Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes by Mark Bittman

From Barnes & Noble

Reading Mark Bittman's cookbooks, it's easy to see why his weekly New York Times column is called "The Minimalist." The author of How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian approaches kitchen craft and eating plans with a winning simplicity. Perhaps that's partly because Bittman first approached cooking as a journalist, not as a trained chef. This book demonstrates his ability to address multiple issues without sacrificing clarity. Food Matters aims at satisfying our appetites even as we shrink our tummies and reduce the size of our carbon footprint. Bittman is not a vegetarian, but his writing and recipes have long registered his insistence that we eat too much meat. With its clear analysis, decisive prescriptions, and delicious recipes, this cookbook-plus belongs on the shelf of anyone who loves food and/or cares about the environment.

From the Publisher

From the award-winning champion of culinary simplicity who gave us the bestselling How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian comes Food Matters, a plan for responsible eating that's as good for the planet as it is for your weight and your health.

We are finally starting to acknowledge the threat carbon emissions pose to our ozone layer, but few people have focused on the extent to which our consumption of meat contributes to global warming. Think about it this way: In terms of energy consumption, serving a typical family-of-four steak dinner is the rough equivalent of driving around in an SUV for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home.

Bittman offers a no-nonsense rundown on how government policy, big business marketing, and global economics influence what we choose to put on the table each evening. He demystifies buzzwords like "organic," "sustainable," and "local" and offers straightforward, budget-conscious advice that will help you make small changes that will shrink your carbon footprint — and your waistline.

Flexible, simple, and non-doctrinaire, the plan is based on hard science but gives you plenty of leeway to tailor your food choices to your lifestyle, schedule, and level of commitment. Bittman, a food writer who loves to eat and eats out frequently, lost thirty-five pounds and saw marked improvement in his blood levels by simply cutting meat and processed foods out of two of his three daily meals. But the simple truth, as he points out, is that as long as you eat more vegetables and whole grains, the result will be better health for you and for the world in which we live.

Unlike most things that arevirtuous and healthful, Bittman's plan doesn't involve sacrifice. From Spinach and Sweet Potato Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing to Breakfast Bread Pudding, the recipes in Food Matters are flavorful and sophisticated. A month's worth of meal plans shows you how Bittman chooses to eat and offers proof of how satisfying a mindful and responsible diet can be. Cheaper, healthier, and socially sound, Food Matters represents the future of American eating.

The Washington Post - Fuchsia Dunlop

Like Michael Pollan in In Defense of Food, Bittman takes a commonsense approach, telling readers that it's simple to eat well: Just "eat less meat and junk food, eat more vegetables and whole grains." Indeed, Food Matters reads like a practical companion to Pollan's book.

Publishers Weekly

Cookbook author Bittman (How to Cook Everything) offers this no-nonsense volume loaded with compelling information about how the food we eat is doing damage to the environment, what changes to make and why. Authors have covered this topic before (Michael Pollan, for example, in The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food), but Bittman takes a practical turn by concluding with 77 recipes that make earth-friendly eating doable and appealing. His collection of reliable recipes even includes such meat dishes as Thai beef salad, which isn't meat-heavy, but rather has "just the right balance of meat to greens." There are also such staples as super-simple mixed rice; "chicken not pie"; and modern bouillabaisse. Bittman decries consumption of "over-refined carbohydrates," but doesn't leave off without some sweets, including chocolate semolina pudding and nutty oatmeal cookies-suggesting, as the whole book does, that a diet in synch with the needs of the earth doesn't result in a sense of utter deprivation. (Jan.)

Susan Hurst - Library Journal

New York Times columnist Bittman (How To Cook Everything) is trying to moderate our diets here, both for our own health as well as the health of the planet. The first half of the book focuses on the current state of American agriculture and food consumption. He discusses the ecological and economic effects of factory farming and government subsidies, as well as nutrition and our increasing consumption of processed foods and calories. The second half focuses on changing all that. His plan consists mainly of commonsense advice: limiting meat, simple carbohydrates, and artificial ingredients and filling up instead on whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. There is a month of menu suggestions, followed by a nice collection of recipes, which focus on natural ingredients and range from Braised Vegetables with Prosciutto to Chocolate Semolina Pudding. Each recipe includes many variations, with simplicity and flexibility encouraged throughout. Well written and thought-provoking, with appetizing recipes, Food Matters is a great addition to all libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/08.]

Product Details

• Interviews & Essays

Interviews & Essays

In recent years, Americans' life expectancy became the second-worst in the industrialized world, just ahead of Latvia.

We have not been moving in the direction of 'improved nutrition,' though, and consequently have seen the situation get worse. Since 1990, those diagnosed with diabetes have increased 6.1 percent; since 1991, the prevalence of obesity has increased 75 percent; and heart disease is not only the number one killer of adults: frighteningly, it's also the second leading cause of death for children under 15.

Why, with so much attention paid to nutrition over the past decade, have things been getting worse?

MB: Because the attention is being paid to the wrong things -- magic bullets instead of commonsense eating. If a quarter or a third of the country has pre-diabetes, doesn't it make sense to reduce the things that cause it (and cause obesity, too), which are not only sugar but simple carbohydrates? If rates of heart disease and cancer are refusing to yield to drugs and "low-fat" diets, doesn't it make sense to look at the bigger picture? We're just eating the wrong way -- it's not much more complicated than that. And not that difficult to change.

