Help yourself and the planet: Eat less meat

When a consummate "foodie" like Mark Bittman - New York Times food columnist, best-selling cookbook author, food blogger, PBS food-show star - starts advocating a vegan diet, it's time to drop the foie gras and listen up. Even if it's just a partially vegan diet, or, as Bittman puts it, a "vegan until 6" daily regimen.

In his new book, "Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes" (Simon & Schuster, 2008), Bittman does everyone who cares about his or her own health as well as the health of the planet a huge favor by simply and plainly putting the two concerns together. His conclusion: Our diets may be killing us, and they are not helping the environment, either.

Just one example: According to Bittman, industrial meat production is responsible, worldwide, for one-fifth of the production of greenhouse gases. Couple that with the research that has linked diets high in animal protein to cardiac disease and certain cancers, and Bittman's solution seems like a no-brainer: Eat less meat.

"If we all ate the equivalent of three fewer cheeseburgers (or cheeseburger equivalencies) a week," he told a radio interviewer recently, "it would be the equivalent of taking all the SUVs in the United States off the road." And we would get healthier and lose weight. He certainly did.

A couple of years ago, Bittman found that his concerns over global problems related to food production dovetailed with his concerns over personal problems related to his food consumption. He found himself overweight, and suffering from high blood pressure, high blood sugar and high cholesterol. His doctor advised him to adopt a vegan diet (one free of all animal products, including eggs, dairy and honey).

Bittman, instead, decided to eat an animal-free diet for two meals a day, and, in the evening - as he said in the interview - to do "pretty much what I want."

The results? He has cut his animal-protein consumption by two-thirds and lost 35 pounds, with dramatic reductions in cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar. He describes his daytime diet as relying heavily on whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruits; no processed foods, refined carbs or added sugars. But he is not too proud to admit - as he did on the radio - that on the evening of Super Bowl Sunday, he ate "Super Bowl food," including hot dogs.

"Are your choices going to be perfect and free of hypocrisy? I'd be lying if I said mine were," he writes. "But I can't repeat it enough: The aggregate of even the smallest changes equals big changes."

If the idea of veganism - or Bittman's philosophy of "less-meatarianism" - scares you, rest assured it doesn't have to be complicated. Substitute a bowl of oatmeal for a bacon-and-egg breakfast. For lunch, have a salad with chickpeas on it instead of chicken.

And there are books to help. Vegan cook Nava Atlas has come through with "Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons" (Broadway Books, 2009). She is also the author of "Vegan Express" (Broadway Books, 2008).

• Marialisa Calta is the author of "Barbarians at the Plate: Taming and Feeding the American Family" (Perigee, 2005). Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

<div style="float:right;margin:0 0 6px 0;"> <div class="moreHeader"> Recipes </div> <div class="moreHolder"> <div style="margin:6px;text-wrap:auto;"> <ul class="moreLinks"> <li><a href="/story/?id=282937" class="mediaItem">Moroccan Vegetable Stew</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=282936" class="mediaItem">Breakfast Couscous</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=282935" class="mediaItem">Taco Soup</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>