I have had the good fortune to see how my articles have directly benefited some farmers and helped build markets for their products in a way that preserves land from development. That makes me a hopeless optimist.

Wrangham cites several studies indicating that in fact humans don't do well on raw food: they can't maintain their body weight, and half of the women on a raw-food regimen stop menstruating. Devotees of raw food rely heavily on juicers and blenders, because otherwise they would have to spend as much time chewing as the chimps do. It is difficult, if not impossible, to extract sufficient energy from unprocessed plant matter to power a body with such a big, hungry brain.

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

The food system is a very complex beast. There are people who are going to get their food at Wal-Mart or at Safeway; they're not going to the farmers' market. Those people need choices too.

I think there's a real tension between capitalism and morality. That's not to say these systems aren't powerful and useful, but to assume that capitalism can somehow assure moral behavior or character, that's just a pipe dream.

In the end I'm still a writer. I'm still a journalist, and my first responsibility is to my readers. That's where I have to draw the line.

You are what what you eat eats.