Quotes from Mark Bittman

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

Cooking is like exercise or spending time in nature or good conversation: The more you do it, the more you like it, the better you get at it, and the more you recognize that its rewards are far greater than its efforts and that even its efforts are rewards.

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.

So the idea is to eat food that fills you up(and provides you with nutrients) without giving you more calories than you need. One way to make sure of that is to eat food with low caloric density, and this is less complicated than it sounds-believe me.

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.

The evidence overwhelmingly supports a more traditional diet-what I'm calling sane eating-in place of the modern American diet.

Base your preferred diet on any traditional eating style you like; the point is that once you get into the habit of eating sanely, it becomes second nature.

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).

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.

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.

But "fat-free half-and-half" is an abomination, and could not possibly exist in nature or even in a simply processed form; it's frankenfood. That's not a trade-up from anything.

We have a rule of thumb: The longer the shelf life of a food, the shorter the shelf life of the person eating the food! There are exceptions, of course—beans and whole grains keep forever—but it's worth bearing in mind.)

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.)