Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes
336
Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes
336Paperback(Reprint)
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
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 are virtuous 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.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781416575658 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 12/29/2009 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 336 |
| Sales rank: | 1,083,221 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Introduction
Two years ago, a report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) landed on my desk. Called Livestock's Long Shadow, it revealed a stunning statistic: global livestock production is responsible for about one-fifth of all greenhouse gases — more than transportation.
This was a signal moment for me, coming along with some personal health problems, an overall gloomy global outlook, and an increasing concern with animal products in general — the quality of meat, the endangerment of wild fish, the way domestic animals are raised, and the impact our diet has had on the environment. Never before had I realized issues of personal and global health intersected so exquisitely. The destiny of the human race and that of the planet lay in our hands and in the choices — as individuals and as a society — that we made.
If I told you that a simple lifestyle choice could help you lose weight, reduce your risk of many long-term or chronic diseases, save you real money, and help stop global warming, I imagine you'd be intrigued. If I also told you that this change would be easier and more pleasant than any diet you've ever tried, would take less time and effort than your exercise routine, and would require no sacrifice, I would think you'd want to read more.
When you do, you'll find an explanation of the links among diet, health, the environment in general and climate change in particular and you'll see how you can make a difference. And while you're doing your part to heal the planet you'll improve your health, lose weight, and even spend less at the checkout counter. And yes: This is for real.
The consequences of modern agriculture
It doesn't take a historian to see that events that took place hundreds or even thousands of years ago reverberate to our day, and it doesn't take a scientist to see the profound effects of every significant advance in technology, from the invention of the wheel and the internal combustion engine to that of the microchip.
Unfortunately, we can rarely anticipate the consequences of historical events, inventions, and new technologies. Some have had nearly entirely positive results: indoor plumbing and vaccinations have saved countless lives, and it would be hard to argue that the telephone or railroads were not almost entirely positive. Automobiles, with their huge demand on limited energy sources, are a tougher call.
The industrialization of food production was one development that — though positive at first — is now exacting intolerable costs. Just as no one could foresee that cars would eventually suck the earth dry of oil and pollute the atmosphere to unsafe levels, no one could have anticipated that we would raise and eat more animals than we need to physically sustain us, that in the name of economy and efficiency we would raise them under especially cruel conditions (requiring some humans to work under cruel conditions as well), or that these practices would make them less nutritious than their wild or more naturally raised counterparts and cause enormous damage to the earth, including the significant acceleration of global warming.
Yet that's exactly what has happened. Industrialized meat production has contributed to climate change and stimulated a fundamental change in our diets that has contributed to our being overweight, even obese, and more susceptible to diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and perhaps even cancer.
It isn't just our propensity for eating animal products that's making us fat and sick, but also our consumption of junk food and overrefined carbohydrates. And these foods — which as a group are also outrageously expensive, especially considering their nutritional profiles — are also big contributors to environmental damage and climate change.
The twentieth-century American diet, high in meat, refined carbohydrates, and junk food, is driven by a destructive form of food production. The fallout from this combination, and the way we deal with it are issues as important as any humanity has faced: The path we take from this crossroads will determine not only individual life expectancy and the quality of life for many of us, but whether if we were able to see the earth a century from now we would recognize it.
Climate change is no longer a theory, and humans will suffer mightily if it isn't reversed. Most people know this. Less well known is the role that raising livestock plays in this, which is greater than that of transportation. Equally certain is that many lifestyle syndromes and diseases are the direct or indirect result of eating too many animal products. Our demand for meat and dairy — not our need, our want — causes us to consume way more calories, protein, and fat than are good for us.
Why food matters
Global warming, of course, was accidental. Even 30 years ago we couldn't know that pollution was more than stinky air. We thought it caused bad visibility and perhaps a few lung diseases here and there — as if that weren't bad enough.
The current health crisis is also an accident: We thought that the more meat and dairy and fish and poultry we ate, the healthier we would be.
This has not proved to be the case. Overconsumption has been supported and encouraged by Big Oil and Big Food — the industrial meat and junk food complex — in cahoots with the federal government and even the media and (one might say socalled) health industries. This has come at the expense of lifestyles that would have encouraged more intelligent use of resources — not just oil, but land and animals — as well as global health and longer life for individuals.
It doesn't have to continue: by simply changing what we eat we can have an immediate impact on our own health and a very real effect on global warming — and the environment, and animal cruelty, and food prices.
That's the guiding principle behind Food Matters, and it's really very simple: eat less meat and junk food, eat more vegetables and whole grains. I'm not talking about a diet in the conventional sense — something you do for two weeks or three months and then "maintain." I'm not suggesting that you become a vegetarian or eat only organic food. I'm not even talking about a method for weight loss, per se, though almost anyone who makes the kinds of changes I'm suggesting here is likely to lose weight and keep it off. You won't be buying exotic foods or shopping in expensive specialty markets, and you won't be counting calories — or anything else.
I'm just suggesting eating less of some things and more of others. The results will make you healthier while you do a little toward slowing climate change — much like trading in your gas guzzler for something more energy and cost efficient.
You could stop reading now and put your own plan into action. Or you can read on and find the details of how we allowed ourselves to be stuck with this mess and how you can help yourself and the rest of us get out of it. I'll describe what sane, conscious eating is, and the impact it will have. I'll suggest different strategies for changing how you think about food and prepare it. I'll show you how easy it is to follow the Food Matters plan when you eat out, whether at restaurants or other people's houses. I'll give you some sample menus and direction so you can easily create your own. Finally, I'm providing 77 easy recipes to get you started.
