The article for today’s reading and translation was “We need to feed the whole world.”  This speech was made in February 2009 by Louise Fresco, a food and agriculture expert.  She indicated the small-scale farming was not workable due to some reasons.  She thought the environmentally sound mass production would feed the whole world although there were flip sides of mass production. Hence, she urged the audience to ask their governments for an integrated food policy to minimize those negative impacts.

        Due to the broken desktop, Alfonso borrowed another notebook, so we could proceed with all the supplementary data and photos.

Here were some highlights during our discussion.

1.    It was quite interesting for Louise to bake bread while making a speech. By doing so, she really reflected the small-scale farming and production were not able to feed so many populations.

2.    Low-carb diets mean low-carbohydrate diets. Its benefit includes weight loss, muscle building, diabetes prevention, blood pressure lowering, etc.

3.    The meaning of whole meal is whole grain.

4.    Cereals: wheat, rice, corn, oat(燕麥) , barley(大麥), millet(小米), rye(黑麥), buckwheat(蕎麥), sorghum(高粱), etc.

5.    There were two different meanings of the word ‘relegate’ in the speech. First, we are going to relegate these poor farmers. The definition here is to give them a less important position than before (將…置於次要地位;貶低). Second, we do not want to relegate the urban poor to starvation. The definition here is to remove them to a worse or less desirable place or situation (貶謫至更糟的情況或地方).

6.    Today’s guest was Solana’s son. He read many paragraphs fluently and gracefully. But it was a pity that he had no time to introduce himself to the class.