All About Change - Eitan Bernath: Food Insecurity in America and Activism as a Celebrity Chef

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Few things bring me joy and hope quite like young people who are already involved in making the world a better place. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with celebrity chef Eitan Bernath. The youngest individual ever to be named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in Food and Drink, Eitan found success cooking on Tik Tok, and quickly moved to TV, where he has served as the Principal Culinary Contributor on the Drew Barrymore Show on CBS since 2020. Eitan is barely of drinking age and he is already involved in a wide range of activist causes. He is involved in local animal rescue and food rescue in New York City, where he lives, Jewish representation, and he serves as a High Level Supporter of the United Nations World Food Programme. Eitan wasted no time parlaying his success into a platform for activism, and I’m so excited to share his story with you. We talk about his work in food rescue, models for ending food insecurity, and the way he has leveraged his large platform as a social media star as part of his activism. Today's episode was produced by Tani Levitt and Mijon Zulu. To check out more episodes or to learn more about the show, you can visit our website Allaboutchangepodcast.com. If you like our show, spread the word, tell a friend or family member, or leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. We really appreciate it. All About Change is produced by the Ruderman Family Foundation. Episode Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:31 How does Eitan get involved in new causes? 4:09 Food waste in America 7:25 Indian Sikh responses to hunger in their community 12:04 The fun in activism 15:06 Mentoring other influencers 17:06 How has Eitan’s Jewish identity changed with fame? 24:30 Eitan’s goals for the next 5-10 years  27:17 Outro and Goodbye For video episodes, watch on www.youtube.com/@therudermanfamilyfoundation Stay in touch: X: @JayRuderman | @RudermanFdn LinkedIn: Jay Ruderman | Ruderman Family Foundation Instagram: All About Change Podcast | Ruderman Family Foundation To learn more about the podcast, visit https://allaboutchangepodcast.com/ Looking for more insights into the world of activism? Be sure to check out Jay’s brand new book, Find Your Fight, in which Jay teaches the next generation of activists and advocates how to step up and bring about lasting change. You can find Find Your Fight wherever you buy your books, and you can learn more about it at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.walmart.com/ip/Find-Your-Fight-Make-Your-Voice-Heard-for-the-Causes-That-Matter-Most-Hardcover-9781963827071/10817862336⁠⁠

Welcome to All About Change. Hey, All About Change listeners, it's Jay here. And I wanted to tell you my book, Find Your Fight, is now available in 800 Walmart stores. In the book, I talk about my biggest successes and those of others and also failures as an activist. And my personal philosophy on how to make a difference. It's the perfect gift for friends and family who care about making a positive change in our society. Few things bring me joy and hope. like young people who are already involved in making the world a better place. Today, I have the pleasure

of speaking with celebrity chef, Aiton Burneth, the youngest individual ever to be named to the Forbes' 30 under 30 list in food and drink. Aiton found success cooking on TikTok and quickly moved to TV. We are served as the principal culinary contributor on the Drew Barrymore show on CBS since 2020. Aiton is barely of drinking age, and he is already. already involved in a wide range of activist causes. He's involved in local animal rescue and food rescue in New York City, Jewish representation, and serves as a high-level supporter of the United Nations World Food Program. Aiton wasted no time parlaying his success into a platform for activism, and I'm so excited to hear about his story. Aton Burnath, thank you so much for being my guest on All About Change.

I really look forward to this discussion. Thank you for having me. So Aiton, over the past five years, you've managed to get involved with so many wonderful causes. And as an activist with a wide appetite for helping, how do you decide which causes you want to support and how do you get involved in them? Yeah. So I have been working in food media now for 12 years, which is pretty crazy considering I'm 23

because that's more of my life than I haven't been. And so I've been surrounded by food, you know, so much in my life, both in a personal capacity but also professionally. And so for me, it was a no-brainer in wanting to use my platform to support food insecurity, you know, efforts to combat food insecurity. And whether it's from just, it's something that interests me, something I generally care about. And also it's saying that is, you know, adjacent to what my audience. is already interested in. So it's very easy to incorporate that into content and to get people interested in paying attention.

