Our demand for meat, dairy and refined carbohydrates - the world consumes one billion cans or bottles of Coke a day - our demand for these things, not our need, our want - drives us to consume way more calories than are good for us.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that our consumption habits are driven by desires rather than actual needs, leading to unhealthy dietary choices.
Mark Bittman's quote underscores the distinction between our wants and our needs in terms of food consumption, specifically pointing out that the high demand for meat, dairy, and processed sugars, such as those found in soft drinks, contributes to overeating and unhealthy lifestyles. By focusing on our desires for these items, rather than what our bodies truly require, we end up consuming more calories than is beneficial, ultimately impacting our health negatively.
In practice
In a health and wellness seminar to illustrate eating habits.
Thanks to farm subsidies, the fine collaboration between agribusiness and Congress, soy, corn and cattle became king. And chicken soon joined them on the throne. It was during this period that the cycle of dietary and planetary destruction began, the thing we're only realizing just now.
People need help to change the way they eat... this is what government is for in my opinion.... We should make food an issue for everyone who runs for office.
I'll never stop eating animals, I'm sure, but I do think that for the benefit of everyone, the time has come to stop raising them industrially and stop eating them thoughtlessly
My most visible goal is to do something in nutrition to children in India, and pregnant mothers. Because that would change the mental and physical health of our population in years to come.
Exercise is king. Nutrition is queen. Put them together and you've got a kingdom.
I know from my constituency what is going on. Doctors that are told, begged, by mothers, 'Please don't write down that my child as asthma. Please lie and say it's bronchitis, because if you write down asthma, when my child turns 18 or 20 and has to get his or her own insurance, it will be a pre-existing condition.'
It is totally unacceptable that there are countries with no paediatric cardiac surgeries.
People are ready to say, 'Yes, we are ready for single-payer health insurance.' We are the only industrialized country in the world that does not have national health insurance. We are the richest in wealth and the poorest in health of all the industrial nations.
Disease is nothing else but an attempt on the part of the body to rid itself of morbific matter.
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