BNR: You write quite tellingly about the futility of governmental action on these issues. Indeed, you describe a large part of the FDA's efforts with regard to Nutrition Labeling and Education as "a large-scale scam that allows packagers of processed food to toss, say, a little calcium or soy in with their largely nonnutritive food and claim that these foods 'have the potential to prevent osteoporosis' or 'reduce the risk of heart disease.'" At the same time, you make it clear -- and this is what's refreshing about Food Matters -- that, on an individual level, action is simple, uncomplicated, and not even especially onerous. How would you reduce the knowledge contained in the book to a simple action plan, and why can't the government or other agencies do the same?

MB: To answer the second question first: the USDA has a deeply conflicted role. There are well-intentioned and intelligent people there, as there long have been, and they know what comprises sane eating. But the agency's role is also to promote the food grown and produced by American farmers: corn, soy, sugar, flour, and meat.

As to the simple action plan: eat more vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains; eat less of everything else. Really, it doesn't have to be more complicated than that.

BNR: Is governmental ineffectiveness an intractable part of the problem, or can something be done to re-focus national resources of information and communication? Do you have any hope for the new administration in this regard?

MB: Oof. What a question. I think if I were so pessimistic as to say governmental ineffectiveness is intractable I'd give up. I do have hope for the new administration, though I'm taking a wait-and-see attitude. I do believe, though, that pressure by citizens is always the key to real and lasting change. If we want to eat better we can do so.

BNR: Can you take us through how you make Food Matters work for you on a day-to-day basis?

MB: My case is odd, because I'm weird; I like rules. You don't need the rules -- just do what I said in the above question -- eat more plants, less meat, junk food, and overprocessed carbs. The more you do that the better.

For me, I'm a maniac from dawn until dusk -- I eat only vegetables, whole grains, fruits, and legumes -- no white flour, no sugar, no dairy, etc. Then at night I eat whatever I want to, including bread, meat, wine, etc. It works for me.

BNR: Let's step back outside the book's specific parameters to look for a moment at some broader social and cultural -- perhaps even philosophical -- concerns. You write: "Everything I've discussed so far -- the overproduction and consumption of meat, the omnipresence of junk food, our declining health, the contributions of agribusiness to global warming and other environmental horrors -- happened gradually." Are there factors outside the realm of food that have influenced our current penchant for "unconscious" eating?

MB: Well, if marketing can be considered outside of food, sure -- we've been encouraged to eat meat, dairy, processed food, useless carbs, and outright junk for fifty years or more. It's been the most intense marketing campaign imaginable, and -- had it been regulated, like marketing cigarettes has been -- we'd be a lot healthier.

BNR: Has the rise of technology, say, and its empowerment of a new sense of individual and social identity, detached from land and even, to some extent, from traditional continuities of time, contributed to the state of affairs you'd like to change?

MB: Yes, for sure. People don't know where their food comes from; they're alienated from farms and from their family's traditions -- it's a tragedy from the social as well as more obvious perspectives.

BNR: You make the case that the pursuit of convenience can have a dangerous influence on eating habits. In some way, the same is true of cooking, in that flavor requires a certain amount of time to seep in. It seems to me that what unites Food Matters to the work you've been doing all along is your gift for getting the highest return in the most efficient manner -- in this case, a healthy and eco-friendly return on eating habits; in the "Minimalist" columns, for example, the best return in flavor on the least amount of work. It's like you are an eating and cooking investment advisor, instructing us how to invest our time wisely for the most satisfying experiences in the kitchen and at table. Does that ring true to you?

MB: Yes. Here's the thing, and thanks for asking: in a way, cooking helps solve the problem. When people shop for themselves and cook for themselves, they're totally conscious about what they eat -- they're aware of every single thing they put in their mouths. Now: if the message is clear -- eat more plants, fewer animals -- and they believe it, and they start cooking for themselves, the rest is easy. No?

BNR: As a cook and food lover, has the change in your own eating habits described in Food Matters led to the happy discovery of new ingredients, new flavors, or new culinary techniques or traditions?

MB: For sure. I'm eating many times more grains, beans, vegetables, and fruit than I was a couple of years ago. I'm using more herbs and spices, I suppose -- because, after all, meat is the ultimate convenience food (you brown it, add salt, it tastes good). But the fact is I'm cooking much more than I was, much more simply, and enjoying it more. Eating -- well, that's the easy part.

BNR: There are 75 appealing recipes in the book. Would you mind highlighting a few of your favorites?

MB: I really love the frittata with less eggs and the pasta with more sauce. Also:
Pan-Cooked Grated Vegetables and Crunchy Fish
Braised Vegetables with Prosciutto, Bacon, or Ham
Whole Grains without Measuring (because it so simplifies things; same with the basic bean and veg recipes)
Orchiette with Broccoli Rabe, My Style
Meat-and-Grain Loaves, Burgers, and Balls

BNR: The recipes for short ribs in Simple to Spectacular, the book you wrote with Jean-George Vongerichten, are on the short list of all-time favorites in my house. Can we still eat them without guilt?

MB: Yes of course. But probably not as often!

BNR: In conclusion, a general question: how did you come to cooking and culinary writing as a career? Did you start out as a writer/reporter, and gravitate to food? Or was it the other way around? If the former, was there one moment or experience that, as it were, tipped you into the cooking pot?

MB: I was a home cook, and I loved it. I was a writer, searching for something to write about that would actually help me earn a living. It worked out. The memorable moments are many, but none was earth-shattering; it was a slow, steady, difficult development. Mostly work, a little luck, but nothing miraculous.