So I've watched many of your videos and you create wonderfully delicious and beautiful food that's photographed so well. And you are just very creative. How did you learn about the fact, I mean, you live in New York City. There's an abundance in New York City, but there's also people who are,

they don't have enough to eat. And how did you find out about that problem? And then what led you from finding out about it to taking action? Yeah. So, I mean, when you walk around New York City, whether or not most people realize one in four people that you pass, sorry, one of four children do not have stable food at home. It's a staggering number. And after the pandemic and with inflation, it is only worsened. And so I work with an incredible organization.

here in the city called City Harvest, which is the world, the city's first and largest food distribution organization. Essentially what they do is, is they find excess food. That's super high quality, just like you or I would be happy and excited to eat from farmers, from grocery stores, from food suppliers, from supermarket chains, from everywhere, and are able to bring it into their facility and then get it distributed to soup kitchen, food pantries and alike here in New York city and their work really, really inspires me. I've been one of the chefs on their food council now for definitely over four years, maybe close to five, and I try to be as involved as possible. So let's talk about Western society, and I just got back from three weeks in Japan, and there's

an obsession with fresh food in Japan, and everything tastes wonderful, and it's prepared fresh, but I was thinking to myself how much of this goes to waste. And I think it's the same thing in the United States and New York. I mean, what is happening? Does most of that food that's not being collected and redistributed, how much food goes to waste in our society? Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. The problem of hunger here in the U.S. is entirely a decision on our government and both in the, you know, the public sector and frankly also the private sector. We have more than enough. food. A staggering amount of food goes to waste, and much of it is food that is perfectly still good to eat. Just actually this past weekend, I volunteered separate from like the media stuff

that I do with City Harvest. I try to, you know, actually use my hands and volunteer whenever I can. And so I was at a food distribution center in Staten Island. We distributed almost 10,000 pounds of fresh produce to New Yorkers in need. And this produce we're distributing is excess produce, maybe they're apples that were a little too small to sell in grocery stores that are less desirable. We had green peppers that frankly

just must have been in excess because they looked fantastic. We distributed pears. We distributed potatoes. And this is all perfectly great produce that luckily, thanks to the harvest, has been rescued and has then been distributed. There's so much more.

We have the food. It's not like the U.S. doesn't have enough food to feed everyone. So you'd almost think that, I mean, I know there are organizations and you talked about them that get involved in doing this, but you'd almost think that our government as responsible for its people would get more involved in, you know, addressing this problem and addressing hunger in a way that's more systematic. Yeah, I mean, it's like the amount of the food that's wasted is,

is by many estimates as much as 30%. And that's from the government. That is a ridiculous percent of our food that's wasted. And now, of course, that accounts for, you know, many things. If you at home, let's say, cook yourself dinner and there's some food left in the pan or you're cutting onions and then, you know, you throw out the peels, that's part of food waste. And, you know, we could all do our own things to, you know, limit the food that we waste. But on a much larger industrial scale, there are just, there are,

so much food. And this isn't only a problem in the U.S. There's many countries on earth, you know, India being one of them that produces incredible amounts of food, but still, you know, has a huge percent of the population who suffer from hunger. This is an issue that happens across the world. And so it's really up to, I think, you know, governments and ideally, you know, NGOs and the private sector as well to kind of step up and really find, you know, homes and, you know, mouths for this food because it's there. It's not like we need to figure out how to grow more food. We don't. I'm thinking of an interesting clip that you just posted a while back about your trip to India and how there was a Sikh organization that had a kitchen in the religious center, and they

were producing food so that anyone who wanted to eat could come in there and eat, which was such an amazing moving thing, because you don't think about that. of people just welcoming anyone into their facility and saying, hey, there's extra food here, come eat. What was that experience like for you? It was incredible. So I was in a Sikh Gudwara, and Guadwara is, you know, the word they used to call their house of worship.

