As the British social anthropologist Tim Ingold has argued, this ‘show-and-tell’ form of teaching instils a particular kind of knowledge in the novice: rather than just cramming his mind with facts, it gives him a sense of ancestry and belonging.

recent advances in microscopy have revealed the gut to possess 100 million neurons and thirty neurotransmitters, effectively making it a second brain as big as a cat’s that works in tandem with the one up top.59 This so-called gut–brain axis forms the core, not just of how we eat, but of how we sense, and make sense of, the world.

None escaped Kellogg’s favourite treatment: a daily ritual to purify the gut of ‘harmful bacteria’ consisting of the administration of the ‘Bulgarian milk preparation’ at both ends.

taking multi-vitamins on top of the average healthy diet is merely buying ‘ingredients for very expensive urine’.

the Indian Centre for Science and the Environment reckoned that, if you factored everything in, the true cost of an industrial burger would be in the region of $200, not the $2 we usually pay.6

the gods are far too busy with their own affairs to bother with ours.

Almost every move we make in the modern world has some distant, negative impact. Just engaging with life’s multiple dilemmas requires vast knowledge and effort, as we examine all the implications of our actions on countless people, creatures, structures and organisms, most of which we barely know exist. Needless to say, few of us are equipped for

When our ancestors lived close to the ground, their sense of smell shaped their world, as it still does for dogs. When we started walking upright, however, our need to scan the horizon meant that sight became more important to us. Our awareness of smell receded, yet this primal sense remains deeply embedded, affecting us in ways of which we’re

One thing that home can’t be, however, is somewhere we can’t eat. Home must be able to sustain life.