I believe that every child in this world needs to have a relationship with the land...to know how to nourish themselves...and to know how to connect with the community around them.

People cooked with a certain integrity before fast food, 50 or 60 years ago. When the cheap food arrived, and we didn't have the education and deep cultural roots to hold on, we got swept away by fast, cheap and easy.

Change the food in the schools and we can influence how children think. Change the curriculum and teach them how to garden and how to cook and we can show that growing food and cooking and eating together give lasting richness, meaning, and beauty to our lives.

I came to all the realizations about sustainability and biodiversity because I fell in love with the way food tastes. And because I was looking for that taste I feel at the doorsteps of the organic, local, sustainable farmers, dairy people and fisherman.

Eating is an environmental act.

It's a comfort to always find pasta in the cupboard and garlic and parsley in the garden.

I want every child in America to eat a nutritious, delicious, sustainably sourced school lunch for free.