Mark Bittman > Quotes

“1 billion people in the world are chronically hungry. 1 billion people are overweight.”
― Mark Bittman, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes

“Like pornography, junk [food] might be tough to define but you know it when you see it.”
― Mark Bittman, VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good

“[C]onvenience is one of the two dirty words of American cooking, reflecting the part of our national character that is easily bored; the other is 'gourmet.' Convenience foods demonstrate our supposed disdain for the routine and the mundane: 'I don't have time to cook.' The gourmet phase, which peaked in the eighties, when food was seen as art, showed our ability to obsess about aspects of daily life that most other cultures take for granted. You might only cook once a week, but wow, what a meal.”
― Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food

“America’s food system is broken.”
― 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

“To quote the philosopher Max Roser: “Three things are true at the same time. The world is much better; the world is awful; and the world can be much better.” There is plenty of good work to do.”
― Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book

“Ecologists recognized that resources are finite, and that nature is in charge. That's basic science. Capitalists believe that nature exists to be exploited by humans, a tenet perfectly in tune with Western religion.”
― Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book

“We spend a trillion dollars a year on food, but it’s only 9.4 percent of our expendable income, the lowest percentage of any country on record.”
― Mark Bittman, VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good

“And it should not come as no shock that Big Food, along with the pharmaceutical industry and its scientists for hire, has promoted confusion in the media and in the mind of the American consumer to contribute to our culture of overconsumption.”
― Mark Bittman, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes

“In any case, the principles are simple: deny nothing; enjoy everything, but eat plants first and most. There's no gimmick, no dogma, no guilt, and no food police.”
― Mark Bittman, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes

“Teach a cook a recipe and he’ll cook for a night; teach a cook a technique and she’ll improvise for a lifetime.”
― Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything Fast: A Better Way to Cook Great Food – 2,000 Time-Saving Recipes and Kitchen Innovations

“(As Michael Pollan says, "a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it's not really food")”
― Mark Bittman, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes

“Eat all the plants you can manage. Literally. Gorge on them. Salads, cooked vegetables, raw vegetables, whole fruits- cooked or raw or even, in moderation, dried. There are hardly any limits here (though you don't want a diet based entirely on starchy vegetables like potatoes).”
― Mark Bittman, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes

“When it comes to fats, embrace olive oil. That's where you start. You can use butter when its flavor or luxury is really going to matter to you. Use peanut oil or grape seed oil for stir-frying (or any frying), use dark sesame or nut oil for extra flavor, and you really don't much else. --Don't worry too much about quantity. Don't start drinking oil, or eating fried food daily; but using oil for dressing or cooking is not a big deal, provided you are not eating many refined carbohydrates or animal products.”
― Mark Bittman, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes

“DRIED HERBS  Oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary, and tarragon are decent substitutes for fresh. (Dried parsley, basil, and mint are worthless.) They keep for about 6 months.”
― Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything: The Basics: All You Need to Make Great Food--With 1,000 Photos: A Beginner Cookbook

“You shouldn't eat "unlimited" amounts of grains, as you would other plants, but eating grains several times a day is fine. --
In any case, eat far fewer carbohydrates; they are all treats, not off limits but to be eaten only occasionally (and with gusto).”
― Mark Bittman, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes

“Domesticated animals were often too valuable to be eaten. Indeed, the amount of meat consumed per person may well have gone down with the advent of farming as wild animals became scarce, at least near villages. (In fact, it’s safe to say that meat consumption has fluctuated greatly throughout history and throughout the world, and that, with very few exceptions, until recently it was mostly eaten occasionally.)”
― Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book

“Listen to your body: Are you losing weight, feeling fine, getting results that makee you and your doctor happy? Keep it up. Are you not getting the results you want? Cut back on treats, and eat more plants.”
― Mark Bittman, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes

“(The word “canola” is a bastardization of “Canada oil,” made from a variety of rapeseed developed in Canada specifically designed to produce oil from these low–erucic acid varieties.)”
― Mark Bittman, How to Eat: All Your Food and Diet Questions Answered: A Food Science Nutrition Weight Loss Book – Clear, No-Nonsense Answers on Grains, Meat, Dairy, and Alcohol

