{"id":2930,"date":"2011-02-07T18:00:55","date_gmt":"2011-02-07T22:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/?p=2930"},"modified":"2019-06-07T13:41:07","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T17:41:07","slug":"newvine-growing-book-club-food-matters-by-mark-bittman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/newvine-growing-book-club-food-matters-by-mark-bittman\/","title":{"rendered":"Newvine Growing book club: Food Matters by Mark Bittman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Food writer Mark Bittman recently ended his long-running Minimalist column in the New York Times to shift into a new role as an opinion writer for the Times.<\/p>\n

This change of perspective, that food is about so much more than filling our bellies, is apparent in his book “Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Bittman wrote in the announcement of the Minimalist’s end<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

My growing conviction that the meat-heavy American diet and our increasing dependence on prepared and processed foods is detrimental not only to our personal health but to that of the planet has had an impact on my life and on that of the column. You can see this in dishes like stir-fried lettuce with shrimp, chickpea tagine with chicken, a number of bean dishes and the dozens of other meatless or less-meat recipes that have become dominant in the last five years.<\/p>\n

In part, what I see as the continuing attack on good, sound eating and traditional farming in the United States is a political issue. I\u2019ll be writing regularly about this in the opinion pages of The Times, and in a blog that begins next week.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I loved Mark Bittman a decade ago when I first discovered “How to Cook Everything,”<\/a> a giant but accessible resource that answers basic questions like how to cut an artichoke or how long to cook salmon, while also demonstrating numerous ways to riff on the essentials — if you can do pasta and tomato sauce, you can do so much more.<\/p>\n

Then came “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian,<\/a>“which brought Bittman’s breezy, casual “more a guideline than a recipe” approach to meatless cooking. Both get a heavy workout in our kitchen.<\/p>\n

Food Matters is about half cookbook, half manifesto. It’s a call to action to change how we eat personally for our own health and well being, as well as for that of the environment and for the animals we eat.<\/p>\n

Some excerpts from Food Matters:<\/p>\n