Mark Bittman is using his New York Times column to explore the possibility of taxing unhealthy food.

Bittman feels this is a way to get Americans to change their eating habits and hold companies accountable for producing products that contain harmful ingredients.

“Simply put: taxes would reduce consumption of unhealthful foods and generate billions of dollars annually,” Bittman writes in an article titled, “Bad Food? Tax It, and Subsidize Vegetables.”

“That money could be used to subsidize the purchase of staple foods like seasonal greens, vegetables, whole grains, dried legumes and fruit.”

“This program would, of course, upset the processed food industry. Oh well. It would also bug those who might resent paying more for soda and chips and argue that their right to eat whatever they wanted was being breached.”

Bittman continues to promote the idea that government control of the cookie jar is only beneficial, as money generated from taxes could help the neediest afford better quality food.

It’s no secret America’s diet needs to be revamped. But is punishing the businesses that satisfy our cravings for everything sweet, salty and high-fat the best way to do it? Not even the strictest vegan wants to live in a world where the only potato chip is a baked sweet one and instead of punishing for bad behavior, why not reward for good?

Several years ago PETA proposed the idea of giving vegetarians a tax cut. The same group is also in favor of insurance companies giving vegetarians lower rates because they are less likely to suffer from chronic and long-term diseases. The demand for healthier food will force food companies to remove the high-fructose corn syrup from their beverages and replace beef and chicken stir-fries with tofu.

Good food. Reward it and everyone and wins.

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Okay. So you’ve finally made the decision to change your eating habits because you know that daily burger isn’t doing anything for your health or the environment and the last farm sanctuary you visited made you want to freak your doberman out by introducing him to his latest animal housemate Mr. Pig.

Meatless Monday is a good start, but is the 4th of July holiday the best time to convert, considering there will be all those hot dogs, burgers and other meaty goods on the grill?

Mark Bittman recently explored this dilemma is his New York Times food column.

Like every day in America, the Fourth of July is a celebration of protein. But the Fourth is a special day for burgers and ribs, not beans and rice, a day with contests to see who can eat the most hot dogs, not the most veggie patties. If you’re anti-meat, the Fourth of July can feel anti-you.

Bittman discusses the rising popularity in the Meatless Monday campaign and its benefits, but recognizes that the July 4th holiday may not be the best time for the most dedicated carnivore to make changes.

The Fourth of July may not be the day to trade in your hot dog, but the following Monday is a good one for beans and rice.

While Bittman’s suggestion will work for some, Vegetarian Star would like to remind potential flexitarians that the holiday is also the perfect opportunity to become acquainted with the dozens of faux meats available that put the real stuff to shame.

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“The principled diet, the diet that’s best for our health and that of the planet, is unquestionably veganism, or at least near-veganism, or a very very plant heavy diet, or “less-meatarianism” or whatever you want to call it: a diet of mostly plants, none or very few animal products, and certainly no junk or ultra-processed food (among which you could count industrially raised animal products), even if it is theoretically plant-based.”

–Mark Bittman, in his New York Times column where he lists several articles and essays by people who agree with him that meat just isn’t a necessary item on the plate. Links to Bittman’s suggested articles like The Case Against Meat by Ezra Klein and more are found on his blog.

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“I have to say, I’m pretty blown away by these apps. Over 2000 recipes, timers, menu tips, charts, handy illustrations. But this app is less about technology — it’s just a cookbook in a new form. It doesn’t change the way you cook. It changes the way you look at recipes.”

“For me, the real question is: does it bring more people to cooking? If it does, wonderful. If it doesn’t, maybe it’s just a fad. But it’s way too early to say. We need to give it another 5 years or so. Really give people a chance to figure out how to use these things in the kitchen. These apps have the potential to make people’s lives easier.”

–Mark Bittman, on his new How To Cook Everything Vegetarian app, now available from iTunes for $4.99. Can apps bring more people to the kitchen? They make it a lot easier to build a collection of recipes and books that offer cooking instructions without taking up shelves in the kitchen. In addition to Bittman’s app, don’t forget to check out other vegetarian and vegan cooking apps.

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After the successful launch of the How To Cook Everything app, Mark Bittman has released a similar app based on his completely meatless cookbook, How To Cook Everything Vegetarian.

Bittman is not only an established cookbook author, he’s also is a regular columinst for the New York Times who uses his platform to discuss issues on sustainable food, environment, health and animal welfare.

The How To Cook Everything Vegetarian app features recipes, cooking tips, menu ideas, Bittman’s personal favorites and more.

Over 2,000 detailed instructions are available for standard vegetarian staples like pasta dishes and tofu. There are recipes for more elaborate veg creations like homemade cheese.

Some additional features:

• Organized and email-friendly shopping lists
• Built-in timers during each step of the recipe
• Ingredient information
• Cooking equipment advice
• And more

The How To Cook Everything Vegetarian Cookbook has received praise from well known celebrity chefs and health experts.

