If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't.

People in Slow Food understand that food is an environmental issue.

Studies show that organically grown crops produce more of the things (ascorbic acid, lycopenes, resveratrol, flavonols in general, etc) that our bodies need and also have less toxic residue. Science is still catching up with this. J. Agric. Food. Chem. Vol. 51, no. 5, 2003.

A tension has always existed between the capitalist imperative to maximize efficiency at any cost and the moral imperatives of culture, which historically have served as a counterweight to the moral blindness of the market. This is another example of the cultural contradictions of capitalism - the tendency over time for the economic impulse to erode the moral underpinnings of society. Mercy toward the animals in our care is one such casualty.

People who snack sometimes sometimes eat kind of thoughtlessly and end up eating a lot more. But in principle, it's a really good idea if you can exert the kind of discipline needed.

If you're a politician it's very useful to say that we can have economic growth and at the same time green the economy, but writers just have to face up to the fact that there are some fundamental tensions between the economic order and the biological order.

Fairness forces you - even when you're writing a piece highly critical of, say, genetically modified food, as I have done - to make sure you represent the other side as extensively and as accurately as you possibly can.