Given that it takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat, I think we can also go a long way toward ending hunger and saving the environment as well.

I think there needs to be a general consciousness raising among consumers. So many consumers aren't aware of the backstory. They see the end product in the supermarket but don't know all the steps that it took to get it there, who helped to get the food there.

Given that I'm from the South, I wanted to do something to address that. I have been focusing more energy and resources on addressing those issues.

Food historian Jessica B. Harris says African American cuisine is simply what black people ate. When I think about what my family ate, we ate what people think of as soul food on special occasions, on holidays, but our typical diet was leafy greens and nutrients and tubers - food that was as fresh as being harvested right before our meal. Whatever was in season, that's what we were eating. It was being harvested right from our backyard.

I got a call one morning from Oran Hesterman, who was the president of the Fair Food Foundation, saying that the Fair Food Foundation was shutting down effectively as of that day, because they'd been caught up in the Madoff scandal. It affected me because the fellowship that I had was actually funded in part by the Fair Food Foundation. That meant that my fellowship was pretty much null and void.

What makes the farmers market such a special place is that you are actually creating community around food.

I think that if everyone did at least embrace a more plant-centered diet, it would improve public health.