Meat is produced under HACCP plans. Meat and poultry are required to be produced under standard food safety plans and they have been since the mid-'90s, and there are now fewer problems with meat than there used to be. That's on the USDA's side.

The Centers for Disease Control says that there are 76 million cases of food poisoning in the United States every year, 350,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths. Is that a lot or a little? Well, it depends on how you look at it.

Consumers have to understand that the purpose of these claims is to get them to buy the product.

It's a completely reasonable diet -- heavy on fruits and vegetables and fresh, seasonal foods. I'm totally for it. It's common sense in a nice package.

There's no question that largely vegetarian diets are as healthy as you can get. The evidence is so strong and overwhelming and produced over such a long period of time that it's no longer debatable.

FDA, which regulates the safety of vegetables, doesn't have those kinds of rules because Congress doesn't want it to. It's not that the vegetables themselves have anything wrong with them; it's that they're contaminated with animal manure. One of the rationales for a single food safety agency is that you can't separate animals from vegetables.

The standard four food groups are based on American agricultural lobbies. Why do we have a milk group? Because we have a National Dairy Council. Why do we have a meat group? Because we have an extremely powerful meat lobby.