“Manure grew the fodder for the cow that made that ice cream and fertilized the beets that gave us the sugar, my girl," Juniper said sternly. "Earth must be fed or we all go hungry.”

“My love for my family has grown for years in decay-fed soil, unwashed root pulled suddenly from the ground. Bulbous as a beet, a huge eye under a lid of earth. Scoop out the eye, blind the earth.”

“In 1999 the National Research Council concluded that 'the total exposure to naturally occurring carcinogens exceeds the exposure to synthetic carcinogens.'...The point was that even if organics were pesticide-free, the gain wouldn't make up for the downside of organic food: It's more likely to be infested with bacteria because it's grown in 'natural' fertilizer. Natural fertilizer is the health food business's euphemism for cow manure. (The much-criticized 'nonorganic' produce is grown in nitrogen fertilizers. Although organics advocates sneer at the chemicals, 'chemical' nitrogen is perfectly healthy; air is 78 percent nitrogen, after all. We have a choice between foods grown in nitrogen taken from the air, and 'organic' food grown in cow manure.)”

“On the frozen tundra, I milked a cow and pumped out ice cream. Strangely, it had chunks of strawberries in it.”

“I'm just not convinced that Jesus is going to say, "When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me.”

“No matter what happens to society, I must maintain my supply of ice cream. ”