And there's an incredible kind of part of their tradition called Lengar. I might be misproncing. I think that's how it's pronounced, where people donate, you know, farmers donate produce and, you know, the food is donated. And then people also donate their time to come cook the food. And then anyone who needs food can come in and eat the food. And I think what was so incredible about it is it truly is anyone. You don't need to be a Sikh. You don't need to be someone who's coming there to worship. Just if you're hungry, literally every single day you could go there. And it's all about, you know, everyone being treated equally.

You all sit on the floor. You're given the banana leaf and the food's put in front of you. There's no hierarchy. You know, there's no one who is, you know, someone who's worshipping there is treated any differently than any person that walks in. And this is a thing that's not just done in India. This is done, you know, from as far as I know, across the world in Sikhodwara's. And it just was such a striking, beautiful tradition.

not even tradition, but saying that's, you know, actively done that they, you know, really, it's one thing to, you know, say, you know, I believe we need to do our part to feed the hungry. But this actual every single day in and out execution of that is really impressive and really beautiful. There is something beautiful about that because instead of like, you know, in our country, we're like, okay, well, if you want to eat, there's a soup kitchen and you can go and, you know, there's food there in some cases. But this is, you know, actively going out and saying you're welcome into our house of worship. We're actively going out and providing food for you. Do you think something like that could work here in the United States? I think on a national scale, I mean, I do know there are in the U.S. because especially, you know, a lot of members of the sea community in the U.S. had like, you know, responded and message to me when I had posted that. In the U.S., there definitely are Goodwara that do that. And maybe so if the C community opens one up everywhere, that would be amazing. But I think, I think in a practical sense, I think it really can show the power of, you know, volunteer work and because it's not just a financial thing.

You know, people show up and what the, you know, the person who is giving us a tour of the place really spoke about is a lot of the people volunteering, you know, there were women, you know, and men everywhere cutting vegetables, you know, me and my family joined them in one of the rooms where you're rolling out roti, the flatbread. Many of the people who are volunteering there also come there to eat regularly and need to do so. And so I think, I think what can be kind of learned from that and scaled more is, is more encouragement of, you know, actively doing your volunteering. It's saying, you know, my grandma, my grandma Bobby, you know, throughout my life, you know, when she was able to more physically would volunteer when she lived in Austining in Westchester

would volunteer at soup kitchens and food pantries. And, you know, for her, it was maybe checking people in or, you know, whatever kind of things they needed. And it's saying that really inspires me. I do a lot with City Harvest. I also work with the World Food Program on a, you know, more international scale. I do a lot in media, whether it's, you know, going on television to talk about them posting on my social media. But saying that's really important for me and I try to do as much as I can is actually physically using my own two hands to help like I did this weekend. I think that's saying that we could really encourage across the board more. You reminded me of my bubby and how, you know, she did not drive, but she loved to cook. And she would cook meals for her friends who were

maybe less fortunate than her. And she would take those meals, put them in a paper bag and walk them to their homes to make sure that they had, you know, a nice meal for lunch or for dinner or something like that. And what role does fun play? Because, you know, when I see you in a video, first of you, you have a magnetic personality and people are drawn to you. I mean, not just for your delicious food and your creativity, but also, you know, you have a smile on, you're laughing, you're having fun. Talk about the importance of that because I think a lot of us maybe discount that and say, you know, oh, you know, this is work and this is tough. And, you know, it seems like people aren't having enough fun going through life.

I definitely am a big, fun person. I would try to, I would say or hope to say. I think for me, at the end of the day, my goal with the videos I produce is to get people excited to cook. And at the end of the day, my job is a job. There are days where I am not in the mood to film a cooking video, but I need to. and, you know, maybe I'm, you know, a little less excited in my heart than my face is projecting, which is not frequently, but, you know, I'm a human and there's, you know, at the end of the day, my, you know, me posting videos is my business. And, but I think there's a balance,

especially working, you know, in the field that is my passion of, you know, it's my passion, but at the same time as a business. And so I'm really in a unique, in a kind of a unique situation. where I get to really have this creative control and have a lot of fun with what I'm doing. Even talking about food insecurity, I think saying that I really make an effort is, I'm not going to be posting videos, you know, gilting,

oh, this many people are hungry, you should donate money, blah, blah, blah, in like a sad way. I try to approach things even from that sense, from, you know, this problem exists, and here's what we can do about it. And whether it's just showing me volunteering or, you know, highlighting City Harvest work,

