Today the U.S. government can demand the nation-wide recall of defective softball bats, sneakers, stuffed animals, and foam-rubber toy cows. But it cannot order a meatpacking company to remove contaminated, potentially lethal ground beef from fast food kitchens and supermarket shelves.

Basically, I'm a perpetual student. I start by finding a subject I really don't know very much, but that I'm curious about. I learn about it through books in a library, by doing interviews with people who know a lot about the subject, and by going out on my own and seeing for myself what's happening.

The fear of murder has grown so enormous in the United States that it leaves a taint, like the mark of Cain, on everyone murder touches.

We're all connected by the system, and we all have to be a part, I think, of changing it.

I'd been eating fast food all my life without thinking about it. And the more I learned about the subject, the more intrigued I became.

Kids have no idea when they're drinking soda what they're really drinking, and a lot of them are stunned when they learn that drinking a Big Gulp is like taking a big jar of sugar and just pouring it down. There are 50 teaspoons of sugar in a 64-ounce Big Gulp.

We can have Americans eating affordably and eating in a way that's sustainable.