A culture that just views a pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure, and can be manipulated by whatever creative design humans can foist upon that critter, will probably view individuals within its community and other cultures in the community of nations, with the same type of disdain and disrespect and controlling-type mentality.

Ours is certainly not an old culture. Yet in recent decades we've used more energy, destroyed more soil, created more pathogenicity (temporarily stopped some too, for sure), mutated more bacteria, and dumped more toxicity on the planet than all the cultures before us-combined. I love the United States, but I am not blind to the wrongs. I have no desire to live anywhere else, but that doesn't mean I think everything we're doing should be done or can be maintained.

Amazingly, we’ve become a culture that considers Twinkies, Cocoa Puffs, and Mountain Dew safe, but raw milk and compost-grown tomatoes unsafe.

If every American for one week refused to eat at a fast-food joint, it would bring concentrated animal feeding operations to their knees.

My advice to anyone who wants to join in on farming is diversify. Nature is diversified, and I know you'll always have a core thing that you'll really like, but hang stuff around the edges of it. It will make your place more interesting for people to come to, and it's a lot easier to sell something else to an existing customer.

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?'

When faith in our freedom gives way to fear of our freedom, silencing the minority view becomes the operative protocol.