People forget that eating represents their most profound engagement with the natural world. Through agriculture is how we change the world, more than anything else we do.

But human deciding what to eat without professional guidance - something they have been doing with notable success since coming down out of the trees - is seriously unprofitable if you're a food company, a definite career loser if you're nutritionist, and just plain boring if you're a newspaper editor or reporter.

It's been a mystery to me and a disappointment why conversation about health care reform hasn't turned more attention to the subject of food.

Suffering... is not just lots of pain but pain amplified by distinctly human emotions such as regret, self-pity, shame, humiliation, and dread.

There are certain products that it's worth buying organic just because the alternatives have so much pesticide. There's a list of the dirty dozen that you can get off the Web. Strawberries, potatoes. A handful of crops that have very high pesticide residues if you don't buy organic. If you eat that a lot, that's a good place to invest.

We all have different priorities. There's no one single set of ethical rules.

Even people who like the kind of food on offer, are coming to recognize that eating from this food chain is not conducive to good health.