A Bone to Pick: The Good and Bad News About Food, With Wisdom and Advice on Diets, Food Safety, Gmos, Farming, and More

Written by Mark Bittman

Narrated by Robert Fass

Since his New York Times op-ed column debuted in 2011, Mark Bittman has emerged as one of our most impassioned and opinionated observers of the food landscape. The Times' only dedicated opinion columnist covering the food beat, Bittman routinely makes readers think twice about how the food we eat is produced, distributed, and cooked, and shines a bright light on the profound impact that diet-both good and bad-can have on our health and that of the planet.

In A Bone to Pick, Mark's most memorable and thought-provoking columns are compiled into a single volume for the first time. As abundant and safe as the American food supply appears to be, the state of our health reveals the presence of staggering deficiencies in both the system that produces food and the forces that regulate it. Bittman leaves no issue unexamined; agricultural practices, government legislation, fad diets, and corporate greed all come under scrutiny and show that the issues governing what ends up in our market basket and on our tables are both complex and often deliberately confusing. Unabashedly opinionated and invariably thought provoking, Bittman's columns have helped readers decipher arcane policy, unpack scientific studies, and deflate affronts to common sense when it comes to determining what "eating well" truly means. As urgent as the situation is, Mark contends that we can be optimistic about the future of our food and its impact on our health, as slow-food movements, better school-lunch programs, and even "healthy fast food" become part of the norm.

At once inspiring, enraging, and enlightening, A Bone to Pick is an essential resource for every reader eager to understand not only the complexities inherent in the American food system, but also the many opportunities that exist to improve it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio
• Release date: May 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781101889787

Mark Bittman

Mark Bittman is the author of more than thirty books, including the How to Cook Everything series and the #1 New York Times bestseller VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good. Over his long career at The New York Times, Bittman wrote for both the food and opinion pages, and was the lead Magazine food writer before launching his own popular web site, The Bittman Project. Bittman has starred in four television series, including Showtime’s Emmy-winning Years of Living Dangerously. He is a longtime TODAY regular and has made hundreds of television, radio, and podcast appearances, including on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Real Time with Bill Maher, and CBS’s The Dish; and on NPR’s All Things Considered, Fresh Air, and Morning Edition. Together with daughter Kate Bittman, he has hosted their own podcast, Food with Mark Bittman since 2021. Bittman has written for countless publications and spoken at dozens of universities and conferences; his 2007 TED talk “What’s wrong with what we eat?” has over five million views. He was a distinguished fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and a fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He has received six James Beard Awards, four IACP Awards, and numerous other honors. In addition to his role as editor-in-chief for The Bittman Project, Bittman is currently special advisor on food policy at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, where he teaches and hosts a lecture series. He is also the editor in chief of Heated. His most recent books beyond the How to Cook Everything Series are How to Eat; Animal, Vegetable, Junk; and Bittman Bread.

Reviews for A Bone to Pick

[Grace Filkins · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A good book if you want to be educated on where your “industrial” food comes from. However it felt like they just tried covering every News article about food production, consumption, etc. I feel if you ever read about industrial food production issues you already know everything this book has to offer.

[karen59_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Bone to Pick is a collection of articles written by Mark Bittman, food expert, from his New York Times op-ed column. It is a wide ranging compilation focused on nutrition, diet, food fads and the production of food. His passion and the heart of this book is about the corruption of the food chain and the exploitation of animals, workers and food itself by corporate greed. He rallies us to care about what we put into our bodies but even more importantly to care about the destruction of our food supply and do something, no matter how small, about it. While critics have said that some of his solutions are too elite and expensive for the ordinary person, i.e. eating mostly organic food, he is clear that this is a distortion of his ideas by those who stand to profit from the production of processed food. What he does do is cajole us to do whatever we can to become healthier, to eat more fruits and vegetables for example whether organic or not, and understand what is at stake as our food systems become increasingly spoiled. The only bone I have to pick with this book is that it is often repetitive. Part of this is because it is a collection of articles for a newspaper which lends itself to restating ideas as one builds a case over the weeks but does not work so well in a book. Yet, in its repetition the outrage, the moral clarity and the onus to be part of the solution is clear. Thank you to Edelweiss for allowing me to review this book for an honest opinion.