“For most of us, the idea is to get the number of calories it takes to maintain weight (or fewer, if we're trying to lose), along with a good balance of nutrients. And this is easy: As long as your diet isn't based on junk food, almost any diet that supplies you with enough calories will also supply you with adequate nutrition.”
― Mark Bittman, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes

“What determines how much cholesterol your liver makes? Not the cholesterol you eat but the kind of fat you eat. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats tend to raise the good type of cholesterol while lowering the bad. Saturated fat, found most in animals, tends to be more or less neutral-not so bad, in small quantities at least-raising both types of cholesterol equally.”
― Mark Bittman, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes

“In what's usually referred to as "the Columbian Exchange" -one of history's great misnomers, given the genocide that followed - Europe took so much of value from the Indigenous people of what became known as North and South America that it was able to rule most of the world until the mid-twentieth century.”
― Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book

“All across Italy, as Parasecoli tells me, food is used to identify who is Italian and who is not. But dig a little deeper into the history of Italian cuisine and you will discover that many of today's iconic delicacies have their origins elsewhere. The corn used for polenta, unfortunately for Pezzutti, is not Italian. Neither is the jujube. In fact, none of the foods mentioned above are. All of them are immigrants, in their own way--- lifted from distant shores and brought to this tiny peninsula to be transformed into a cornerstone of an ever-changing Italian cuisine.
Today, jujubes are better known as Chinese dates. It was likely in Asia that the plant was first cultivated, and where most are still grown. By the time of the Roman Emperor Augustus, at the turn of the first millennium, the tree had spread to parts of the eastern Mediterranean where, according to local tradition, it furnished the branches for the thorny crown of Jesus Christ. Around the same time, Pliny the Elder tells us, a Roman counselor imported it to Italy.
The Romans were really the first Italian culinary borrowers. In addition to the jujube, they brought home cherries, apricots, and peaches from the corners of their vast empire, Parasecoli tells me. But in the broad sweep of Italian history, it was Arabs, not Romans, who have left the more lasting mark on Italian cuisine.
During some 200 years of rule in Sicily and southern Italy, and the centuries of horticultural experimentation and trade that followed, Arabs greatly expanded the range of ingredients and flavors in the Italian diet. A dizzying array of modern staples can be credited to their influence, including almonds, spinach, artichokes, chickpeas, pistachios, rice, and eggplants.
Arabs also brought with them durum wheat--- since 1967, the only legal grain for the production of pasta in Italy. They introduced sugar cane and citrus fruit, laying the groundwork for dozens of local delicacies in the Italian south and inspiring the region's iconic sweet-and-sour agrodolce flavors. Food writers Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari argue that Arabs' effect on the Italian palate was as profound as it was in science or medicine--- reintroducing lost recipes from antiquity, elevated by novel ingredients and techniques refined in the intervening centuries. In science, this kind of exchange sparked the Renaissance; in food, they argue, one of the world's greatest cuisines.
Today, in Italy's north, where African influences give way to more continental fare, Italian cuisine leans heavier on crops taken from Indigenous peoples in the Americas: tomatoes, beans, pumpkins, zucchini, peppers, and corn, which is used to make polenta. Cultural exchange moved in the other direction as well. As millions of Italians left for the Americas in the 19th and 20th centuries, Italy's culinary traditions were remixed and revolutionized again. Italian Americans pioneered a cuisine that would become almost unrecognizable to the old country: spaghetti and meatballs, chicken Marsala, fettuccine Alfredo, deep-dish pizza.”
― Mark Bittman, The Best American Food Writing 2023: Eye-Opening Essays on Culture, Inequality, and Justice

“It would take Western science centuries to develop a truly rational branch of thinking, one that recognizes that everything is connected—the body, the natural and spiritual worlds, the wondrous and the inexplicable and the irrational.”
― Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book

“The legendary wheat-field triumphs came from financial incentives, irrigation, and the return of the rains, and they came at the expense of more important food crops. Long-term growth trends in food production and food production per capita did not change, [and] the Green Revolution years, when separated out, actually marked a slowdown.”
― Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book

