TRAPANI PROVINCE, Sicily — Here on Sicily’s west coast, there are two main crops: olives for oil and grapes for wine. There was once a third: salt.

Most high school students learn that salt was one of the motivating factors for the growth of the Roman empire, and that words for “salary” and “salad” come from the word for salt. Salt was a fundamental element of trade, because sodium and chlorine are both essential to life and the combination is among the best preservatives and flavoring agents there is. And until relatively recently, it wasn’t easy to produce and ship, so overconsumption wasn’t an issue.

Conditions for extracting salt from seawater are near-ideal here. There is unflooded flatland next to the sea, land that isn’t great for farming; a long season that’s both warm and dry; and lots of wind for both evaporation and power.

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By Joe Yonan for The Washington Post

It’s the first day of the season at the 14th and U Farmers Market in the District, and I’m looking at asparagus, turnips, herbs, kale, arugula, strawberries and more with Mark Bittman. We’re doing what so many shoppers do at markets like this one across the country, week in and week out: comparing one farmer’s produce with another’s, and trying to decide what would make a good lunch and maybe an even better dinner.When I tell Bittman I have carrots and kale at home, he proposes a stir-fry. “Is your kale nicer than this guy’s kale, or not as nice, or about as nice?” he asks. I try to envision the crisper drawer of my refrigerator back in my apartment, where we’re headed next, and feel comfortable in choosing Option 3. Even though it’s several days old, it’s just about as nice, I figure.

He asks because he knows that for any cooking, but especially the kind of off-the-cuff dishes that helped make him famous, the key is to start with excellent ingredients — a strategy that bears repeating for those of us who take it for granted. And for the kind of lunch we’re going to make, one without any animal products, the tactic might be even more important. The stir-fry won’t have, say, the smoky fat of bacon to hide any blandness in those vegetables. If the turnips he wants to mash don’t have enough flavor, cream and butter won’t be able to rescue them.

On my recent book tour, I spoke with a number of people about my take on a positive direction for the American diet. I’ve been semi-vegan for six years and in the book (called “VB6,” for Vegan Before 6 p.m.[1] ), I argue that this strategy, or one like it, can move us toward better health.

In the last 30 years, researchers have graduated from the notion that Americans should “eat less fat, especially saturated fat” — the catchphrase of ’80s nutritionists[2] — to widespread agreement that we eat too few unprocessed plants and too much hyperprocessed food, especially food containing sugar and those carbohydrates that our bodies convert rapidly to sugar. There is also compelling evidence that we eat too many animal products (something like 600 pounds per person per year) and too much salt.

None of this is simple. For one thing, we still have much to learn about the composition of plants and the aspects of them that are good for us[3] , although it’s becoming clear that they’re beneficial not so much as a combination of nutrients but as the right package of nourishment, which we might as well call real food. In other words,you’re better off eating a carrot than the beta-carotene that was once thought to be its most beneficial “ingredient.”[4]

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