Mark Bittman is one of the country’s best-known and widely admired food personalities, is known for his candor, his straightforward, no-nonsense style, and his simple recipes. He is the creator of the beloved New York Times cooking column “The Minimalist” (now in its thirteenth year), accompanying web videos, and daily blog, Bitten; he’s the author of several blockbuster cookbooks; and he appears regularly on both commercial and public television, where he has had his own series.

Mr. Bittman’s best-selling How to Cook Everything (which twice won the coveted James Beard award, as well as the IACP/Julia Child award and three international cookbook awards) is the bible of basic cooking for millions of Americans. How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (winner of an IACP/Julia Child award and nominee for a James Beard award) was one of the best-selling cookbooks of 2007 and is on track to change the way America cooks, as is his groundbreaking work on food, diet, and the environment, Food Matters, which reached #7 on the New York Times bestseller list. His most recent book, Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express, appeared on the Times bestseller list within a week of its release.

In addition to his writing, Mr. Bittman is also the host of the Public Television series Bittman Takes on America’s Chefs, which first aired in spring 2005 won the James Beard Award for the best cooking series of 2005, and continues to run regularly. The second season, The Best Recipes in the World, is currently airing on public television, as is his third PBS series, with Gwyneth Paltrow and Mario Batali, called Spain: On the Road Again. He also appears twice a month on NBC’s Today show, alternating Wednesday appearances with Martha Stewart.

In the late 90s, Mr. Bittman created a best-selling collaboration with the internationally celebrated chef, Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Their classic, Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef, is widely considered to be among the most accessible chef’s cookbooks ever published. Mr. Bittman’s first book, Fish—The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking is the best-selling contemporary book on the subject.  Among his other works are the blockbuster The Best Recipes in the World and the award-winning “Minimalist” cookbooks, now collected in Mark Bittman’s Simple and Easy Recipes from the New York Times.

Some things to consider from Food Matters:

Environment:

• Livestock accounts for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions—more than transport.
• The food industry accounts for 10% of all fossil fuel used in the U.S.
• Seventy percent of the world’s farmland—one-third of the earth’s ice-free surface—is involved in livestock production, and livestock is a major driver of deforestation.
• Seventy percent of the forests in the Amazon basin have been cut down for grazing land.

Consumption:

• According to the USDA Americans consume 200 pounds of meat per year and 237 pounds of dairy and 32 pounds of eggs–that’s over 469 pounds of animal products per capita
• A typical family of four steak dinner uses about the same amount of energy as driving around in an SUV or three hours while leaving all the lights on at home.
• If we each ate the equivalent of 3 fewer cheeseburgers a week we’d cancel out the effect of all SUVs in the U.S.
• Americans eat an average of 1/2 pound of meat a day per capita.
• One-third of Americans’ calories come from nutrient-poor foods—7% from soda alone.
• A one quart polyethylene bottle takes over 2400 calories to produce—so every time you drink tap instead of buying a bottle of water, you’re saving the equivalent of a day’s food.
• Americans consume about 25% more calories per day than they did in 1970.
• Americans consume 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the RDA; of that, about 75 grams comes
from animal protein.
• The beef in one Big Mac is equivalent, in terms of grain produced and consumed, to five loaves of bread.

Meat/Agriculture:

• Forty calories of energy are needed to produce 1 calorie of beef protein; producing 1 protein calorie of corn
requires just 2.2 calories of energy.
• To produce a pound of beef requires 13 pounds of corn and 30 pounds of hay.
• A typical steer consumes the equivalent of 135 gallons of gasoline during his lifetime.
• Sixty billion animals are raised a year for food—10 for every human on earth (10 billion of these are raised in the U.S. alone, which is about 30 per person). By 2050 demand will reach 120 billion animals a year.
• Corn and soy account for 50% of the total U.S. harvest; most is animal feed.
• More than 50% of the antibiotics administered in the U.S. are used for animals.
• Agricultural subsidies cost taxpayers $19 billion a year and benefit only 3100 farmers.

Health:

• One billion people in the world are chronically hungry; another billion are overweight.
• CIA estimates rank U.S. life expectancy at 46th in the world—behind Jordan, South Korea, and Bosnia.
• About 70 million Americans have some form of cardiovascular disease.
• Twenty-one million Americans have diabetes (six million of them don’t know it) and another 41 million have “pre-diabetes.”
• The cost of diet-related illnesses—heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, and cancer—is roughly
$840 billion (for comparison, the Social Security budget is $657 billion).
• Fewer than 1/3 of public schools offer and serve lunches that pass the USDA’s own
nutritional requirements.