“Fettuccine Alfredo Reduce the butter to 2 tablespoons and melt it gently. Use fettuccine. While the pasta cooks, whisk 2 eggs with ½ cup heavy cream and 1 cup grated Parmesan in a warmed bowl. Sprinkle with pepper. When the pasta is cooked, toss it with the cheese-egg-cream mixture, adding a little of the cooking water if necessary to keep the mixture moist. Drizzle with the butter, toss well, and serve immediately.”
― Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything : 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food

“The giuggiole, or jujube fruit, resembles an olive and tastes, at first, like a woody apple. After withering off the vine, it takes on a sweeter flavor, closer to a honeyed fig. Among the medieval elite, the fruit was so popular that it gave birth to an idiom: "andare in brodo di giuggiole"--- "To go in jujube broth"--- defined in one of the earliest Italian phrase books as living in a state of bliss. Every fall, the handful of families that still cultivate the fruit in the village gather in medieval garb to celebrate the jujube and feast on the fine liquors, jams, and blissful sweet broth they create from it.
Italy is full of places like Arquà Petrarca. Microclimates and artisanal techniques become the basis for obscure local specialties celebrated in elaborate festivals from Trapani to Trieste. In Mezzago, outside Milan, its rare pink asparagus, turned red by soil rich in iron and limited sunlight. Sicily has its Avola almonds and peculiar blood-red oranges, which gain their deep color on the volcanic slopes of Mount Etna. Calabria has 'nduja sausage and the Diamante citron, central to the Jewish feast of Sukkot.”
― Mark Bittman, The Best American Food Writing 2023: Eye-Opening Essays on Culture, Inequality, and Justice

“First you follow recipes to the letter; then you begin to synthesize some of those recipes, comparing one with another and drawing on what you see as the best of them; then you develop a repertoire of recipes you’ve made your own. Finally you throw away the books, start shopping, open the refrigerator, and cook. You cook like a grandmother, or like anyone with experience.”
― Mark Bittman, Cooking Solves Everything: How Time in the Kitchen Can Save Your Health, Your Budget, and Even the Planet

“The evidence overwhelmingly supports a more traditional diet-what I'm calling sane eating-in place of the modern American diet.”
― Mark Bittman, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes

“In episode 45 of Shokugeki No Soma, the food clubs are under fire. They must throw out their innovations and practices in order to adhere to the new director's food manual. Everyone must only make a certain type of dish and made in a specific way. Students disassociating from this manual will be expelled.
Innovation was frowned upon while classism had taken its hold. In order to save his dorm, protagonist Soma Yukihira challenged Chef Eizan "The Alchemist" seat number seven in the Council of Ten to a food war. With a board of judges willing to forgo tasting a dish because it uses ingredients not considered "top quality" or doesn't put the quality of an ingredient above its preparation, it goes completely against Soma Yukihira's style. Soma utilizes every day's cheap delights and elevating it into deliciousness. Chef Eizan presented Khao Man Gai, taking careful attention to not alter the chicken's natural flavors too much. One bite and every tongue squealed with bliss. Eizan presented a formidable classic that didn't stray too far from the books.


Season of the Underdog
Soma Yukihira was the underdog. The judges were prepared to discard his dish and name Soma defeated without taking a bite. Soma prepared a chicken wing gyoza with a rich ankake sauce. He removed the bones of the chicken and stuffed the cavity with ground pork, shiitake mushrooms, scallions and cabbage, then prepared a bone broth and used it to make the ankake sauce. From the jump, I was like oh shit, that's fire. Captivated by the scent, a judge took a bite. He was taken aback by the flavor! The delight. Soma Yukihira won the food war and saved his dorm.”
― Mark Bittman, The Best American Food Writing 2023: Eye-Opening Essays on Culture, Inequality, and Justice

“The third most abundant substance in breast milk is an oligosaccharide. Babies don’t digest it directly. Rather, it nourishes a bacterium called Bifidobacterium infantis, transmitted through vaginal birth and wiped out by antibiotics, and now thought to be missing in most American babies. B. infantis is essential in programming our metabolic operations. Those who maintain a healthy population of the bacterium are less likely to become overweight, experience allergies, or have Type 1 diabetes. But the majority don’t, which leaves them prone to numerous autoimmune diseases, colon and rectal cancers, allergies, asthmas, Type 1 diabetes, and eczema. All of these conditions have increased as breastfeeding has declined.”
― Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book