Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating With More Than 75 Recipes

This is truly a book whose time has come. Bittman is sensitive, pragmatic and sane as he tackles thorny global ecology issues, all the while this book is simultaneously entertaining, educational and an inspiration to anyone who cares for and about what they eat and where their food comes from. If we all heeded Bittman's advice the world could become a better place.

Good book for those who want to eat healthily and be aware of their affect on the environment. Some ingredients are not staples in my kitchen cupboards but some recipes are brilliant

Saw this in Runners World and thought it would be a useful addition to the cook books. The book is a really interesting commentary on food manufacturing and farming. There are recipies which are good and tasty.

Food Matters is a lightweight (pun intended) look at how your eating choices affect the environment, your health, and your weight. Mark Bittman provides familiar arguments in favor of enjoying food choices that don't use as many resources that are also good for you to eat. To underscore the point, he describes how he lost weight by changing to more environmentally friendly choices (fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, and relatively little eggs, dairy, fish, chicken, and beef). The book ends with some recipes to help you switch from animal-protein-centered dishes to ones that either have little protein or none. He also teaches you how to prepare and keep masses of vegetable- and fruit-based ingredients ready to go for tasty eating.As far as this book goes, it's well done . . . but it's just not enough for many people to buy and use the book. Here are some examples of problems with the book:1. He argues that you shouldn't buy out-of-season fruits and vegetables from halfway around the world because of all energy expended. In many developing countries, out-of-season fruits and vegetables are the way that poor farmers are trying to get out of poverty and use less environmentally damaging methods. Mr. Bittman doesn't differentiate between who is producing the out-of-season fruits and vegetables and how they are produced. In some cases at least, doing the opposite of his advice can be an environmentally friendly decision.2. He focuses on food-related ways to reduce the carbon footprint without considering how you cook and store the food and that impact on carbon footprint.3. He talks about the wonders of various fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain alternatives without usually giving you the details about what each one offers in the way of nutrition and digestion characteristics, depending on how they are prepared.4. He expounds upon all of the problems of feed-lot produced beef, likes the idea of grass-fed beef, but never tells you in detail the benefits of grass-fed cattle.5. The list of recipes is a good one, but it's hardly enough to provide all of your eating needs. Why not provide a full cookbook to support his concept?6. I went to the store to check out those dastardly food manufacturers to see if they were in fact pulling all of the tricks that he described. Some were and some weren't. It made me realize that I need to develop a list of items that I've researched and why I chose them so that I can then compare them to new offerings when those are provided.7. When all was said and done, I was struck that what he was telling me to do was pretty similar to what I do already. So what did I gain from the book that I didn't know already? Mainly that seltzer bottles use a lot of energy in their production. I'll skip seltzer in the future and go back to tap water exclusively. If I had bought a vegetarian cookbook, I think I would have been better off.

So how does eating meat help stop global warming? Ur only interests are in self profit, dr Richard oppenlanders got your number pal, and he exposes you in comfortably unaware, do not buy this mans books

Such an awesome book. Very useful!I've recently changed the way I eat, and this book compliments it very well. It gives good insight to non healthy foods and obviously healthy foods. Fantastic recipes.This book is a must for anyone wanting to change their eating habits

I am a novice cook. Bittman's book covers most of I have already read about slaughter houses, huge tax breaks for a few conglomerate farm companies, the increasing percentage of obese or fat Americans. Michael Pollan's books go over this ground more extensively. I've been following Michael Pollan's three rules: Eat food. Mostly greens. Not much. What Bittman's book added to the subject for me is cooking knowledge: like exactly what is bulgar, what are lentils, what is basmati rice. How do you cook them. He explained different spices. The recipes are simple and easy to follow. What he has done is help me buy food intelligently, know how to cook it, and recognize what each food contributes to my family's health. The small section on exactly what hunger means, and how to take care of an urge to snack, made my husband a convert to Bittman's ideas.Another great book for beginning cooks who are interested in vegetarian recipes is the Moosewood Restaurant cookbook, Cooking for Health, by the Moosewood Collective. As in Bittman's book, the authors assume you are a beginner, and explain cooking methods, types of grains and spices, and how eggs figure into healthy eating. My brother-in-law, the lover of rare roast beef, was so taken with the meal I prepared featuring root vegetables, that he asked for the recipe.

this book helps you understand what food really should be. great recipes and tips.

Ein Großteil des Buches macht der Rezeptteil aus, bzw. ein Warenunde-Kapitel.Ich hatte mir etwas mehr neue Informationen zum Theme Mehrwert pflanzlicher Ernährung versprochen. Das Buch git zwar Infos zum Einfluss tierischer Ernährung auf Klima etc., jeoch wird jemand der sich mit dem Thema zuvor schon etwas beschäfftigt hat, hier keine neuen Informationen finden.Alles in allem ein gutes Buch um erste Eindrücke zu erlangen.In relativ einfachem und unwissenschaftlichem Englisch geschrieben und somit einfach zu lesen.

The book "Food Matters: a Conscious Guide to Eating" by Mark Bittmann is an intersection between a guide to food ethics and politics, a sensible outline of dietary guidelines promoting good eating habits, and a cookbook. The indices are divided between research and recipes, making the book much more easily searchable. I like my research to come with a good bibliography and the info on the ills of the food industry and nutritional research in the US are provided in readible prose, that does not require deep industry knowledge. Some of the material overlaps with Michael Pollan's book, Omnivore's Dilemma.I like Bittman's approach to recipes. He provides a basic recipes and then a few ways to spice things up - so to speak. It is a practical approach to cooking that follows my own approach--read a few recipes, see what the basic recipe is, see what variations can be done and then pick and chose. This approach usually requires some knowledge of spices and cooking--but Bittman makes that easy by providing the basics and a few variations to get you started.I think it is a pretty darn good book. Hope that this helps.