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

For is there any practice less selfish, any labor less alienated, any time less wasted, than preparing something delicious and nourishing for people you love?

Is it just a coincidence that as the portion of our income spent on food has declined, spending on health care has soared? In 1960 Americans spent 17.5 percent of their income on food and 5.2 percent of national income on health care. Since then, those numbers have flipped: Spending on food has fallen to 9.9 percent, while spending on heath care has climbed to 16 percent of national income. I have to think that by spending a little more on healthier food we could reduce the amount we have to spend on heath care.

I think using waste oils as fuel makes sense. We do waste a huge amount of vegetable oil in this country and using that as a fuel source strikes me as fine.

[Government] regulation is an imperfect substitute for the accountability, and trust, built into a market in which food producers meet the gaze of eaters and vice versa.

Corn is a greedy crop, as farmers will tell you.

The correlation between poverty and obesity can be traced to agricultural policies and subsidies.