who is mark bittman:

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Six years ago, New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman got some distressing news from his doctor. His blood pressure was high, his cholesterol levels were through the roof and his blood sugar had spiked -- all precursors of diabetes and heart disease. His doctor's recommendation: Switch to a vegan diet.

Bittman didn't think that seemed like a viable option, so he came up with a compromise that he called "Vegan Before 6." The concept was pretty simple. Before 6 p.m., he would follow a strict vegan diet, going without any meat, animal products or highly processed foods. After 6, he'd eat whatever he wanted.

Four months later, he'd dropped 35 pounds and saw his blood sugar and cholesterol levels drop into normal range. He's followed the plan ever since and has kept the weight off.

Now he's written VB6, To Lose Weight and Restore Your Health ... For Good, which details his flexitarian approach to healthful eating, as well as the benefits of eating significantly less meat, if not eliminating it altogether.

Last month, I chatted with Bittman about the connection between diet and health, and why his approach might resonate with people who like the idea of eating a plant-based diet but aren't ready to give up some foods that they crave. The following has been edited for clarity and brevity.

You've put so much effort into spreading the word about the connection between diet and health, and yet that message has been slow to take hold. Are you frustrated by the seeming lack of progress that's being made to change the way Americans eat?

I'm frustrated by the lack of government support for what we know to be true, which is that we need to be eating a diet that contains more unprocessed plants and less junk and fewer animal products. I'm not frustrated that people aren't changing. I'm frustrated that the government continues to support the production of food that's bad for us.

What do you make of the push-back against food-reform efforts?

I think there will be some significant battles, whether it's a soda tax or the labeling of genetically modified food, so that more people will be encouraged that change can happen. For instance, every poll shows that the public wants GMOs to be labeled. I don't think it's critical to label GMOs, but I do think transparency is really important. So if GMOs are labeled, I'd also want to know how animals are raised, how many antibiotics are used in raising chickens and so on. The public is interested in knowing about the quality of their food and animal welfare, but you can't expect people to start talking about these issues when it's not clear that there's an emergency.

We have a tendency toward absolutism, particularly when it comes to food, yet your "VB6" approach gives people more flexibility in choosing how they want to eat. Why do you think that will have greater resonance with people looking to improve their health than every other diet that's out there?

We tend to see things in black-and-white terms, but you can't live your life that way. If I say to you, "You must weigh 170 pounds," and then you weigh 180 pounds, you feel like a failure, and the next thing you know is you weigh 210 pounds. There's a spectrum of how we eat. On one end is the worst diet imaginable, and on the other is the best. All of us are somewhere on this spectrum. The point is to move toward the better end, and if you move toward it by 10 percent a year or 60 percent a year, both of those are significant and good. It's better to feel like you're moving in the right direction than setting a destination and failing to meet it.
Have you received any criticism for not advocating a 100-percent plant-based way of eating?

The reaction I get from most people is "That sounds like I could do that," which is about as gratifying of a reaction as I could ask for. I have a friend at the Humane Society of the United States who is a vegan and another friend with PETA who is vegan, and they both think this is great. You have to recognize that if you're out there saying Americans must be vegan and we're not going to be satisfied until that's the case, you're not going to get very far. But if you're out there saying we need to eat more plants, we need to eat less junk, I think those are messages people are ready to hear.

What were the initial challenges you faced in adopting a new way of eating?

The beauty of "VB6" is it's delayed gratification. You're certainly not saying, "I'm never going to eat the stuff that I want again." In fact, you're only saying, "I'm not going to eat everything I want to eat until 6 o'clock tonight." The way to figure out the hours between now and then is to figure out what whole, unprocessed plant-based foods there are that you enjoy the most, and that's different for everyone. There were days during apple season when I'd eat a half dozen apples during the course of a day. That was a big change for me and a little weird, but it's not that weird, and it wasn't difficult if I felt like I was going to go home and cook, or go out to eat and have pretty much whatever I wanted. The problem is more logistical, because the gratification is delayed until the end of the day.

What was your impression of vegan eating before you embraced it?

Well, I haven't really embraced it -- I'm a part-time vegan. When I wrote "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian," which is close to 10 years old now, my goal was to familiarize myself with the world of vegetables, and I learned how to cook that stuff better, so when I decided to eat more plants, I already had the techniques nailed.

Has being a part-time vegan changed how you eat after 6 p.m.?

I think I eat more moderately at dinner. When I don't eat more moderately -- last night, for example -- I don't feel well and that reminds me that I want to eat more moderately at dinner.

Vegan doesn't necessarily mean healthy, and there are a lot of vegans who eat lots of processed junk food.

I often wind up chatting with people about meat substitutes. If you're eating soy powder mixed with pea powder mixed with a couple of other things, and then it's deep-fried and served with a goopy sauce, I'm not sure you're doing yourself any favors, and I'm not sure what direction you're moving in. You're substituting vegan junk food for mainstream junk food -- how is that an improvement in your diet? It's an improvement for the animals that aren't being killed -- I don't want to say there's not any difference. But it's not an improvement in your diet.

One of the key principles of "VB6" is not just to eat less meat, but to eat better meat. But that can be a stumbling block for consumers who are used to getting cheap meat. What do you say to someone who balks at the idea of buying a $15 pasture-raised chicken over the factory-farmed stuff?

I'd say eat a third as much of it, and your per-portion expenditure remains the same. By eating less meat, you can afford to eat better meat. But if that doesn't make sense to you, eat bad meat, but eat less of it.

Another key principle is cooking more at home. As busy as you are and as much as you travel, how do you manage this?

Everybody's got issues, and mine is I'm on the road a lot. But when I'm in New York, I cook dinner, and I usually cook breakfast and lunch, too. But everyone's got challenges. Some people are never home, some people don't have time to cook or like to cook. "VB6" offers strategies for having good vegetables around that you can eat all the time. One of them, for example, is cooking a pound of lentils or garbanzo beans or whatever beans you like, and just having them in the refrigerator. It's eight or 10 servings, and it keeps well. That lets you make salads, or you can warm it up with tomatoes and a bit of olive oil for an unbelievably fast and easy snack or dinner. The same is true for grains. If you pre-cook them they'll be there when you need them.

Your Garbanzo Bean Ratatouille is so wonderful and so easy. It's nice to know you don't have to be Eric Ripert to make good ratatouille.

It's a classic, easy dish, and the garbanzo beans give it more protein, but there's really no trick there. Olive oil tastes good and so do vegetables and herbs. It's going to taste good.

~ Grant Butler