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Happenings
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Written by Theresa
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Thursday, 22 January 2009 19:00 |
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I am a New York Times junkie. Staying up late on Saturday nights is exciting just to hear the thump of the Sunday Times on my porch and knowing the blessed day of rest will be spent reading it. I follow the food trends there and check with Mark Bittman’s column “The Minimalist” on line to round out my readin’. Imagine my pleasure when Erica asked me if I’d be interested in hearing Mark speak about his new book “Food Matters” and perhaps interviewing him for fellow yummies!
In a packed room on the U of T Campus, I saw 200 or so, standing room only determined, folks. We were treated to an hour of CBC’s Matt Galloway lobbing a few questions at a self-deprecating, very humorous “home cook” Mark Bittman who is big on being vegan. He readily admits that he won’t go all the way any time soon and only practices vegan-ism until supper time each day but he does lay out the stats as to why we should all swing in that direction. And a compelling argument it is…the cost to the planet and its resources to raise animal protein for our consumption is untenable, 40 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of beef protein. Never mind the cost to our bodies of too much saturated fat and cholesterol.
Last night, Mark was “preaching to the choir” of converted vegetarians, vegans, flexi-tarians and environmentalists. He wasn’t challenged on his views and was for the most part received warmly. When asked about this his response was something like (shrug) I’ll deal with the people yelling at me when it happens, and if it happens, it will mean that we are reaching the mainstream and that’s a good thing. I couldn’t help but feel that we have the right guy at the front of this movement…well researched, well spoken, sensible and un-flappable. Not at all the bearded hippie you’d expect. I have sent along my questions to Mark and will post them here as soon as he responds.
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