Interesting. A pretty well articulated version of the argument Michael Pollan makes in "In Defense of Food"... which is an excellent book that is well sourced if you haven't read it. I don't read much of Bittman because his minimalist style doesn't really appeal to me, so I wasn't aware of how much he agrees with Pollan... do they collaborate?

I don't pay attention to people who use the distance to the moon to demonstrate what a massive quantity something is.

Why use space ships? Let's just stack all the Jolly Ranchers produced in one year and climb that to the moon! Or make a ladder out of Twizzlers! Or, apparently, use a bunch of cows!

What people don't mention is the brutality of factory farms -- the elephant in the room. We don't want to recognize our complicity in this cruelty, we don't want to give up the convenience of "common foods," but we can each remove our support from this unnecessary suffering. We just need to make the ethical choice.

My sound card is (evidently) broken. Is there a transcript anywhere you know of?

This guy presents very weakly supported ideas as fact.

...what floccina said. There are numerous facts; and opinions expressed as facts, and cherry picked history, with local anecdotes related as generalized US history.

..the main true point coincides with his little 'good food' graphic. The gist of that sextion is the truest part. The rest is almost biased enough to qualify as propaganda.

True its well intentioned, and focused on a problem that does exist. But by being so biased in one direction it will turn off those that were'nt already in the choir anyway.

One form of bias is the language used. For ex: "forced to eat a diet of grains and soy" How is this exactly? They are more then happy to eat grain, its equivalent to going us an all cake diet. (All the fancy stuff and no fiber.)

Are they designed to eat grass as he says? Yes. And they are designed to digest grain as well, which is a naturally occurring part of the grass they would have eaten. Truth is little about the domesticated cow has anything to do with its wild ancestor.. they are not made like they used to be. :p Soy ... no idea if they would have eaten soy in the wild or not.. but its far from cruel.

theres inumerable examples like this.. but this post would be as long as that line of cows is I listed them all.

. no idea if they would have eaten soy in the wild or not.. but its far from cruel.

Spoken like someone who doesn't live within walking distance of the nearest live cow, but within driving distance of plenty of Cow Product.

Great post, Ezra,
Bittman adds good arguments to Lappe's work, except the recipes in his vegetarian cookbook are actually edible, great even.

The boast:

"This guy presents very weakly supported ideas as fact."

The turn:

"what floccina said."

The prestige:

"One form of bias is the language used. For ex: "forced to eat a diet of grains and soy" How is this exactly? They are more then happy to eat grain, its equivalent to going us an all cake diet. (All the fancy stuff and no fiber.)"

Apparently david b, age 12, thinks an all-cake diet would be totally awesome. In reality, cows are fed corn not to make them happy but to make them very fat very quickly. The most "interesting" side effect of this is that it makes the cow's stomach tremendously acidic, creating conditions under which our friend E. coli O157:H7 thrives.

But hey, as your intestinal lining sloughs off and you shit blood until you die, you can high-five the corn lobby and die with the comfort that you stuck up for stupid farming practices with a rebel yell or something.

Scar, you should find a slot for Clever Stephen, who doesn't pay attention to people who mention the distance to the moon. He's found the fatal flaw, fershure.

He never says what is so wrong with being a "Locavore." I live in Louisiana, and it isn't that hard (though we do have a good food culture). It reminds me of a lot of liberal commentators who think the NE and CA are the only options for a place to live.

Bittman also presents these ideas as if they were purely his. He's kind of preachy, though I do agree with him for the most part. Michael Pollan does a much better job of presenting this material in _In Defense of Food_. _The Omnivore's Dillemna_ is even better. He's less arrogant.

"Back in those days [1900] there was no philosophy of food. You just ate, you didn't claim to be anything."
- Mark Bittman

Newsflash: Omnivore media dudes (Bittman and Pollan) say the same thing vegetarians have been saying for a long time Vegetarianism, a philosophy of food, existed before 1900. Western vegetarian societies were thinking about animal foods in the 1800s and even about the health and socio-environmental repercussions, not just being “nice” to animals. Before the 1900s and when industrialized agriculture was quite young, the idea that raising livestock wasted resources compared to a plant based diet was understood and detailed (see quotation below).

But since the omnivore dudes still continue to advocate eating animals they get a soap box, the public's ear, and the credit for how brilliant and forward thinking they are despite the fact they are middle aged dudes who have only recently stumbled onto these concepts and have taken them somewhat seriously. I say somewhat, because if they took their arguments really seriously, they wouldn't eat animals considering that it's the “only a little bit hyperbolic” equivalent of an atomic explosion.

Bittman dismisses being "nice" to animals, but if this over two millennia year old food philosophy, now called vegetarianism, was embraced with a little more enthusiasm, we wouldn't have the problems he describes.

“Now if it be admitted, that an average of six pounds of animal food a day would be necessary for each individual, on an exclusively flesh-diet, then, since an acre of land employed in feeding cattle only produces ten ounces of flesh per day, it would require nearly ten acres to support each person for a year; whereas one acre of wheat would supply three persons…”
…
Not to reduce man, however, to the necessity of living on the cheapest, or most productive kind of food,—which is by no means desirable for any nation, not even for the lowest classes of society,—let us suppose man enjoying the greatest variety of the choicest and most delicious fruits, roots, and grains;—the discoveries of science leading to improved culture, and triumphing over deficiency of temperature, and unsuitableness of climate; and let us further suppose that, by thus administering to the gratifications of taste and the pleasures of the table, four-fifths of the whole produce is sacrificed; still the land would be competent to maintain twenty times the population it could support on an exclusive diet of animal food.”
- John Smith - Fruits and Farinacea the Proper Food of Man - 1845

The calculations are debatable and the knowledge set and writing style is dated yet appropriate for the times, but comprehension of the situation described above is unmistakable.

Perhaps it’s with good reason that Bittman and Pollan keep reminding everyone that they eat meat while telling us not to. If they claim to be vegetarian as many other sound minded individuals before them have, they know the public will stop listening and write them off as one of those crazies.

I'm surprised that Bittman neglects to mention Pollan in his talk; his argument owes a great deal to the work Pollan put together.