• Eat fewer animal products than average (say, an average of 1 pound of meat, or at most two pounds, each week, or a small serving daily. (If some of these servings are fish, so much the better. Eat correspondingly small amounts of eggs and dairy foods, and think of all these things as treats, not staples.)

• Eat all the plants you can manage

• Make legumes part of your life

• Whole grains beat refined carbs

• Snack on nuts or olives

• When it comes to fats, embrace olive oil

• Everything else is a treat, and you can have treats daily

Mark Bittman is the anti-foodies' foodie, one of the few culinary writers around who don't indulge in either the precious chefolatry of the Gourmet magazine set or the remedial pandering of Rachael Ray. In his instant-classic cookbooks and "The Minimalist" columns for the New York Times, he treats the preparation of food as an enjoyable daily activity that needn't be fetishized but that also shouldn't be reduced to layering prepared foods in a casserole dish, popping it in the oven, and chirping "Yummers!" At a time when one-half of America seems to view cooking as an elite hobby while the other regards it as an esoteric mystery, Bittman is that blessed thing, a practical cook.

The essence of the Bittman approach is simplicity, ease and quality, but that means he has to walk a fine and constantly shifting line. Americans' attitudes toward what we eat are laden with class and cultural baggage. It's no coincidence that when the conservative Club for Growth PAC produced its famous 2004 television commercial featuring an elderly couple telling Howard Dean to go "back to Vermont," two out of the seven outré practices Dean and his "left-wing freak show" were accused of involved comestibles: latte drinking and sushi eating. Yet the rules keep changing. Some delicacies once considered exotic—balsamic vinegar and chipotle chile, for example—seem to have infiltrated every Applebee's and Boston Market, while others—poor, blameless arugula—remain synonyms for yuppie pretension and self-indulgence. We invest food with a tremendous amount of meaning; you routinely hear people touting the ethnic harmony of their town or neighborhood by describing the diversity of its restaurants, as if an understanding of Hinduism or Mogul architecture can be ingested along with a plate of chicken tikka. ... (Read the full review)

Mark Bittman, food columnist for The New York Times, has joined the Greek chorus of foodies for a better planet. Openly acknowledging that he is building on the investigative work of Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and others, Bittman has taken up the mantra of: eat more plants, fewer animals, and less in general.

Although Bittman’s new book, Food Matters, largely repeats well-documented food research, he does bring something new to the table: recipes and a four-week meal plan.

As “The Minimalist” for the Times, Bittman is a culinary adventurer without being froufrou. His straight talk has won him a near-cult following, and his How To Cook Everything cookbooks have become staples for home cooks. ... (Read the full review)

Mark Bittman, New York Times columnist, author of How to Cook Everything, and co-host of the Public Television show, Spain . . . On the Road Again, recently published a new book on food and eating called Food Matters, A Guide to Conscious Eating. In Food Matters, Bittman attempts to get readers to adopt a more conscious approach to buying and eating food. He explains that the American diet, which is full of meat, refined carbohydrates, and junk food is bad for us as well as the environment, leading to both individual health problems (heart disease, obesity, diabetes) and international disasters (global warming). As a solution, Bittman argues for changing the way we eat and buy food. Specifically, he wants us to eat less meat and junk food and more vegetables and whole grains. (Bittman does not imagine this will solve all our problems, but he does think it can make a difference.)

In the first half of Food Matters, Bittman works to explain the how's and why's of his theory, while in the second half, he tries to make it happen. Much of the Food Matters argument for changing the way we eat will be familiar to readers of Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food) who Bittman quotes several times. However, Bittman's focus is more on the individual. While he argues that more conscious eating will be good for the environment, his emphasis is on how it will help you and your health. He explains just why too much processed food is bad for you as well as exactly why eating legumes is good for you. ... (Read the full review)

Mark Bittman, author of the wildly popular How to Cook Everything, is known for making food preparation as simple as possible, so it's no surprise that his new book has the plainest title imaginable: Food Matters. The content is equally straight-forward. Part eating theory and part recipes, Food Matters has something Bittman's earlier writings don't: A clear moral message on how meat over-consumption hurts the planet. TIME talked to Bittman about why buying local food isn't paramount, what his new wardrobe says about his eating habits and why sustainable agriculture advocates have reason to hope.

The subtitle of your book is "A Guide to Conscious Eating." What is "conscious eating"?

What I'm advocating is that people eat fewer animal products, less junk food and less super-refined carbohydrates. And in their stead, they eat plants. That's the simplest, most basic way to put it.

A lot of what you say sounds like [Omnivore's Dilemma author] Michael Pollan's edict—eat food, not too much, mostly plants. It's a very basic idea.

Yeah, and don't eat things your grandmother wouldn't recognize and don't eat things that have more than five ingredients. There's very little Michael says that I disagree with. Not to take anything away from him, but he doesn't do recipes. ... (Read the full interview)