Food for Thought: Mark Bittman

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MARK BITTMAN IS stirred by fries and thrilled by a grill on a Tuscan hill. He shares his foodiness in his Minimalist columns in the New York Times, in cookbooks and on PBS, where he's pursued "The Best Recipes in the World."

So, it comes as a bit of a shock to see that his new book is called: "Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating." Just in case you're not sure what that means, he makes it perfectly clear: "Lose Weight, Heal the Planet."

What happened?

The answer lies in creeping weight gain. In 2006, the 6-foot-1-inch gourmand hit 214 pounds, up from 165 at college graduation. "Minor but notable" health problems popped up: a rise in cholesterol and blood sugar, weakening knees, sleep apnea. Bittman, 59, began to adjust his diet and look into the way America eats.

He found that the No. 1 "food" contributing to America's calorie count is soda. Meat consumption is soaring, but animals raised in confinement yield meat that is "unnatural" and "tasteless." And it turns out these food groups tend to be bad for the planet, too — it takes 2.2 calories of fossil fuel for a calorie of corn versus 40 for a calorie of beef, he notes. So, Bittman is now a champion of veggies, legumes, fruit, nuts and whole grains.

» EXPRESS: So, what were you eating when you had your awakening?
» BITTMAN: That same year I [went] to France and was doing a story on steak frites and eating eight steak frites in four days. And just saying, "This really is ridiculous; this has to change."

I also thought, "Wow, this is a real departure for me." And then I thought it's not really. It's all about having control over what you eat, which I've been doing for a long time. I thought, "This is good. It's not a midlife crisis. I'm seeing things more clearly."

» EXPRESS: Since you've lost the weight, you say your cholesterol is down and your sleep apnea is gone.
» BITTMAN: I didn't care that I weighed a little more than I supposed to. I think I carried my weight very well. I wasn't after the weight loss as much as lowering cholesterol. As it turns out, I couldn't do one without the other. My blood numbers are better; I feel better. It doesn't hurt that people come up to me and say, "You look great."

I do feel like sometimes I walk around with this smug smile on my face. But I do like the fact that without really detracting from my quality of life, I'm helping doing my little teeny bit for global warming.

» EXPRESS: Is your diet drastically different?
» BITTMAN: The big change is not eating meat — almost never for lunch, sometimes not having meat or any animal product at dinner. And not having bread during the course of the day — that feels like a big change. It's beyond being a vegan; it's being a vegan-plus. You can be a vegan and still have a really lousy diet. But at night, I eat whatever I want. Period. And I think that's probably why many of my dinners have either meat or pasta and bread. By 7 at night, I'm dying for that stuff.

» EXPRESS: Are there any foods that you've grown to like?
» BITTMAN: I think the two I like much more than I used to are quinoa and whole-wheat berries. I think quinoa is fabulous, just cooked by itself. It has a great taste. Whole wheat has so much substance that I think it often satisfies in ways other things don't.

» EXPRESS: Are you happy at your new weight? You note in the book you gained back 5 pounds on a TV project.
» BITTMAN: I weighed 184 yesterday. I haven't been able to lose the 5 pounds. In the initial thrill of losing weight, I was ridiculously strict. When my weight got to an absolute low, I gained back like 5, 6 or 7 pounds, and I have never been able to lose it.

» EXPRESS: And Spain, where you filmed a TV show with Gwyneth Paltrow, was the culprit?
» BITTMAN: I ate ham about eight times a day. If you're in the country with the best ham in the world and you're not a vegetarian, what the hell — it's just going to happen.

» EXPRESS: Paltrow recently said she can't wait until she turns 70 so she can start smoking again without worrying about long-term repercussions. Do you share her view?
» BITTMAN: She stole that cigarette line from me. I've been saying it for 20 years. Smoking made me feel crappy, and I stopped when I was 26. But in Spain, it was very hard not to smoke.

» EXPRESS: Do you miss the old way of eating?
» BITTMAN: I don't really think the number of things that I eat has changed. It's just the frequency and quantity with which I eat them.

What there is is an understanding of how simple foods can be good, and an appreciation for raw foods. The fact that there's a raw food movement is kind of a joke. You don't need a movement to eat raw foods. But if you're trying to eat things that are tinkered with as little as possible, you wind up eating a lot of apples, a lot of carrots. I don't think that makes me part of the raw food movement. It's just interesting to note.

» EXPRESS: When you do eat in a restaurant, are you daunted by the number of things you shouldn't eat?
» BITTMAN: If I eat out for lunch, I'm definitely very careful about it, but I try not to go out for lunch. If I eat out for dinner, I have a lot more abandon. It's a good time to cheat.

The whole point of "Food Matters" is that it's OK to do some cheating. If you're not eating in restaurants 10 times a week, [cheating] is not a problem. An allowance for failure is built into what I'm talking about. There will be people who eat in a very principled fashion all the time. I'm not one of them.

» EXPRESS: You certainly aren't anti-dessert. There's an easy and yummy recipe for coconut chews in your book, for example.
» BITTMAN: I really like coconut, just love the flavor.

» EXPRESS: So, how do you make such cookies at home and avoid temptation?
» BITTMAN: I don't have any desserts around the house. If people come over and I make dessert, I make them take it with them.

Written by Express contributor Marc Silver
Photo courtesy Simon and Schuster