Everything we eat begins with a plant turning solar energy into carbohydrates. Everything. Whether we're eating meat or eating vegetables, it all begins there. So I'm always interested in taking things back to the beginning.

Twenty thousand birds moved away from me as one, like a ground-hugging white cloud, clucking softly.

Perhaps more than any other, the food industry is very sensitive to consumer demand.

I try very hard to tell stories and not lecture. I try to approach things as an amateur and not an expert, so that when I'm doing something, I'm starting out in a place a lot like where my readers start out - which is to say, naïve.

In a way, the most morally troubling thing about killing chickens is that after a while it is no longer morally troubling.

America ships tons of sugar cookies to Denmark and Denmark ships tons of sugar cookies to America. Wouldn't it be more efficient just to swap recipes?

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.