What an extraordinary achievement for a civilization: to have developed the one diet that reliably makes its people sick!

While it is true that many people simply can't afford to pay more for food, either in money or time or both, many more of us can. After all, just in the last decade or two we've somehow found the time in the day to spend several hours on the internet and the money in the budget not only to pay for broadband service, but to cover a second phone bill and a new monthly bill for television, formerly free. For the majority of Americans, spending more for better food is less a matter of ability than priority. p.187

Most of the time pests and disease are just nature's way of telling the farmer he's doing something wrong.

Eat with consciousness. When you eat with consciousness, and you know what you're eating, and you eat it in full appreciation of what it is, it's enormously satisfying.

Experiences that banish irony are much better for living than for writing.

It's really important for your health, because you will never use as much salt and fat and sugar as a corporation will use cooking for you.

But that's the challenge -- to change the system more than it changes you.