I think that for me, I know how I speak with my audience and the relationship I have with them. And so even when I'm speaking about, you know, philanthropic work or volunteering work, obviously, you know, if you need to stand outside in St.I. and hand 500 New Yorkers produce for free

that they can't afford, that's a tragic, upsetting thing. But it does, but that doesn't mean that's how you need to present it. You could talk about it as, because here's the thing. I had a good time doing it. You know, people had great attitudes, the people I was volunteering with.

We had fun, just, you know, kind of schmoozing while doing so, you know, wishing everyone who came in. Oh, good morning. How are you? You know, there were some adults brought their children with them, you know, saying hi to the kids. Like, you know, it's, it's of course a upsetting thing that this need is out there. But being active and doing it doesn't need to be upsetting. I was not upset at any time when I was volunteering. I was having a nice time.

It was fun to get to meet five. bunch of people, ask them how their day is, smile, they smile back. And I think that's what I try to highlight. And I think you truly love the human interaction, which is really important. Yes, I would say I'm a big extrovert. Do you ever find yourself as a mentor in talking to other influencers and trying to encourage them to give back more? There's a lot of great opportunities to support organizations and causes that are important to you in your heart through your work, that also can end up being quite reciprocal. And I think that's something I always try to tell a lot of friends of mine who do this

is through my work with City Harvest, the reason I'm passionate about City Harvest or the World Food Program or any of these organizations I support is because it's something I care about and I believe in their work. And there's many incredible organizations, and City Harvest is one of them. when they partner with, you know, media figures also have really cool opportunities they can bring you. I'll give you an example. I think this is about two years ago in honor of an event that City Harvest was doing, I got to light up the Empire State Building that night, which was

super cool. It was an incredible media moment, whether it's been that or I've gone to meet incredible other chefs that work with City Harvest. I have materially from a brand sense have benefited immensely from my partnership with City Harvest. It's not the base reason why I work with them and support the work at all. But it's like I tell people a lot is a lot of organizations are eager for your support.

And if you find one that really resonates with you and you're passionate about, oftentimes if what they're doing is really cool, they have cool opportunities to bring you as well. And so it's really a 360, type of relationship. And it's something that I try to tell people is, you know, everyone has limited bandwidths. You can only do so much in a day. But the reality is, is if you're passionate about it, a lot of times beyond doing what feels right and what you know is right, it actually can also

benefit you in a cool way. You've been in the spotlight since, I think, age 11 before your bar mitzvah. Yes. Yes. And, you know, I loved, you know, on Chopped and your 11-year-old Aiton with Kipa, and I'm just wondering how much is your Jewish identity changed as you've gotten older and moved along your journey? And how has your Jewish identity shaped your journey? Yeah, I mean, so when I competed on Chopped when I was 11 and started, you know, an Instagram page and started creating content online, I would say probably 90%, if not more, of who was supporting me and excited about me was the Jewish community. grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, and, you know, in a very strong supportive Jewish community.

You know, the first media pieces written about me were in the local Jewish papers. Nowadays, 12 years later, the overall majority of my following, I would guess probably 95%, if not 99% of my audience, just like because the population of the world, is not Jewish. I still have a super strong, very loud, very supportive Jewish following. And yeah, I think I absolutely have the Jewish community to thank for a beginning, the beginning of my career and being so supportive and just continuing to be super supportive. And I think in terms of being on the internet as a Jew, you know, that definitely comes with its set of challenges, have absolutely faced immense anti-Semitism, you know, awful death threats, very, very unsavory messages. you know, it's saying that at this point I'm quite used to, but, you know, I've volunteered with different, you know, Jewish organizations and have spoken up about combating anti-Semitism. And it's a very

