John Mackey Quotes

I grew up with a single mother, and although we didn't have a lot of money, she cared a great deal about what we ate. We were the original health-food family. We shopped at what were called health-food stores before Whole Foods - everything came from bins.

I love to talk about cooking and recipes, but I love as much talking about how food and cooking can change the world.

We struggle with eating healthily, obesity, and access to good nutrition for everyone. But we have a great opportunity to get on the right side of this battle by beginning to think differently about the way that we eat and the way that we approach food.

I'm a big Whole Foods fan.

People in my neighborhood are so disconnected from the fresh food supply that kids don't know an eggplant from a sweet potato. We have to show them how to get grounded in the truest sense of the word.

I try to focus on eating seasonally and organic whenever possible. It can be a challenge, but it has a huge effect on my weight, my health, and the environment.

I basically eat a lot of proteins, and I've been eating smaller portions of food. I try to eat all locally raised and organic produce.

We've been so disconnected agriculturally and culturally from food. We spend more time on dieting than on cooking.

I think America's food culture is embedded in fast-food culture. And the real question that we have is: How are we going to teach slow-food values in a fast-food world? Of course, it's very, very difficult to do, especially when children have grown up eating fast food and the values that go with that.

We have to bring children into a new relationship to food that connects them to culture and agriculture.

We all need to know how to cook. I can buy a chicken and have many meals come from it. Is it affordable? Yes. Cheap? No. I want to pay the farmers the right price for food. They deserve it. They are the most important people in the country besides our teachers.

Basically, the person in the White House should be principled, should have a philosophy about food that relates directly to organic agriculture. I will continue to push for that.

The way that I grew up, we ate very whole, real, natural foods.

I believe in natural food.

I'm on the road a lot, but I eat healthy whenever I can with foods that don't contain pesticides.

A great many people in Los Angeles are on special diets that restrict their intake of synthetic foods. The reason for this appears to be a widely held belief that organically grown fruits and vegetables make the cocaine work faster.

My sister and I cooked a lot together; my sister was a very healthy vegetarian. She was always a real good teacher for me about organics, recycling, composting -whenever you hear me talk about it, it's usually because of my sister's influence.

Soon after the inauguration, the Obamas gave Big Food a case of heartburn when, in the spring of 2009, Michelle Obama planted an organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn, a symbolic but nevertheless powerful act that thrilled the food movement.

There's 'Erewhon', a whole big super store where they do incredible raw vegan food.

After writing 'The Omnivore's Dilemma,' I wanted to write a book that got past the choir, that got to people who didn't care about how their food was grown but who did care about their health.

I hate Whole Foods.

I cheat every now and then, but the foundation of my eating habits is organic. I don't like to eat a lot of processed foods. So it's fresh vegetables, fresh herbs and meat without all of the antibiotics and preservatives.

When I am with my mum, I am happiest and healthiest. She always taught me how to eat healthily. She always cooked from the garden, and it was always organic.

The British have such an odd relationship with food - and the land. I want the public and the Soil Association to see that growing things in a garden is no different to growing things in a field.

The downside to the Whole Foods experience is that its success is driven by one of our era's more grotesque phenomena: the upwardly-mobile urban dweller, the one who wants to indulge class-conscious epicurean yearnings and save the world, too.