Mark Bittman has been in town these last couple of days promoting his new book, "Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating", so I've been hearing about him on the radio a lot.  He was also speaking on a panel at Kane Hall last night as part of their Arts and Lecture Series. 

The focus on conscious eating and the links to global warming and environmental issues is what made me want to explore what he is saying more.  I've noodled around the Internet and found a couple of things which might be interesting to readers already pretty focused on sustainable farming, climate change and alternative energy. 

According to Jonathan Kaufmann at Seattle Weekly, "Like many of us, Mark Bittman fell in love with food and somehow found himself ensnared in politics."  Yep, that's the state of the world today.  We are starting to realize that our actions have consequences.  In his new book, Bittman also talks about his own story of pulling himself back from the brink of diabetes and getting healthy.  He includes 75 recipes that provide readers a specific strategy for saving ourselves and the planet.  Kaufmann quotes from Bittman's new book, “There’s no sacrifice here, only adjustment and benefit".

If you want to see Bittman at his best, watch "What's Wrong With What We Eat".  This is a  video-clip that was filmed at a TED conference in December 2007 where he talks about the connection of our eating habits and our health crisis, about our collective food and agriculture habits and the earth's environmental crisis.  Best, he's funny and entertaining while he's taking on our slew of individual and collective bad habits.

He has a few simple suggestions to address all this on a personal, household level.  The simplicity is startling. 

1) Buy local food
2) Cook it at home
3) Eat less meat; eat more plants
4) Skip the junk food

It also reminds me of something I heard Michael Pollan say on NPR earlier this week that I found interesting.  He said that people of any class will eat more healthfully if they cook at home.  He was clear that he meant "cook" not "put prepared food on the table".  Not bad advice for our economic times.

Bittman is an admired food writer, who has written regularly for The New York Times on cooking; he posts videos on food regularly and he has a daily blog, called Bitten, where he posts recipes regularly.  He also hosts a PBS show called, "Bittman Takes on America's Chefs" and has written a host of best-selling cookbooks.  If you do nothing else after reading this, check out his blog and bookmark it.  Looks pretty good.