integral part of who I am. You know, I don't, the food I cook is not generally Jewish food. My account's not about being Jewish, but it comes up all the time because, you know, being Jewish is a ginormous part of my life. And you don't hide from it. No, not at all. even despite, you know, obviously the last years or so as a Jew on the Internet has been exceptionally challenging. And I think for me, just, you know, staying strong to my beliefs and, you know,

my pride as a Jew. And, you know, it's definitely, there were some times in the last two years where, you know, there were some super, not, you know, very specific death threats. There were times I've been, unfortunately, had to be in touch with, like, the FBI about specific things,

which is not fun, but it's part of the general an unfortunate part, I guess. But I also say, Aten, that you have a very mature view. Like, some people would have a very difficult time dealing with what you have to deal with online. And you seem to have developed a very, you know, thick skin, or at least a way of dealing with it. I think I've kind of always had a thick skin. I know, like, when I was on Chopped, when I was in middle school, you know, I got made, well,

first off, at 11 years old, I got chopped in the appetizer rounds on national television with my whole school and everyone I knew watching. So I think that definitely got me started with having a thick skin and being able to take some punches. But I think beyond that, you know, I definitely got made fun of when I was younger for cooking. You know, now people think it's cool. It definitely was not cool when I was 9, 10, 11. and I think that's definitely how it started.

And beyond that, I think just, you know, being in the public eye, you know, whether it was when I was younger and had acne and getting comments on, like you have pimples, blah, blah, blah, or, you know, I even had braces when I was, you know, unchopped and was starting out. About a year on the internet or even less will probably build you a thick skin. If there's some, if someone on the internet has the thought about you, they'll let you know. And so I think I've just gotten quite used to it. and I think it's helped me become a super confident person.

And, you know, I was actually just talking to someone about this the other day about how it's funny when you've done this for so long, like you have a very thick skin and then randomly, once in a while, someone will send you a hate message about some, like, very specific thing you didn't even know you're insecure about. And then it hits you're like, oh, my God, are they right? But I would say in general, specifically with anti-Semitism, I mean, obviously someone telling me, I hope all Jews die,

doesn't upset me. It's upsetting that. people feel that way, but nothing I did to deserve that other than, you know, be born into, you know, the religion and, you know, heritage I was born and choosing to be proud of it. And, you know, beyond that, I think anti-Semitism is, you know, has so many forms, whether it's, you know, I sometimes get messages that, you know, Jews aren't the real Jews and that, you know, whether it's like a black Hebrew-Israelite telling you that, you know, Jews are. are not actual Jews and they're the actual Jews and that were imposters or, you know, whether it's

people, you know, anti-Semitism or, you know, blaming Jews for the actions of the Israeli government. You know, there's so many forms of it. And it's unfortunately saying that, you know, there's new forms being figured out and invented. It feels like every day. Well, I think that being famous is not always easy and it's not always like natural. So I'm wondering like, how. How important a role does your family and your close network of friends play in giving you that stability that allows you to do something that puts you in a very vulnerable situation? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, a lot of times when people, like, sometimes if I meet, you know, kids or teens and like, they're like, oh, when I, when I grew up, like, I want to, you know, be a social media influencer, I want to be famous. I think something that I've learned as, you know, basically spending now more of my life than not in the public. is it is absolutely not for everyone. I think I have a pretty, you know, perfect set of self-confidence

and thick skin that it works for me. But there are many, many, many, many, many, many, many, challenges with it and things that I think most people would strongly dislike. And frankly, many parts of it that I dislike, I think for me in my life, the pros of my job severely outweigh the cons. But, you know, whether it's just opening yourself up to everyone's opinion, and sound like that is, you know, I can post something and piss off someone who then, you know, knows my parents and could say sign to them about it. And so, you know, things that I do in my actions don't only affect me. They affect people that are, you know, maybe close friends of mine or family members. And so, you know, for me, it makes me really value, you know, I'm super close to my family.

