The New York Times has debuted a new food opinion column written by Mark Bittman, food columnist for the Times’ Sunday magazine who for 13 years wrote a column called “Minimalist.” Described as having a focus “on food and all things related,” the first column appeared Wednesday in the print edition’s Opinion page, but a note said that it would appear regularly online at www.nytimes.com/opinionator.

Bittman, who has written about how food, health and the environment are connected, wrote his first column under the headline “A food manifesto for the future.” Declaring that the U.S. diet is unhealthful and unsafe, he proposed an end to government subsidies for processed food, including corn. He also called for more subsidies for small farmers and their employees, and help for markets that open in "food deserts.”

He also called for increased subsidies for school lunch, the breakup of the Agriculture Department to separate the expansion of markets and nutrition education, and said the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety budget should be increased. Bittman said concentrated animal feeding operations should be outlawed, urged subsidies for home cooking, and said there should be taxation of the marketing and sale of “unhealthful” foods, a reduction in fertilizer use, mandated “truth” in food labeling, and more investment in sustainable agriculture research.

His other work may be found online www.markbittman.com