Mark Bittman
Age: 61
Occupation: Cookbook author, writer, blogger, TV host
Previous TIME 100 appearances: 0
With the foodie scene heading out of the restaurants and into the home, Bittman, a former cab driver and self-trained cook, is redefining the family meal for the time-pressed generation with his now classic How to Cook Everything and his prodigious multimedia output: online videos, New York Times Magazine articles, a PBS series and a blog. In his latest tome, The Food Matters Cookbook: Lose Weight and Heal the Planet, the author lays out his simple philosophy: Eat less meat, cook healthy food. It's better for us, and for the planet. But Bittman isn't stopping at converting Cuisinart-shy readers to can-do cooks. Most recently he's joined a national food fight, fasting to bring attention to catastrophic budget cuts to vital food pantries in the U.S. as well as international assistance programs.