Reading at the Table: Food Matters

In Michael Pollan's latest book, In Defense of Food, he sums up his advice for the proper diet: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Mark Bittman's new book Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating espouses essentially the same thing, except it includes a few recipes. Bittman is a New York Times columnist and has written several cookbooks, such as How to Cook Everything. But his latest book seems like it was just an attempt to jump on the Green food bandwagon and publish a book. His message is basically the same as Pollan's (and many others): Americans eat too much meat and refined carbs which has a negative impact on our health and weight, and the mass production of meat has a negative impact on the environment. He briefly covers how the industrialization of food production has led to overconsumption (which has been aided by our government). He proposes that if Americans cut 1/3 of the meat they currently eat, eliminate junk foods, eat fewer refined carbs, and eat more veggies/fruits/grains, we will loose weight, become healthier and our environmental impact will be lessened. While I don't disagree with anything he is saying, there really isn't anything new in this book. This is a very basic introduction to "food politics" and would be perfect for anyone that has been living in a cave for the last few years. If he had published this book 3-5 years ago, he would have been bringing something new and fresh to readers, but if you've read Pollan or Nestle or any of the many other books on this topic, this one really isn't worth your time. The recipes seem a bit mundane also, but Bittman's recipes tend to be very basic and low-frill anyway. I did learn one cool thing: Did you know that you can pop regular popcorn in a brown bag in your microwave? He has a recipe for Brown Bag Popcorn, which I'm excited to try. I always figured you had to have one of those special poppers to pop plain corn, so I've been using those microwaveable bags with all the additives and fake flavors. But no, just some plain corn, a little salt and oil, and small brown paper bag is all you need. Cheaper and healthier-a very good tip.