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My "Beef" with Bittman.

Mark Bittman!

I like Mark Bittman. I’ve enjoyed occasionally reading his columns in the New York Times, and I’ve definitely used or adapted a number of his recipes. So, a couple of months ago, when I went on a binge at Barnes & Noble, I picked up his latest book Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating. Yes!!! Food DOES Matter!!! And, we should eat CONSCIOUSLY!!! Win!!!

Well, I just finished reading it, and…uhm…I didn’t like it. Not at all. Not one bit.

It started well enough – drawling links between our environmental issues and health problems. I can get behind that. I also think it’s important to understand how the government has a role in maintaining a dangerous status quo where big food interests are protected over the population’s health. It’s a bad system and something needs to change. But, at some point his reasoning turns into total mush.

He begins the argument that we over-consume meat and animal products. Ok…as a Paleo, I know of a lot of data and research that supports meat consumption. But, hey! I’ll give the guy a shot! So, let’s see what he comes up with.

1. Conventionally-raised meat is harmful to the animals involved, the environment, and likely also the people who eat those animals. True…but, then he simply ignores the fact that one can purchase meat that’s ethically raised by small local farmers. He simply says that on a large-scale, it wouldn’t be viable to produce meat in that way, so we should simply cut it out. HUH?! What about the fact that eating meat is beneficial to our health? In fact, there are even scientific studies that show that even an all-meat diet can be perfectly healthy. Bittman ignores this fact and even fails to provide any scientific evidence that eating LESS meat is actually beneficial to our health.
2. He correctly argues that dietary cholesterol consumption does not affect cholesterol levels. He also agrees that evidence shows that the type of fat you consume (unsaturated vs. saturated) does not seem to affect cholesterol levels, and that it’s only trans-fats that should be avoided at all costs. But, then, later in the book one of his arguments calls for eating in his specific way, because it will lower cholesterol. The statements don’t make any sense in conjunction with each other!
3. Bittman routinely refers to “the industrial meat and junk food complex” as one. However, he makes no effort to tease apart the affect meat has on the body vs. the effect junk food and refined carbs have on the body. Perhaps all the positive changes he claims to see in himself, and argues we’d see on his diet, could all be attributed to cutting processed foods out of our diet? You simply can’t lump together meat and crappy, processed, refined, chemically-laden junk.
4. Bittman acknowledges that soy and corn production are big culprits in environmental issues. And, yes, a lot of the soy and corn produced is fed to livestock, but if you’re eating meat from properly-raised animals, this becomes a non-issue. Also, while he makes this point, in the next sentence advocates for soy products as replacements for dairy products. WHA?!

Many people choose to follow a flexitarian, vegetarian, or vegan diet for ethical instead of health reasons and I can understand that on some level. But a diet designed to help the environment or animals isn’t necessarily a diet designed for humans, or one that optimizes human health. In fact, it’s all too easy, as at least one blogger has noted, to consume a dreadful diet in the name of saving the planet. Mark Bittman wants you to eat more veggies. Eating more veggies is indisputably healthy. But, he does not make a good scientific argument as to why meat, if produced responsibly, should be cut out of the diet. I think his argument is very superficial and careless and I wish he’d take more time to do his research. Just because it works for him (and there’s no telling WHY exactly it does), doesn’t mean it should be wholeheartedly recommended to everyone. Anyways, he refers to his way of eating as “sane eating” which I find very, very condescending.

Hey, I gave the guy a shot. And, despite my firm belief that the Paleo way of eating is extremely healthy, I’m going to continue reading up on a variety of perspectives on the matter. It’s too easy to fall into the pattern of reading only materials that will reinforce your pre-existing beliefs, but I hope future books will be better researched and not simply infuriate me the stating of “facts” that are completely ungrounded and unresearched.