Mark Bittman poses with his new partner, Andy Levitt, CEO of the California start-up Purple Carrot.

I’ve lost it for Mark Bittman, the former New York Times food writer. (He left the NYTs in September.) The tone of his column had taken an elitist slant over the years but I took that in stride. It was, after all, the New York Times. But when he said back in 2014: “Butter is back, and when you’re looking for a few chunks of pork for a stew, you can resume searching for the best pieces – the ones with the most fat,” I realized that he realized the side of his bread that was buttered. This came after his column where he said sugar was toxic. (Sugar is not toxic.) The clincher came last March when he said, “there’s little credible evidence that any food grown with genetic engineering techniques is dangerous to human health.” The World Health Organization just classified glyphosate, an ingredient in the Roundup sprayed on genetically engineered crops as a probable carcinogen. Farmers who got cancer after using it are suing Monsanto.

Anyway, Bittman’s new job is “Chief Innovation Officer at Purple Carrot, a vegan meal kit company”:

Mark Bittman’s Next Gig: Bringing Plant-Based Cooking to the Masses, Civil Eats, 2 November 2015

This:

At around $74 a week for two meals for a family of four, Purple Carrot is aimed at upper-middle-class families who are perhaps too pressed for time to do the planning, shopping, and cooking.

Upper middle class families have more time (they can afford to hire domestic help), more money, more equipment (kitchens, refrigerators, ovens, storage), more places to buy food, more transportation, and more of other resources to plan, shop, and cook meals than do middle and lower class families … who need a hand … but who aren’t good revenue sources. Are they. Please, Civil Eats, don’t say Bittman is helping the masses when it’s really the rich (and himself) he’s helping.

Where are the crusaders for public health?