He says Food Matters, part of which is likely to resonate with fans of Michael Pollan's 2006 book The Omnivore's Dilemma, purposely steers clear of weight-loss deadlines and the burdensome calorie-counting of standard diets. Nor does Mr. Bittman intend ever to become a full-fledged vegetarian. The point of the book, he says, is to preach the gospel of a diet free of junk food and light on meat, to get people to become, as he whimsically puts it, "less-meatarians." Those who follow the plan, he says, will almost certainly lose excess weight and keep it off.
We eat far too much flesh anyway, Mr. Bittman argues, a sad consequence of grotesque overproduction facilitated by the post-war rise of factory farms, with their "confined-feeding" operations.
Each year, globally, 60 billion animals are raised and slaughtered for food. Ten billion - or 17 per cent - are in the United States, a country with less than 5 per cent of the world's population. Mr. Bittman says there is not enough pasture land available on which all those animals can graze naturally.
It's on this point that Mr. Bittman's message diverges sharply from that of New Age chefs espousing Arcadian diets based on foodie buzzwords such as "grass-fed," "organic" and "free-range." Theirs is, in the end, an elitist gospel, he says.
In his own case, Mr. Bittman managed to reduce meat, dairy and fish consumption to one-third of what it was a couple of years ago. He also cut out virtually all refined carbohydrates, though he often makes exceptions when there's good white bread available at dinner.
Result: He lost more than 35 pounds within four months and is back to normal cholesterol and blood-sugar levels. His sleep apnea, too, disappeared.
He dubs his personal regimen "vegan until 6." From morning till dusk, he eats no animal products, junk food or simple carbohydrates (with the exception of milk or cream and sugar in his coffee). At dinner, anything goes - meat, bread, dessert, wine.
Is he afraid of alienating part of his core audience, the gourmets who breathlessly await his recipes each Wednesday in the New York Times?
"I'm going to do great recipes for the rest of my life," he said. "I'm sure there'll be people who feel I've left my senses behind. ... But many fans are happy I'm moving in this direction."
Bittman in person
Mark Bittman will appear in
conversation with CBC Radio host Matt Galloway tomorrow
in Toronto at 7 p.m. at the
University of Toronto's Hart House, East Common Room,
7 Hart House Circle. The event
is free.
Bittman bites
On flavoured yogurt
"I still have friends who think yogurt is health food and I'm, like, 'Would you please go read the label?' So much yogurt is highly processed milk with jam in it."
On the oil dependence
of cattle farming
"A typical family-of-four steak dinner is the rough equivalent, energy-wise, of driving around in a sport-utility vehicle for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home."
On the advantage
of eating plants
"It takes 2.2 calories of fossil fuel to yield one calorie of food energy from corn; that same calorie of food energy from beef requires you to burn 40 calories of fossil fuel."
On the virtue of embracing a bit of hunger
"The three things people are most neurotic about are food, sex and sleep. Very few people, every time they want to have sex, go have sex. Almost no one goes to sleep every time they get tired. But people think 'I'm hungry' and they go get food right away."
Beppi Crosariol
