Reading: Food Matters

Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating is very much on par with Pollan's In Defense of Food (Bittman even makes several references to Pollan). Bittman promotes "sane eating," which touts eating less meat and more plants. His angle is a little different from Pollan's, as Bittman emphasizes the environmental impact that eating less meat could have. I also thought, and this may not have been intentional on Bittman's part, that it really focused a lot (too much?) on weight loss. He says a few times that this isn't a "diet" book, but then goes on to mention several times that he lost a lot weight and others lost a lot of weight and, by golly, you can lose a lot of weight too!

I tend to find that portions of food books - and that includes diet books and the like - are pretty boring. Each book has to rehash the same information because the author has to assume that you've never read a book on the topic before. Not so much author guy, I've read a lot of these books. Consequently, when I get to certain parts my eyes start to glaze over and I jump to the bottom of the page. When I start reading "a calorie is the energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree Celsius," I read it as "one calorie is BLAH BLAH BLAH" turn the page. I say that in the interest of full disclosure. The book has some good info in it, but you might have read some of it before elsewhere.

A hugely informative takeaway with this book though is the environmental impact that eating plants vs. meat can have. Bittman gives some great comparisons to illustrate his point - and it really made me feel good about my new vegetarianism (although Bittman is not a vegetarian and encourages less meat, not necessarily no meat). A great read to supplement other healthy eating books.

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