such as climate change.

EAT Initiative

The EAT alliance is a collection of companies that are all drivers of a chemical/synthetic industrial agriculture, with great emphasis on vegetable-based heavily processed foods.

In 2013, Stordalen founded the EAT Initiative with the idea of transforming the global food system. In 2014, together with the Stordalen Foundation and the Stockholm Resilience Center (Director Johan Rockström) she hosted the first EAT Stockholm Food Forum, dealing with the connection between food, health and sustainability.

The participants included Charles, Prince of Wales, who spoke via a link on the theme of 'The global food system: A sustainable future', former US President Bill Clinton, who gave the keynote speech, and Professor Hans Rosling. Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland and Mette-Marit, Crown Princess of Norway took part in a discussion from a consumer perspective on food and health.

The EAT Forum’s largest initiative is called FReSH, the goal of which is to transform the food system as a whole. Project partners in this venture include Bayer, Cargill, Syngenta, Unilever and Google. According to Frederic Leroy, a food science and biotechnology professor at University of Brussels, EAT network is working closely with some of the biggest imitation meat companies, including Impossible Foods and other biotech companies, "to replace wholesome nutritious foods with Bill Gates’ genetically modified lab concoctions."

EAT’s proposed diet is not about nutrition at all, it’s about big business and it’s about a corporate takeover of the food system.

EAT Foundation

The Wellcome Trust joined Stockholm Resilience Center and the Stordalen Foundation in launching the EAT Foundation in March 2016. This enabled the EAT Stockholm Food Forum to become an annual event. The EAT Foundation "will break down established barriers between sectors and bring together policy makers, industry leaders, researchers and civil society to develop solutions that are practical and have support from all sides." (note: consumers are not mentioned).

EAT has set a 10-point plan, originally for the 2017-2020 period. "to help bring about the great food transformation needed." Planning that "EAT will work towards building consensus on an initial, scientific ‘2 degree’ target for food. A similar science-based consensus is needed to establish the parameters of healthy and sustainable diets." It proposes a 4 point action plan:

• EAT will work to reform global, national and local governance around food systems.
• EAT will influence and align political and business action.
• EAT will translate knowledge into action working through strategic partnerships.
• EAT will scan the horizon for new partners to drive reform in critical sectors and regions.

The EAT Network includes UN agencies, NGOs, the private sector and world-leading universities, including Harvard, Cornell, Berkeley, New York Academy of Sciences, University College of London as well as Scandinavian Universities. EAT partners with Chatham House, the Lancet, Google Inc, Tetra Pak and Nestlé.

The analyst Pål Steigan points out:

Stordalen and her EAT Foundation have received massive media coverage for their further proposals on how the world's diet should be. It can be easy to smile indulgently, shrug and think of something else. There is no reason for that. Those behind Stordalen are one of the most powerful capital alliances the world has seen, and they mean business - agrobusiness. They intend to change the nutrition system across the globe and have gathered the power to do so. The EAT Foundation is in the process of building various forms of partnerships that is a small UN in itself, a capital-driven UN that will naturally infiltrate agendas at local, national and international level.
It is true that the world's food system is shaky and unsustainable. Yes, it is true that the world-class diet is far too meat-based and one-sided. Yes, it is true that the diet must be more plant-based and versatile. Yes, it is true that industrial agriculture has exhausted the cord, created the obesity revolution and nutritional problems in large numbers. But those who have been the driving forces in creating these problems are precisely the companies that are part of this alliance. And now we must have confidence that they will solve the problems they themselves have created?"

Goodbye to animal husbandry

An analysis of the EAT report prepared by NMBU - Norway's University of Environmental and Life Sciences pointed out that the diet proposed by the EAT model will also to a large extent lead to the shutting down of Norwegian agriculture, since it is based on livestock production:

The EAT diet proposes that people should eat less of the foods we have a natural basis for producing in Norway and more of the food we have to import. Large areas in the country where grass production dominates will go out of operation and the precondition for farming in these areas will disappear, according to the analysis from NMBU. For agriculture is often a cornerstone of local communities. Shutting it down will have ripple effects. It will mean moving away from far more than just the farms."

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
WEF/Annual Meeting/2019	22 January 2019	25 January 2019	World Economic Forum Switzerland	"The reality is that we are in a Cold War [against China] that threatens to turn into a hot one."
WEF/Annual Meeting/2020	21 January 2020	24 January 2020	World Economic Forum Switzerland	This mega-summit of the world's ruling class and their political and media appendages happens every year, but 2020 was special, as the continuous corporate media coverage of COVID-19 started more or less from one day to the next on 20/21 January 2020, coinciding with the start of the meeting.

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References

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