Fat is mainstream, which is why everyone has become complacent. What used to be considered pudgy before isn't even worthy of a comment today.

What we know about diets hasn't changed. It still makes sense to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, balance calories from other foods, and keep calories under control. That, however, does not make front-page news.

The general public believes that if a health claim is on the label the government backs that up, ... This sells food products, no question.

The pet food recall, which was after all just about pets, and treated as if it were an inconsequential matter, was an absolute forerunner of what's going on in China, where 50,000 infants have been sickened because of a contaminated infant formula. So these things are all closely related. You cannot separate the food supply for pets, farm animals, and people, and you cannot separate problems in one area of a country from problems in another area.

The chef has kids complaining to their parents the food they get in school is better than what they get at home. He's turned this group of kids into curious, adventurous eaters.

When you have a food safety system that's voluntary and not mandatory, you're in a situation in which everybody wants everybody else to go first. So as a normal course of doing business, food companies cut corners and don't want to take the kind of trouble and the kind of testing and the kind of careful procedures that are required to produce the safe food because they don't have to.

We don't have a farm-to-table food safety system. I keep saying this. It came as a big surprise to the FDA that tomatoes were being grown in the United States, sent to Mexico for packing, and then sent back. I mean, they had no idea that our food chain worked like this.