People who snack sometimes sometimes eat kind of thoughtlessly and end up eating a lot more. But in principle, it's a really good idea if you can exert the kind of discipline needed.

Food is not just fuel. Food is about family, food is about community, food is about identity. And we nourish all those things when we eat well.

For we would no longer need any reminding that however we choose to feed ourselves, we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what we're eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world.

Another day it occurred to me that time as we know it doesn't exist in a lawn, since grass never dies or is allowed to flower and set seed. Lawns are nature purged of sex or death. No wonder Americans like them so much.

Avoid food products that make health claims. at meals and eat them only at tables. And no, a desk is not a table.

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?"

Most important thing about your diet is who cooks it, a human or a corporation.