The insightful New York Times food writer, recipe guru, and activist Mark Bittman, as part of the Writers Institute’s speakers series (founded by William Kennedy, Albany’s famed novelist in 1983), spent an afternoon last week at a recital hall on the campus of the State University of Albany and explained how he “accidentally” became a food writer. He also gave generously of his time and voice to answer, sometimes acerbically, questions from an eager audience of students, faculty, and fans of his cookbooks and newspaper columns, who all seemed to share his strong opinion that Americans need to “eat more food from the plant kingdom.” According to Mr. Bittman, success for him would be to “get every American to eat rice and beans” at least once a week.

Later on the same day, Mr. Bittman appeared at a downtown Albany auditorium before another friendly crowd at a “conversation” about cooking, recipes, food policy and his books (including his latest, A Bone to Pick, The good and bad news about food, with wisdom and advice on diets, food safety, GMOs, farming, and more (Pam Krauss Books, imprint of Crown Publishing Froup, a Division of Penguin Random House, New York, NY, 2015)  with Steve Barnes, a popular local reporter, restaurant and theater reviewer, and blogger for the Albany Times Union.

The Vegan Before 6:00PM (VB6) advocate came to Albany as a result of his long friendship with Donald Faulkner, the Director of the New York State Writers Institute. Faulkner and Bittman, as writers (post-college), shared an office in the late 1970s at Yale New Haven Hospital, and under the guidance of Eugene Cooney, a newspaper man, wrote hospital stories for modest compensation, in an attempt to reinvent the hospital’s in-house magazine. Bittman’s appearance in Albany represented a “reunion” with Faulkner to celebrate the spirit of Eugene Cooney with a memorial lecture, which turned out to be more of a probing Q and A session on food topics and the unexpected path Mr. Bittman took in becoming a well-compensated and popular food writer.

Some luck and good timing had much to do with Mark Bittman (whose first freelance piece was on the subject of glue for Popular Mechanics) becoming the well-regarded food writer. During a karate class in 1979 at the ripe age of 29, Mr. Bittman learned of the opportunity to earn $50 for writing theater and restaurant reviews for the New Haven newspaper. With these writing clips, Bittman could call himself a “writer.” After tiring of writing restaurant reviews in the New Haven area, he found satisfaction in the late 80s “teaching people how to cook” through his now proven, and compensated, writing ability.  This eventually led to his becoming editor of Cook’s Magazine and subsequently a food writer for the New York Times. When the Times started its Dining section, a relaunching of an earlier Living section, Bittman’s weekly column, The Minimalist, in the new section of the newspaper became very popular with readers.

Mr. Bittman’s succinct answer on the best way to improve America’s food system consisted of three excellent points: (1) control the marketing of food to children; (2) eliminate antibiotics from the food supply; and (3) cook for yourself.  According to the Public Health Law Center at the William Mitchell College of Law, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that in 2009, food and beverage companies spent $1.79 billion to market their products to kids.  Seventy-two percent of this total was spent to market just three types of products—breakfast cereals, fast foods, and carbonated drinks. We have previously reported on actions taken by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to control the unsafe use of antibiotics in animal feed. Bittman’s third point to “cook for yourself” has also been vigorously made by Michael Pollan in his Food Rules: Rule 82, “Cook,” is short and sweet.  According to Pollan, “Cooking just might be the single most important thing you can do for your dietary health . . . Cooking for yourself is the only sure way to take back control of your diet from the food scientists and food processors, and to guarantee you’re eating real food rather than edible foodlike substances, with their unhealthy oils, high-fructose corn syrup, and surfeit of salt.”

Later in the evening, a challenging question was posed by Robert Jones, the President of SUNY-Albany, who holds a doctorate in crop physiology. Although unable to be present at Mr. Bittman’s conversation with Steve Barnes, the university president’s question was relayed to Mr. Bittman for his response: “What is the best way to end world hunger?”  In this era when companies like Monsanto and Cargill contend that only industrial agriculture practices can “feed the growing world’s population,” Mr. Bittman’s answer was appreciated: “End world hunger, by ending world poverty.” He elaborated further by pointing out that small scale farming uses 30% of the world’s agricultural resources to feed 70% of the world’s population while industrial agriculture uses 70% of the world’s agricultural resources to feed 30% of the world’s population. His column in the New York Times from a couple of years ago, How to Feed the World (10/14/13), elaborates further on this important point. Mr. Bittman shares a similar position articulated by Maria Rodale in her Organic Manifesto (Rodale, Inc. [distributed to the trade by Macmillan], New York, New York, 2010), reviewed earlier on this website.

