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

Without the potatoe, the balance of European power might never have tilted north

Every peasant cuisine has incredible ingenious tricks for getting a lot of nutrition out of a small amount of ingredients. There are people who don't have the money to invest in better food, but perhaps they have the time. There's a trade-off: The more time you're willing to put into food preparation, the less money you have to spend.

For a product to carry a health claim on its package, it must first have a package, so right off the bat it's more likely to be processed rather than a whole food.

Corn is the hero of its own story, and though we humans played a crucial supporting role in its rise to world domination, it would be wrong to suggest we have been calling the shots, or acting always in our own best interests. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that corn has succeeded in domesticating us.

Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks.

The other thing that soy contributes to, of course, is hydrogenated oil. This is the main oil. This is the fast-food oil.