California’s Proposition 37, which would require that genetically modified (G.M.) foods carry a label, has the potential to do just that - to change the politics of food not just in California but nationally too.

Eat only until you're 4/5 full. An ancient Japanese injunction.

I think there's a real tension between capitalism and morality. That's not to say these systems aren't powerful and useful, but to assume that capitalism can somehow assure moral behavior or character, that's just a pipe dream.

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.

In 2008, a year of supposed 'food crisis', we grew enough food to feed 11 billion people. Most of it was not eaten by humans as food, however.

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

Eating is a political act.