“Animal, Vegetable, Junk” by Mark Bittman – The Ignored Shaper of History

 

Mark Bittman has spent much of his career exploring the topic of food from every possible angle, and most recently he published the culmination of many years of effort and research, titled Animal, Vegetable, Junk. 

In it, he explores human history and its progression when viewed through the scope of its consistent need for food, arguing it played a pivotal role in shaping our civilization, and might play an even more critical role in its decline.

Mark Bittman Identifies the Critical Factor

At the most basic level, one of the very few factors uniting the whole of humanity is our collective need to eat, and by extension, the pleasure we take from it. Every country and culture has its own approach to food preparation and consumption, and in Animal, Vegetable, Junk, Mark Bittman explores how food helped shape human history.

The book begins by taking us as far back as possible, delving into the topic of ancient farming, attempting to give a wide overview of how our need for food directed our evolution as a species. Through examples and explanations, Bittman makes the rather sensical and compelling argument that modern man wouldn't exist without the strides we made in this domain.

While explaining the many benefits of the technological advancements made in the realm of food production and distribution, we move further and further in time, at which point Bittman begins to look at the flip side of the coin.

As it happens, our need for food served as one of, if not the primary driving factor for numerous cataclysms throughout history, both man-made and natural. These cataclysms played their own remarkable roles in shaping human civilization, and we get to see their consequences over the following years, decades and centuries.

Finally, Mark Bittman moves on to modern times, when the food industry has grown into something of a disproportionate monster. On one hand, many places on Earth have people starving, while on the other, many countries are wasting metric tons of food at alarming rates and purposefully subjecting themselves to self-destructive diets... but there might yet be hope for the future of mankind.

Challenging our View of Food with Animal, Vegetable, Junk

If your biography is anything like mine, then chances are you've grown up in a large city of a first-world country. The perspective I grew up with in regards to food is a North-American one, though I imagine it applies to quite a few places on Earth. In short, food was always abundant and extremely varied.

What's more, eating junk food seemed to be a regular part of normal life, almost like something we were expected to do by virtue of existing. There eventually came a time when I managed to step outside of this perspective, and I believe I came to the same conclusion as Mark Bittman did in his book: it's almost absurd how unhealthy and abundant our nutrition is, at least in North America.

While reading through the book, I almost had the impression Bittman was explaining to me what I had the fortune of finding out for myself, and I believe his primary goal is to change our perspective in relation to food.

From the moment he began to describe the various drawbacks which came with increased and improved food production, I had the sense he was trying to hammer in an idea I find very hard to refute: we've crossed the threshold beyond which our food begins to harm us.

Naturally, this relates more to the state of the modern food industry, and rest assured, he indicts it with the help of pure facts and logic, although he does let some emotions slip in here and there. Personally, I have nothing against those moments for they are clear symptoms of the author's profound passion for the subject, and the urgency with which he believes our problems must be dealt with.

Windows into the Past and the Future

A fairly considerable chunk of this book is of a historical nature, where in addition to laying the foundation for arguing the immense impact of food on human history, he also simply takes us on a journey into the past full of curious facts and wonders.

While Bittman does make a whole lot of claims which I haven't personally gone to verify, I have complete confidence in the depth of the research he was able to accomplish. His reputation as a journalist and writer makes him a credible source of information for this particular topic... and I can count on one hand the number of journalists I could say this about.

When he's talking about the earlier days in human history, the author's narrative almost feels like an exciting novel in certain sections, giving us enough information to understand the big picture without getting bogged down in small and meaningless details.

Perhaps more importantly (and more interestingly, in my opinion), Mark Bittman also offers a glance at what the future of mankind might hold for us if things continue the way they do now. His arguments in this part of the book are constructed with great care and precision, and if nothing else, I think they can at least push the readers to do some thinking of their own.

While his vision of the future isn't all rainbows and sunshine, he doesn't neglect to give us some solutions, tracing the potential paths we could take to minimize the widespread damage of the modern food industry, whose impact is now also visible in other areas of our planet, such as its climate. There is hope for the future, but it won't manifest itself without a push from us all.

The Final Verdict

Animal, Vegetable, Junk by Mark Bittman is both an interesting history book about how humanity's need for food shaped its past, as well as a bit of an essay about the impact of the modern food industry, the future we're headed towards, and how we might change our course for the betterment of all mankind.

If you're even remotely interested in food's role as a shaper of history, or are perhaps fascinated with the idea of learning about its tremendous impact on our present and future, then I strongly urge you to give this book the attention it deserves.

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Mark Bittman Personal site Mark Bittman is an American author and food journalist who had the distinction of being a columnist for The New York Times, in addition to which he's also a fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Among the numerous cookbooks he has written and co-written, Bittman most notably wrote Animal, Vegetable, Junk, his attempt at a rallying wake-up call to humanity.