“How do you make an avid meat eater (like me) fall in love with vegetarian cooking? Make Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian part of your culinary library,” said Bobby Flay, chef-owner of Mesa Grill and author of the Mesa Grill Cookbook

“Recipes that taste this good aren’t supposed to be so healthy,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, Professor of Surgery, Now York-Presbyterian/Columbia Medical Center and coauthor of You: The Owner’s Manual. “Mark Bittman makes being a vegetarian fun.”

For more information on the How To Cook Everything app, visit its iTunes page.

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“The problem is the system that enables cruelty and a lack not just of law enforcement but actual laws. Because the only federal laws governing animal cruelty apply to slaughterhouses, where animals may spend only minutes before being dispatched. None apply to farms, where animals are protected only by state laws.”

–Mark Bittman, in his New York Times food politics column about the animal cruelty discovered at E6 Cattle, a company that provides calves for the dairy industry. A video of the cruelty, which shows–among many acts–workers bludgeoning cows with pick axes, can be viewed here.

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Mario Batali is on board and ready to embrace a life with less meat. He’s observing Meatless Monday is his restaurants, has plans for a vegetarian cookbook and made one of his New Year’s resolutions for 2011 to learn to cook more vegetarian meals.

Making vegetables the center of his plate is how Batali lost a significant amount of weight and continues to maintain a lighter figure.

During one of Grubstreet’s regular “a week in the food life of [insert famous person],” Mario gave an an example of how he keeps Meatless Monday.

“Boxing at 8 a.m. I box three days a week and I play squash two days a week. In the morning almost every day, I have a shake with some almond milk and some frozen fruit, and that’s my morning routine. I don’t really need breakfast. In all honesty, if I have a substantial breakfast, I’m hungry at eleven. And then I’m hungry at one, and then I’m hungry at three. If I just start eating a big breakfast, I eat all day long. So I’ve found if you just kind of limit it and then try to go vegan-vegetarian until dinner — it’s all about calories in, calories out.”

“I had a little snack at home at eleven: two stalks celery, with hummus and Sriracha. Then I came down here [to Otto] and shot an espresso. If I drink espresso before noon, I get kind of zippy.”

“For lunch, I ate family meal [at Otto]. Two or three days a week they make a soup and this one was a vegetable one with rice: vegetables and cilantro, and then they put hot chilies and jalapeños on the side. And I had a Diet Coke.”

Actually, this Meatless Monday is  more like Mark Bittman‘s “vegan until six,” flexitarian approach, as you’ll learn about what happened at dinner time at GrubStreet.

But we do give a guy credit for some efforts.

Photo: PR Photos

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When a 19-year old woman slammed her sister’s pet hamster onto the floor, ASPCA animal police arrested her, charges were filed and she spent a night at Riker’s Island prison.

Yet this type of behavior occurs in farms around the country routinely. One group’s random undercover cruelty investigation found abuse in all 10 of the chosen farms or slaughterhouses it chose to visit.

Mark Bittman discussed this irony in one of his recent New York Times column, “Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.”

Bittman blames the routine abuse and neglect of farm animals on “Common Farming Exemptions” that vary from state to state that allow a farming practice to continue as long as it’s common.

Jokingly, Bittman compares this law to giving burglars power to define trespassing based on how their fellow thieves are doing it.

But thanks to Common Farming Exemptions, as long as I “raise” animals for food and it’s done by my fellow “farmers” (in this case, manufacturers might be a better word), I can put around 200 million male chicks a year through grinders (graphic video here), castrate — mostly without anesthetic — 65 million calves and piglets a year, breed sick animals (don’t forget: more than half a billion eggs were recalled last summer, from just two Iowa farms) who in turn breed antibiotic-resistant bacteria, allow those sick animals to die without individual veterinary care, imprison animals in cages so small they cannot turn around, skin live animals, or kill animals en masse to stem disease outbreaks.

All of this is legal, because we will eat them.

Rob Eshman on his blog Foodaism at The Jewish Journal weighed in on this discrepancy and suggests part of the problem is we define animals as property, leading to the accepted notion that owners are free to do whatever they want with them.

Perhaps there is a legal path toward redefining the use of animals as a privilege. Why not put animals in the same category as rental cars, where we have the right to derive benefit from them, though they belong to someone else, and we must pay dearly for their abuse. From Hormel to Hertz— that would be a huge step up in animal welfare.

Eshman feels religion could play a huge role in how our society treats animals, given some of the major religious groups feel God gave them the animal kingdom to control. This dominion over animals could be redefined and vegan Russell Simmons briefly touched on this during a visit to discuss his book Super Rich to high school students.

“Man being given domain over animals doesn’t mean we have animals birthed, only to overfeed them and then use them for our needs,” Simmons said.

Photo: PR Photos

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