Why don't we pay more attention to who our farmers are? We would never be as careless choosing an auto mechanic or babysitter as we are about who grows our food.

I have no scientific training at all. I was an English major in school. Everything I learned about science I've learned as a journalist would, finding out what I needed to know.

Rule No. 12: shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.

Originally, the atoms of carbon from which we're made were floating in the air, part of a carbon dioxide molecule. The only way to recruit these carbon atoms for the molecules necessary to support life-the carbohydrates, amino acids, proteins, and lipids-is by means of photosynthesis. Using sunlight as a catalyst the green cells of plants combine carbon atoms taken from the air with water and elements drawn from the soil to form the simple organic compounds that stand at the base of every food chain. It is more than a figure of speech to say that plants create life out of thin air.

Corporations cook very differently from how people do.

Much more has to be done to democratize the food movement. One of the reasons that healthy food is more expensive than unhealthy food is that the government supports unhealthy food and does very little to support healthy food, whether you mean organic or grass-fed or whatever.

The corporatization of something as basic and intimate as eating is, for many of us today, a good place to draw the line.