Mark Bittman: doing good by eating well Evan Sung

Mark Bittman is a man with a dietary plan — not only to help you but also the planet.

In his recently released Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating — his first venture outside the cookbook genre — the popular New York Times food writer outlines his manifesto for eating better, and lowering greenhouse gas emissions while you're at it.

The book is a self-help guide on how to eat well, complete with 77 recipes and a sample meal plan to help you adhere to his simple rules: eat less meat and junk food, and consume more vegetables and whole grains.

By doing so, he promises, you will see results not only for your waistline and the environment, but to your pocketbook as well. And the move to "sane eating," as he calls it, can be done without sacrifice.

Bittman, known for such classic cookbooks as How to Cook Everything, is not proposing a solely organic diet nor a vegan one, but rather an incremental, individual approach that translates into a reduction of meat and over-refined carbohydrates over time.

"If you eat 10 cheeseburgers a month and you change it to eight, that's progress," Bittman said in an interview with CBC last week while visiting Toronto. "If you have oatmeal instead of bacon and eggs once a week, that's progress."

Keep it guiltless

The culinary writer is adamant about keeping the diet guiltless. "Are your choices going to be perfect and free of hypocrisy? I'd be lying if I said mine were. But I can't repeat it enough: the aggregate of even the smallest changes equals big changes," he writes.

Americans consume more than eight ounces of meat per day, twice the global average. Bittman suggests dropping it to about 3 ounces, or 90 grams.

He states that if each American ate the equivalent of three fewer cheeseburgers a week, they'd cancel out the effects of all the SUVs in the country.

His basic principles come down to:

• Eat one pound of meat a week (two pounds at most).
• Rely on meat for flavour more than heft.
• Think of eggs and dairy as treats.
• Gorge on plants.
• Eat legumes every day.

Bittman stresses, however, that his book is just "suggestions" for an individual approach, not a list of uncompromising rules.

Vegan until six

One of the ideas Bittman embraced during his quest to eat better was being a "vegan until six," or abstaining from meat and dairy (with the exception of cream in his coffee) until the clock struck 6 p.m.

He also describes some of his recipes in the book as "flexitarian," meaning meat or fish are included as optional.

His principles are simple (he does write the New York Times's Minimalist food column, after all), but Bittman swears by it.

"I know that I'm right about this stuff. My own personal experience bears it out."

Bittman attributes the book's genesis to a personal epiphany two years ago. At 57 years and 214 pounds, he was struggling with sleep apnea, high blood pressure and bad knees. The gourmand knew he needed to lose weight and rein in his diet.

The tipping point came, though, when he read a 2007 United Nations report that said global livestock production was responsible for about one-fifth of all greenhouse gases.

"Never before had I realized issues of personal and global health intersected so exquisitely," Bittman writes.

Within four months, he lost 35 pounds, his apnea was gone and his blood sugar fell within the normal range. Only his knees didn't respond.

For many, the first section of Bittman's book will seem familiar, with its sprinkling of references to Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. In fact, some have called it "applied Pollan."

While Bittman may be a disciple of the Pollan school of thought, however, he bristles at the comparison. "It's not an homage to Michael Pollan," he insists. "It follows."

"There are things that he addresses that I don't and there are things that I address that he doesn't. Has he been influential? No question? Is he a great guy? No question. Would I exist without him? No question."

Meanwhile, Bittman is already planning a return to what he knows best with the scheduled release next fall of a cookbook with at least 500 recipes based on the Food Matters principles.