I was a compulsive eater in my late teens and until I wrote Diet for a Small Planet, so I know what it feels like when food becomes a threat.

I believe it is possible that we can turn today's breakdown into a planetary breakthrough on one condition. We can do it if we can break free of a set of dominant but misleading ideas that are taking us down.

Humans need to feel effective - to feel that we can "make a dent," as he puts it. So the art of living is to find expressions appropriate to our own uniqueness in which we can experience effectiveness.

There are surprising turning points; there is the straw that breaks the camel's back, and you never know if your action could be the straw.

I get goose-bumps when you talk about Diane Wilson. Who knows where she found that courage? When she was a child, she would crawl under the bed when a stranger came to the house. But in 1989, she found out that her county in south Texas was ranked worst in the country for toxic waste. She wondered if the effluent, dumped into the waters where she and her family had shrimped for generations, might be responsible for the dwindling fish populations. And she suspected that her son's autism might be related to the pollution.

You have increasing poverty and increasing wealth. Fine food is one way to dispense with a lot of money... It's understanding that our daily choices about food connect us to a worldwide economic system. And that economic system - not scarcity - creates worldwide hunger for millions of people.

Beauty exists irrespective of financial circumstances.