Food Matters with Mark Bittman, part 2 (video)
By Cooking Up a StorySeptember 16, 2009: This week the USDA announced the start of Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative, a series of coordinated programs designed to help develop local and regional food systems to benefit small farmers, strengthen local communities, and spur economic development. One key component of this initiative is to increase the supply and access to healthy, fresh, and locally grown food. In this video below, Mark Bittman, shares his views about what he sees as constituting healthy eating.
In Part 2 of this Cooking Up a Story: Food News interview, Mark Bittman, best-selling food author, and New York Times Columnist, lays out the central tenet of his life’s work as a food writer, and home cook. The “minimalist” view that we need to eat substantially more plant based foods, and consume substantially less animal products than what currently defines the typical Western diet.
Bittman’s argument is not (for the most part) with the hamburger in terms of the quality of the cow, his beef is with our wholesale substitution of plant based foods for meat products, and highly processed foods. This raises an interesting question, if as Bittman suggests, we consumed 90% less meat products, and processed foods, and correspondingly increased our intake of the remaining foods (fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains), how would this impact our current agriculture system? What would be the effect on food sustainability, public health, and on our food economy, if such a substantial change in our eating habits were to take place? Tell us what you think.
Related: Food Matters with Mark Bittman-1
Tags: cooking up a story, food matters, food writer, fresh foods, how to cook everything, less meat consumption, Local Food Economy, mark bittman, new york times columnist, simple ingredients, vegetarian foods
Share
Digg
Bookmark
Stumble
Miro
iTunes
4 Comments
It seems that we are all starting to wake up to the fact that our diets are too heavy on the meat. Even the current Reader’s Digest has articles in it suggesting that meat should be reserved for only one meal a day. I would agree with Bittman that it almost doesn’t matter where the broccoli came from if you choose it over meat, whether organic or not.
Great interview, important message, thank you!
after watching this video, I’m curious to know how his book differs from Pollan’s ‘In Defense of Food’; it seems that many of the statistics they quote are similar. it’s clear that, at the very least, they’ve read each others’ work closely. I think somewhere I heard that Bittman is “applied Pollan” and I wonder if you would recommend reading Bittman’s book if you’ve already read ‘In Defense of Food’ and other similar books (‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle’ comes to mind). I also wonder if Bittman is giving up too easy? is he resigned to a world in which people aren’t going to eat food in season, aren’t going to stop eating fast food, and is just trying to wheedle them to please, oh please, eat just one more vegetable a week? I agree wholeheartedly with his goals: but he seems almost discouraged.
Mark Bittman is great. His thought on broccoli vs. hamburger is an excellent one. Eat your veggies people!! (myself included)