One question Mr. Bittman did not answer, which was posed twice in the course of his day in Albany, was the name of his new employer. In his “last regular opinion column on food” for the New York Times,  A Farewell, he explained he wanted “to try to change the world, not just write about it” and was taking “a central role in a year-old food company . . . to make it easier for people to eat more plants.” Mr. Bittman’s fans and readers will have to wait a bit longer for this information.

Frank W. Barrie, 10/27/15

[Editor’s note: A week or so after Mark Bittman’s appearance at the Writer’s Institute in Albany, the New York Times reported that he “is joining the Purple Carrot, one of the many new meal kit delivery services that have sprung up over the last several years.” Reporter Stephanie Strom noted that “The Purple Carrot is a vegan version of subscription meal kit services like Plated, Blue Apron, Green Chef and HelloFresh.”

Dartmouth College earned an impressive 49.89 out of a possible score of 51 in Sierra Magazine’s 2015 Cool Schools ranking in the food category to lead the list of 153 “four-year, degree-granting undergraduate colleges and universities in the United States.” The top ten for college food include schools in diverse eastern and western locations, but none in the American heartland or the southern states:

Sierra’s “Cool Schools Scoring Key 2015” includes nearly 70 thoughtful and detailed criteria underlying the “scoring basis” and the number of specific points obtainable for each criteria. The possible score of 51 in the food category was based on these criteria: (1) 30 points, food and beverage purchasing policies, with institutions earning 1/3 of available points (10 points) by calculating the percentage of food expenditures that are local and community-based, or are third-party-certified responsible (certified organic, fair trade, etc.) and they also “earn a portion of the remaining 2/3 [20 points] based on that percentage;” (2) 7 points, pre consumer food waste composting; (3) 7 points, post consumer food waste composting; and (4) 7 points, vegan options. Seven points were allocable to organic garden, with institutions earning “all available points for having one or more programs that allow students to gain experience in organic agriculture and sustainable food systems.” However, these points were for a criteria included in the “full ranking” noted below and apparently not considered in ranking schools in the food category, although there is discretion in the scoring in the “food and beverage purchasing policies” criteria noted above.  Perhaps in determining 20 of those allocable 30 points, food sourced at a school café from a farm or garden on campus resulted in some extra points when such discretion was exercised.

The “Full Ranking” in determining “America’s Greenest Universities” was based on all 70 criteria with a potential score of 1000. Some of the criteria with the most potential points were energy consumption in buildings, 40 points; support for clean and renewable energy, 45 points; water consumption, 40 points, and storm water management, 40 points. The ten greenest schools include six large public universities (including three campuses of California’s state university system) and 3 small liberal arts colleges. Only the University of Washington in Seattle was ranked in the top ten in both the food category, detailed above and the full ranking based on all criteria, noted below:

For the 2015 rankings, Sierra received 153 complete responses from qualified colleges, which do not have to pay to participate. Sierra ranks schools on greenness with the “hope” that its annual ranking will “act as a guide for prospective students who want to compare colleges based on the schools’ commitment to environmentalism.”  Further, Sierra contends that its ranking “also serves to spur productive competition between colleges, raise eco-standards on campus and publicly reward the institutions that work hard to protect the planet.”

For the 2014 rankings, which were reported earlier on this website, 173 schools, or 20 more schools participated last year than in 2015. In the food category, four of the schools included in the top ten for 2105 were also in the top ten schools for food in 2014: University of Washington, Villanova, Carnegie Mellon and U C Berkeley.

All of the colleges and universities that choose to participate in the annual Sierra rankings deserve praise for demonstrating to their students that they care about environmental sustainability and they “honor their students’ idealism by committing to the planet’s big issues” in the words of Sierra’s Lifestyle Editor, Avital Andrews. Sadly, the number of schools participating should be increasing, not decreasing by 20 as occurred this year. If your school has opted out of participating or has never participated, students, alum and concerned citizens should contact the institution’s sustainability coordinator or public relations office and ask them to participate. Click here to see if your college and university is among the schools participating.  The completed survey for each of the 153 school that participated are available by clicking on the name of the particular school in the Sierra rankings.

Frank W. Barrie, 10/11/15