I don't want to sound too mystical or weird but it's important to know what garlic smells like when it's cooking, or what eggs look like when they're cracked out of a shell.

A farmer friend of mine told me recently about a busload of middle school children who came to his farm for a tour. The first two boys off the bus asked, "Where is the salsa tree?" They thought they could go pick salsa, like apples and peaches. Oh my. What do they put on SAT tests to measure this? Does anybody care? How little can a person know about food and still make educated decisions about it? Is this knowledge going to change before they enter the voting booth? Now that's a scary thought.

The first supermarket supposedly appeared on the American landscape in 1946. That is not very long ago. Until then, where was all the food? Dear folks, the food was in homes, gardens, local fields, and forests. It was near kitchens, near tables, near bedsides. It was in the pantry, the cellar, the backyard.

The industrial food system is so cruel and so horrific in its treatment of animals. It never asks the question: 'Should a pig be allowed to express its pig-ness?'

You know what the best kind of organic certification would be? Make an unannounced visit to a farm and take a good long look at the farmer’s bookshelf. Because what you’re feeding your emotions and thoughts is what this is really all about. The way I produce a chicken is an extension of my worldview. You can learn more about that by seeing what’s sitting on my bookshelf than having me fill out a whole bunch of forms.

When government gets between my lips and my stomach; I call that invasion of privacy!

If you have to put on a haz-mat suit to visit a farm, you may not want to eat what comes from it.