Mark Bittman - A Bone to Pick: The good and bad news about food, with wisdom and advice on diets, food safety, GMOs, farming, and more

Americas food system is broken.

Ten years ago, that statement would have been met with blank stares: Most of us didnt know exactly what a food system was, let alone that ours wasnt working: after all, we have an affordable, abundant, and mostly safe food supply. But as issues of how our food is produced and consumed, and the impact of both on our health and the environment, have crept further into mainstream culture, media, and politics, more of us are realizing whats at stake, and are joining the conversation. And when it comes to recognizing, assessing, and fixing the shortcomings of our food system, there is a whole lot to talk about.

What youll find in the following pages is drawn from the writings I have contributed to that conversation. All of it comes from the New York Times, mostly from my weekly opinion column, the rest from the Sunday Magazine. These articles explore a range of topics as vast and varied as food itself: agriculture, environment, labor, legislation, health, hunger, diet, cooking, food safety, and more.

Taken together in this way the columns form a kind of mosaic, one thats tiled with problems and solutions alike. The problems are numerous and complex, and these are just some of them: Our fossil fueland chemical-dependent system of agriculture robs the land of resources in the name of feeding the world. At least a billion people globallyincluding many millions of Americansstill go hungry. Animals are mass-produced and effectively tortured, and food system workers dont have it good, either. The standard American diettoo much meat, sugar, and hyperprocessed junkis fueling an astronomically expensive epidemic of preventable lifestyle diseases for which we are all paying. And to top it all off, the politicians who hold the most power for positive change are all too often in the pockets of special interests that fight and spend to preserve the status quo.

Solving these problems requires the kinds of sweeping changes that are only possible through collective action, consciousness-raising, rabble-rousing, and political reform; voting out the bad and electing the good is only a part of the solution. We need activists on all levels, people doing the right thing independently of government, and that goes from cooking regularly to making sure school lunches arent poison to labor organizing to supporting farmers.

Following youll find my first column for the Times Opinion section. Though now four years old, it remains as good a summary of the current domestic situation as I could muster then, or now. But as I write thisjust after Election Day 2014there are reasons to be both optimistic (Berkeley has passed a soda tax; the school lunch program is better than ever; food workers lead the fight for a better minimum wage) and pessimistic (the Farm Bill is as bad as ever; clean water and air and food safety are all under attack; antibiotics are still used routinely in raising animals). But one thing is certain: There is plenty of good work to do.

Im lucky and privileged to have a platform from which I can say these things, and hope you find reading this collection as inspiring and energizing as I have found the writing of it.

MARK BITTMAN

NEW YORK, FALL 2014

A Food Manifesto for the Future

F or decades, Americans believed that we had the worlds healthiest and safest diet. We worried little about this diets effect on the environment or on the lives of the animals (or even the workers) it relies upon. Nor did we worry about its ability to endurethat is, its sustainability.

That didnt mean all was well. And weve come to recognize that our diet is unhealthful and unsafe. Many food production workers labor in difficult, even deplorable, conditions, and animals are produced as if they were widgets. It would be hard to devise a more wasteful, damaging, unsustainable system.

Here are some ideasfrequently discussed, but sadly not yet implementedthat would make the growing, preparation, and consumption of food healthier, saner, more productive, less damaging, and more enduring. In no particular order:

End government subsidies to processed food. We grow more corn for livestock and cars than for humans, and its subsidized by more than $3 billion annually; most of it is processed beyond recognition. The story is similar for other crops, including soy: 98 percent of soybean meal becomes livestock feed, while most soybean oil is used in processed foods. Meanwhile, the marketers of the junk food made from these crops receive tax write-offs for the costs of promoting their wares. Total agricultural subsidies in 2009 were around $16 billion, which would pay for a great many of the ideas that follow.

Begin subsidies to those who produce and sell actual food for direct consumption. Small farmers and their employees need to make living wages. Marketsfrom super- to farmersshould be supported when they open in so-called food deserts and when they focus on real food rather than junk food. And, of course, we should immediately increase subsidies for school lunches so we can feed our youth more real food.