Food Ethics

We'll be discussing some moral issues related to food in my class this week.  A plethora of fantastic books and articles have been written over the last few decades wrestling with such issues.  Michael Pollan is a famous author/journalism professor worth checking out.  Among other things, he wrote Omnivore's Dilemma and  In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. He's written a number of interesting pieces for the NY Times.  Here's one on eating animals. Students in my class should read this article, since we'll be discussing these issues later this week.

Speaking of the NY Times, Mark Bittman (who had a food/recipe column for a long time called "Minimalist") gave a TED Talk which I think is simply fantastic. His talk is on what's wrong with the way we eat (and his claim is that we eat too much meat, too few plants, too much fast food, and too little home-cooking).  He contends that what we eat is putting the entire planet at dire risk.  What do you think about Bittman's arguments?  Are you persuaded?