Mark Bittman Spreads the Word about a more Sustainable Food System

Mark Bittman visited the MFA last week to promote a healthier American diet that’s sustainable for the planet and our health.  Advocating for fewer meat products and more plants, he called this new way of thinking as much a food movement as a political movement.  The lecture was nothing I hadn’t heard before from the likes of Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser and Marion Nestle, but nonetheless it was great to hear it one more time, from Bittman’s perspective, with a very engaged audience.  Following are some highlights from the lecture.  

Bittman began by discussing how the American palate is based on and heavily influenced by savvy marketing campaigns that steer us towards consuming junk food and meat-based products.  “We are lead to believe that we like donuts and chips and that we need meat to be healthy,” he said.  “However this comes from the influence of the food industry.  If we want to reduce meat consumption, and turn towards a more plant-based diet to reduce our ecological footprint, we need to use our purchasing power to steer the industry.”  In other words, we as consumers are going to have to actively make decisions about our own diets and their ecological impact because the food industry isn’t on our side. 

Bittman went on to describe the many hidden costs in the inexpensive American diet.  “We spend 7% of our income on food, which is the lowest in the world” he said. “Yet, our cheap food has many hidden and forestalled costs.”  Bittman used the example of a $0.99 hamburger.  This may sound like a great deal, but when you look more closely you realize this isn’t the case.  Not only are hamburgers contributing to our outrageous obesity epidemic, but livestock production uses an extraordinary amount of land and water in production.  In fact it takes nearly ten times the amount of land to produce meat as it does plants and at a rate of producing 10 billion animals a year, it doesn't take long to see that this isn't sustainable.

So what can we do about it?

Bittman offered a number of solutions to the problem, stressing the need to move quickly and enact change now. 

*First he mentioned organic and local as two options that reduce the environmental impacts of agricultural production and bring products closer to home with less travel time to market.  

*Second, we should address the obesity epidemic with anti-obesity campaigns just as powerful as the anti-smoking campaigns.  Its taken a while, but they've worked. 

*Third, the government needs to step up.  Whether it’s supplying better foods into our school lunch programs, taxing large food processing companies, reducing government subsidies of the large commodities, especially corn, taxing soda or reducing junk food marketing towards children.

 *Fourth, we should be subsidizing healthy foods like fruits and vegetables.  This could include giving tax breaks to the poor when they buy health products, supporting farmers markets, CSAs or farm to table direct sales or most importantly subsidizing the cooking material to teach people how to cook.  Only 10% of all meals are cooked at home and only 20% of this food comes from unprocessed vegetables.  Clearly we have to start learning what to do with all the vegetables we should be eating.

An interesting lecture, a good message and a good slide show to present the facts.  I hope Bittman continues to spread the word about the need for a healthier and more sustainable food system!  Boy do we need it!