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.

For great many species today, fitness means the ability to get along in a world in which humankind has become the most powerful evolutionary force.

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.

Now that I know how supermarket meat is made, I regard eating it as a somewhat risky proposition. I know how those animals live and what's on their hides when they go to slaughter, so I don't buy industrial meat.

My writing is remarkably non-confessional; you actually learn very little about me.

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

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.