A week has past since I attended "A Taste For Change" a symposium on sustainable food at CBG, but it still has me thinking.

The keynote speaker, Jerry Brunetti was quoted in the PD this past week in an article about the benefits of a diet low in processed foods and refined sugars. I was disappointed that the symposium was barely mentioned. If you have read my two previous postings you know that I have been praising this event. I found the dialogs daring, extremely educational and inspiring.

The speakers and panelists presented the audience with a lot of fascinating and startling facts during the day. Often the same facts kept appearing in different talks. One of the speakers even joked about it.

I compiled a list of some of the most interesting facts I heard, things I thought everyone in NEO should know.

1. Approximately 800 million people in the world are under nourished and 1 billion people are over nourished.

2.  8-9 billion lbs of pesticides per year are used in the U.S., this equals approximately 30 lbs per person. (What are we using all the pesticides for? see fact #3 below.)

3. 80% of Earths biodiversity is microbial, 50% of Earths biomass is microbial. (And we thought the war in Iraq was a loosing battle!)  

4. Three crops: corn, rice, and wheat represent 2/3 of U.S. agriculture. 

5. The U.S. Farm Bill essentially subsidizes junk food, they subsidize crops like corn, wheat and soy but not carrots, broccoli etc. They also subsidize feed lot beef but not grass fed beef.

6. The USDA says there is no nutritional difference between foods grown on factory farms and foods grown on organic and sustainable smaller farms. This is not true. For example, cattle that are allowed to eat grass produce meat with substantially more vitamin A. Free range eggs are also typically more nutritious. 

7. Sugar is more addictive than nicotine or alcohol. 

8. Americans are remarkably unhealthy for living in a rich 1st world country. Americans have relatively high rates of depression, obesity, hearth disease,  diabetes, cancer, infertility, asthma and allergies and we rank #20 in infant mortality.

9. Issues with farm solutions: human health, obesity, child behavior, animal health

10. In 1960 there were 6.6 million U.S. farms, in 2000 there were 1.9 million. Susidies forced out smaller farms because the greater the number of farmers there are the more political power they have. Big business does not want farmers to have political power.

11. The newly drafted Iraq constitution states that GM (genetically modified) foods must be used. The man organizing Iraq's nearly formed department of agriculture is a Cargill executive.

12. In Boston, a program called The Food Project offered free soil tests of vegetable gardens in residential inner city neighborhoods. 88% test unsafe because of high lead levels.

13.  Americans have become less resistant to bacteria because of current farming and food preparation practices. In the past, a life time of exposure to bacteria through gardening, raising animals, and preparing foods from scratch created stronger immune systems.