Mark Bittman Cooked Everything. Now He Wants to Change Everything.
About this episode
Food writer Mark Bittman joins Klein to discuss his book Animal, Vegetable, Junk, a sweeping history of how the profit motive reshaped humanity's relationship with food. He argues the modern system optimizes for returns rather than nourishment: ultra-processed foods damage public health even as close to a billion people remain underfed. Pressed on the Green Revolution, Bittman reframes it as a neocolonial project that exported American agribusiness technology and subsidies to spread high-yield monoculture, rather than a pure triumph over hunger. On factory farming, Klein plays the techno-optimist, betting on plant-based and cell-cultured meat to reduce suffering; Bittman favors enforcing antibiotic and pollution rules so meat becomes a precious luxury. They also debate pleasure, taste as a social construct, advertising junk food to children, FDA policy, nutrition guidelines, and whether culture can change fast enough.