At first my suggestions may seem radical, but they can be integrated gradually into any style of eating. There's no sacrifice here, only adjustment and benefit: I will not suggest that you cut your calorie consumption (I don't even advocate counting calories), though you probably will simply by following the plan. Other than suggesting that you pretty much rule out junk food, I won't put any foods off limits.
The fact is that what I'm asking you to do isn't radical at all, and I'm confident you'll find this new mind-set so easy and so natural, and that you'll see its many benefits so easily, that you'll be eager to adjust your diet.
Why me?
Who am I to tell you how to eat and suggest it's a way to reduce global warming? I've been a reporter and researcher for more than 30 years; for much of that time, I've written about food from every possible angle. I've seen nutritional "wisdom" turned on its head more than once, and I've seen studies contesting studies designed to disprove studies. I have no more agenda than to inject some common sense into the discussion.
It doesn't take a genius to see that an ever-growing population cannot continue to devote limited resources to produce ever-increasing amounts of meat, which takes roughly 10 times more energy to produce than plants. Nor can you possibly be "nice" to animals, or respectful of them, when you're raising and killing them by the billions.
And it doesn't take a scientist, either, to know that a handful of peanuts is better for you than a Snickers bar, that food left closer to its natural state is more nutritious than food that has been refined to within an inch of its life, and that eating unprecedented quantities of animals who have been drugged and generally mistreated their entire lives isn't good for you.
I've got plenty of evidence to back up what I'm saying in these pages, but I've got my own story, too, and maybe you'll find that equally convincing. (It begins on page 71.) I've tried to strike a balance here, avoiding citing an overwhelming number of studies in an attempt to prove my point; that approach doesn't work, anyway, because most data can be read many ways, depending on your prejudices. My contention is that this way of eating is so simple, logical, and sane that cherry-picking scientific research isn't necessary.
One more thing: I'm not a doctor or a scientist, but I'm not a health-food or nutrition nut either. For my entire adult life I've been what used to be called a gourmand and is now called (unfortunately) a foodie: a daily and decent cook, a traveler who's eaten all over the world and written about it, a journalist and food lover who's eagerly devoured everything. I intend to continue to do just that, but in different proportions.
For our own sakes as well as for the sake of the earth, we need to change the way we eat. But we can continue to eat well — better, in fact. In the long run, we can make food more important, not less, and save ourselves and our planet (and some money) by doing so.
Copyright © 2009 by Mark Bittman
Table of Contents
Preface vii
Introduction 1
Part I Food Matters
Rethinking Consumption 9
A Brief History of Overconsumption 21
Selling the Bounty 31
Does the Government Help or Hurt? 39
So-Called Healthy Ingredients 53
Sane Eating 67
How to Eat Like Food Matters 81
Part II Food Matters: Recipes
How to Cook Like Food Matters 111
Meal Plans: A Sample Month 119
The Basics 131
Breakfast 161
Lunch 179
Snacks and Appetizers 217
Dinner 237
Desserts 285
Sources 299
Measurement conversions 311
Acknowledgments 313
General Index 315
Recipe Index 319
Interviews
A Barnes & Noble Review Interview with Mark Bittman
B&N Review:Food Matters comes wrapped for this reader in two surprises. The first is to find a manifesto on healthy eating from such a happy advocate of appetite (I have my food-stained copies of How to Cook Everything and Simple to Spectacular right here to prove how infectious your advocacy has been). The second is the very real and rather stunning global environmental context for the book's argument, especially as it pertains to eco-stresses caused by the world's demand for livestock. Would you explain the motivation for your change of focus, in print, from enthusiastic cooking to conscious eating?
Mark Bittman: I'm no less enthusiastic about cooking -- or eating. I have simply spent the last five years trying to figure out what style of eating really makes sense for Americans. The motivations are many: I became aware of (and was appalled by) the impact that the production of livestock, and junk food for that matter, has on the environment and global warming. Two, about 95 percent of animals in the U.S. are raised industrially -- i.e., with no consideration for the animals themselves. Three, too much meat, junk food, and overprocessed carbohydrates have combined to cause a health epidemic in this country. And four, because after years of being a food writer and food lover who eagerly devoured pretty much anything, I was faced with some personal health problems.
BNR: How exactly does the worldwide demand for livestock contribute to environmental stresses?
MB: Just one example, though perhaps the worst possible one: industrially produced livestock, according to the UN, generates nearly 20 percent of greenhouse gases, more than any other sector save energy production. Greenhouse gas production will rise in direct proportion to production of more livestock. And by the way, grass-fed beef is not a favorable alterative; the only way around this is to produce less meat for human consumption.
BNR: One of the most striking sentences in the book to me is this one: "Our soil, once this country's most valuable resource, is not only becoming depleted, it's literally vanishing." Could you explain that?
MB: Sod is "virgin" soil. Once you break it, it is more vulnerable to being washed away. Add monoculture, chemical fertilizers (which do nothing to build the soil physically, only chemically), and unnatural levels of irrigation, and you have soil being washed into (mostly) the Gulf of Mexico. There are places in the Midwest where the land is several feet lower than it used to be as a result.
BNR: Let me set the stage for the next question with a couple of quotations from the book:
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.