If every U.S. Citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That's not gallons, but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences.”
-- Steven L. Hopp (chapter 1 paragraph 16)

Importance: One of the repeated mantras of the book is that people can make small changes that will add up to a major impact on the use of fossil fuels and the exploitation of farmers who work for oversized corporations. In this passage, Steven talks about the amount of fuel it takes for transporting and refrigerating food that is shipped long distances.

We only knew, somewhat abstractly, we were going to spend a year integrating our food choices with our family values, which include both 'love your neighbor' and 'try not to wreck every blooming thing on the planet while...
-- Barbara Kingsolver (chapter 2 paragraph 2)