Feel Good Guru

I love this man. He’s a passionate speaker, columnist for the NYTimes, best-selling author of the popular “How to Cook Everything” books, including “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian”, and the recent “Food Matters - a guide to conscious eating”. He’s also an advocate of an “incrementalist” philosophy.

He preaches to Americans that they’re killing themselves and the planet with the way they eat. “Too much meat. Too much junk food. Too big a footprint.” He’s not a vegetarian, but he recommends a “vegan til 6″ diet, which, I think, is brilliant. It’s a message that doesn’t feel restrictive and punishing, rather, a positive challenge that’s easy for the masses to swallow…

Bittman lays out all the facts on global warming, well-known by now, and how the livestock industry is one of the major contributors to not only greenhouse gasses, but to a long list of diseases like obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Then he hits them with the challenge “be a less-meatarian.”

One comment from a reader of a recent Globe and Mail article about Bittman sums up his palatable attitude: “It’s nice to see a more moderate stance. His message of eating less meat is a welcome change from the usual hatred and hostility of the militant vegan crowd. His approach doesn’t make me want to shut out his message.”

People don’t like to be told what to do, especially when it comes to their eating habits and personal health. But give them some fun options to try, make a few healthy suggestions, and next year only 9 billion animals are killed instead of 10. It doesn’t sound like much of a dent, but Mark Bittman has the ear of a mainstream public, and the power to change the world in incremental bites.

Mark Bittman on his new book Food Matters:

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