It has become much harder, in the past century, to tell where the garden leaves off and pure nature begins.

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.

In Joel's view, that reformation begins with people going o the trouble and expense of buying directly from farmers they know - "relationship marketing," as he calls it. He believes the only meaningful guarantee of integrity is when buyers and sellers can look one another in the eye, something few of us ever take the trouble to do. "Don't you find it odd that people will put more work into choosing their mechanic or house contractor than they will into choosing the person who grows their food?"

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

You cannot eat apples planted from seeds. They must be grafted, cloned.

The ninety-nine cent price of a fast-food hamburger simply doesn't take account of that meal's true cost--to soil, oil, public health, the public purse, etc., costs which are never charged directly to the consumer but, indirectly and invisibly, to the taxpayer (in the form of subsidies), the health care system (in the form of food-borne illnesses and obesity), and the environment (in the form of pollution), not to mention the welfare of the workers in the feedlot and the slaughterhouse and the welfare of the animals themselves.

Don't eat any foods you've ever seen advertised on television.