I live here in Manhattan, my family's in Jersey. I see them at least once or twice a week. I talk to my mom and dad every single day, and my brother Yoni as well. And so it's super important for me, whether it's my family, my friends, you know, it's important to, you know, keep a good, close-knit kind of inner circle. And yeah, and just like have people to talk to because there's definitely very unique challenges that come with this job that are, you know, can be hard to talk about or hard to relate to with normal, you know, people who, not normal people, sorry, people who, people who don't experience having millions of strangers on the internet tell you what they think about you every day. Atana, I want to talk in my book, one of the biggest steps that I talk about as an activist that you can make is to find your fight, to really find what's important to you and to go after it. And I feel like you're just getting started. So I'm wondering what sort of impact would you like to have in the next five to 10 years? You know, how do you envision yourself as an activist and how does that work itself into your career? I think in the food insecurity space, something that I've enjoyed doing.

that I would love to do more is be able to do more storytelling of unique solutions that are put in place throughout the world. Kind of like what I did in that content series that you referred to in India. I'd also highlighted some incredible

initiatives in this northern state in India called Behar where they're helping women farmers optimize you know, one of them was out raising goats, another was more focused on agriculture. And so I think being able to highlight those solutions and raise awareness on them or saying that I frankly really enjoyed the process of and hope to do more of. And then beyond that, just continuing to

find ways to, you know, creatively incorporate the messaging into content in, you know, kind of fun and engaging ways, you know, increasingly with the algorithmic, you know, content distribution on all the platforms, just posting a video for me talking straight to camera, you know, plainly about food insecurity is going to get a hundred views. And so you really have to be creative and make content entertaining, even if it's about something like that. And I hope to continue doing that and, you know, continue to encourage people to get out there and donate and donate their time, frankly. I think, you know, there's a lot of organizations that have a lot of money. Donating money's great. but I think a lot of times people may say,

oh, you know, I don't have the money to donate. There's nothing I can do. If you have a free Sunday morning, you could go to your local soup kitchen, your local food pantry. And I think that's saying I'd like to encourage people to do is because, you know, truly, whether it's me, handing out food, Grandma Bobby,

you know, checking people in while sitting in a chair. You know, I think that's a good example of how, you know, we really all can do our part, no matter how small it feels. And I think that that's saying I really want to continue to encourage people and find creative ways to do that. You know, it's such good advice

because I get approached by a lot of people and they say, you know, I want to get involved as an activist. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to start. And I once interviewed not too long ago, Jonah Platt, and he's like, his advice was, just do it.

Just go out and do it. Just start doing something. And it'll lead to something. Aton, I want to leave you with a compliment because I know you travel all over the world. You're all over the place and you're busy and you meet people and you learn like so much. But the way,

way you do it is so respectful of other people. And that's rare. I don't see that all the time. I see, you know, like things as being very transactional, but I don't feel that your interactions are transactional at all. I think that you're really treating people with respect. You want to learn and you want to do it in the right way. So thank you for doing that. And I really appreciate, you know, what you've done, you know, both as a young person and really, you know, having a fabulous career, but also giving back to our society and really having an impact. So Aiton Burna, thank you so much for being my guest on All About Change. I've really enjoyed this conversation and I wish that you will go from strength to strength. Thank you. Thank you. That was very kind of you. And thank you for

having me. This was a lot of fun. Thank you for being part of the All About Change community. We aim to spark ideas for personal activism, helping you find your pathway to action beyond awareness. So thank you for investing your time with us, learning and thinking about how just one person can make the choice to build a community and improve our world. I believe in the empower of informed people like you to drive real change,

and I know that what we explore today will be a tool for you in that effort. All right, I'll see you in two weeks for our next conversation. but just one small ask, please hit subscribe and leave us a comment below. It lets us know that you value this content and it supports our mission to widely share these perspectives. If you're looking for more inspiration, check out this next video. I chose it for you and I know you're going to enjoy it. I'm Jay Ruderman. Let's continue working towards meaningful change together.