I am not a Hispanic candidate. I am an American candidate who happens to be of Hispanic heritage, who understands the culture, who has worked the border and has a unique understanding of those issues. But rest assured my job is to represent all Americans as a U.S. senator.

I've had opportunities before to run for office - the Republicans recruited me when I was surgeon general, to run for Congress, to run against Gov. Napolitano. But I didn't feel it was my calling... I felt, 'Well, I'm flattered, but I really would rather stay and be the doctor of the nation and stay as surgeon general.'

While my mother tried to stem my truancy, it would be a complete stranger - an Army Officer in the Special Forces home on leave - who would be the mentor to drive home my mother's goal of getting me educated. His name was Saul Hassan.

I grew up in Harlem. My grandmother was one of the best cooks around, but the first thing she did on Sunday mornings when she started cooking a daylong meal was to take a big block of lard from the back of the refrigerator and throw it into the pan. I know how Hispanics buy their food, and it is not always nutritious.

I do it as a therapy. I do it as something to keep me alive. We all need a little discipline. Exercise is my discipline.

Hunger and malnutrition have devastating consequences for children and have been linked to low birth weight and birth defects, obesity, mental and physical health problems, and poorer educational outcomes.

The poverty of a man of benevolence is not to be considered as poverty but only as his temporary inability to exercise his inherent duty.

Mushrooms are miniature pharmaceutical factories, and of the thousands of mushroom species in nature, our ancestors and modern scientists have identified several dozen that have a unique combination of talents that improve our health.