Little wonder that it can seem unthinkable to say "no, thanks" to the modern-day equivalent of our tribe - our fear-driven culture.

Hunger is a people-made phenomenon, so the central issue is power: the power of those who make the decisions about what is grown and who, or what, it's grown for.

I never like to use those terms [like pessimistic].

Our food system takes abundant grain,which people can't afford,and shrinks it into meat,which better-off people will pay for.

My path has not been smooth. But the great thing about getting to be an elder is that you can look back and see the intense times of confusion and challenge, and see that if you keep walking through them, they can lead to times of great satisfaction and reward.

[Fear] means that we are human beings walking into the unknown, and that we are risking breaking with others for something we believe in.

My children threw me a life line: "Return to your roots - food - and rewrite your first book, Diet for a Small Planet." I learned that if I could just show up, in this case, if I could just get myself out of bed, get to the computer in my tiny office at MIT, and start writing, help would start arriving.