One of the skills of a journalist, though, is to find people who can teach him what he needs to know. So instead of taking courses, I've been very lucky in that I found teachers - scientists, especially - who were willing to teach me what I needed to know, whether it was about genetically modified crops or how photosynthesis works, and so on. I just find my teachers and don't have to pay for my education.

Oil companies have gas stations. There's this whole huge structure that is about finding a new liquid for the tank. And the idea that maybe there shouldn't be a liquid, that maybe the best is an electrical grid, a sustainably powered electrical grid that we all plug into, that doesn't sit well with oil companies.

I've always been interested in plants because I'm a gardener, so I have a basic understanding of botany and things like that, but it's all self-taught.

To eat with a fuller consciousness of all that is at stake might sound like a burden, but in practice few things in life afford quite as much satisfaction.

The short, unhappy life of a corn-fed feedlot steer represents the ultimate triumph of industrial thinking over the logic of evolution.

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

That anyone should need to write a book advising people to "eat food" could be taken as a measure of our alienation and confusion. Or we can choose to see it in a more positive light and count ourselves fortunate indeed that there is once again real food for us to eat.