The Vegetarian Myth: food, justice and sustainability, by Lierre Keith
Wow. This book is poised to make a huge impact.
Keith is a good writer. This book is readable, and you should read it for whatever reasons you need.
If you eat supermarket meat and are reading it for some arguments to try to convince your vegetarian friends back to carnivore alley, you may be in for a surprise. This book may lead you to rethink your own food choices. I would say that this book doesn't turn vegetarians back into carnivores, it takes them beyond vegetarianism, onto the next step, to thinking about sustainability, and ultimately activism.
Vegetarians of all stripes will learn something here: her facts on the dangers of soy and carbohydrates are compelling and alarming. But her message is primarily to Vegans and Fruitarians and it is this: what you eat depends on something else dying. You are a part of the whole cycle.
Yes, you can and should still avoid factory-farms that turn cows into beef, and chickens into fingers. But you cannot grow your fruits and vegetables forever without returning something to the soil that these animals provide in their manure and their bones and blood. Keith was a vegan gardener who looked at all the likely vegan sustainable options to growing her meals, and she came to this conclusion independently. She pulls no punches when she says that vegetarians are responsible for the death of countless species due to their dependence on monocrop farming, which has destroyed habitat worldwide.
Reading this, you will be uncomfortable about your food choices. She will gently take you beyond anything that you have previously considered. For example, she uses the theory of Wadley and Martin as to why humans originally domesticated plants and turned from hunting/gathering to become farmers: it is because humans craved the exorphins, the addictive opioids of domesticated cereals. Keith returns to this again and again as the method that grains domesticated humans. It is the only explanation that makes sense, she says, for why we would trade health for disease: we are cereal junkies. She blames agriculture itself for the destruction of the earth and civilization for the loss of our innate animist spirituality.
The books' power comes from her first-hand 20 year experience with being vegan. She was so innocent, so sincere -- as when she describes moving a rock to extend her lettuce bed, and thereby exposing an ant colony: her heart breaks for these tiny creatures who sacrifice all in their rush to save their eggs. But she does not turn away, and she learns, and we learn through her. With this book I feel her reaching out to young girls in particular who are discovering for the first time about feedlots and who are making the choice to become vegetarian for moral reasons, because (before this book) there was no alternative for a heart so pure.
The books' intelligence comes from her feminism -- no one but a feminist could ever have peeked behind the hegemony that glorifies civilization and the origins of agriculture to say this is precisely where humans took their first misstep on the road to destroying the world.
The books' importance comes from her plan. Patiently, Keith details the difference between mainstream liberalism and her own brand of radicalism. She is an activist who is challenging the power structures. This book will challenge you to act. You must decide upon breakfast.
I think that this book has been life-changing for me. I have been a vegetarian for 21 years (but a vegan for only 1 year of that ). I no longer think that it is enough that you yourself eat lower on the food chain. You must ensure that the animals you ingest eat lower on the food chain too - or rather, that we all take up our proper place in the circle. Keith puts it even better:
"We owe our bodies what we owe the world; we must inhabit both and, in the act of inhabiting, nourish both."
Despite the fact that Keith claims the vegan diet destroyed her health forever, thank goodness it did not ruin her ability to think and research and write.
The Vegetarian Myth: food, justice and sustainability, by Lierre Keith
Wow. This book is poised to make a huge impact.
Keith is a good writer. This book is readable, and you should read it for whatever reasons you need.
If you eat supermarket meat and are reading it for some arguments to try to convince your vegetarian friends back to carnivore alley, you may be in for a surprise. This book may lead you to rethink your own food choices. I would say that this book doesn't turn vegetarians back into carnivores, it takes them beyond vegetarianism, onto the next step, to thinking about sustainability, and ultimately activism.
Vegetarians of all stripes will learn something here: her facts on the dangers of soy and carbohydrates are compelling and alarming. But her message is primarily to Vegans and Fruitarians and it is this: what you eat depends on something else dying. You are a part of the whole cycle.
Yes, you can and should still avoid factory-farms that turn cows into beef, and chickens into fingers. But you cannot grow your fruits and vegetables forever without returning something to the soil that these animals provide in their manure and their bones and blood. Keith was a vegan gardener who looked at all the likely vegan sustainable options to growing her meals, and she came to this conclusion independently. She pulls no punches when she says that vegetarians are responsible for the death of countless species due to their dependence on monocrop farming, which has destroyed habitat worldwide.
Reading this, you will be uncomfortable about your food choices. She will gently take you beyond anything that you have previously considered. For example, she uses the theory of Wadley and Martin as to why humans originally domesticated plants and turned from hunting/gathering to become farmers: it is because humans craved the exorphins, the addictive opioids of domesticated cereals. Keith returns to this again and again as the method that grains domesticated humans. It is the only explanation that makes sense, she says, for why we would trade health for disease: we are cereal junkies. She blames agriculture itself for the destruction of the earth and civilization for the loss of our innate animist spirituality.
The books' power comes from her first-hand 20 year experience with being vegan. She was so innocent, so sincere -- as when she describes moving a rock to extend her lettuce bed, and thereby exposing an ant colony: her heart breaks for these tiny creatures who sacrifice all in their rush to save their eggs. But she does not turn away, and she learns, and we learn through her. With this book I feel her reaching out to young girls in particular who are discovering for the first time about feedlots and who are making the choice to become vegetarian for moral reasons, because (before this book) there was no alternative for a heart so pure.
The books' intelligence comes from her feminism -- no one but a feminist could ever have peeked behind the hegemony that glorifies civilization and the origins of agriculture to say this is precisely where humans took their first misstep on the road to destroying the world.
The books' importance comes from her plan. Patiently, Keith details the difference between mainstream liberalism and her own brand of radicalism. She is an activist who is challenging the power structures. This book will challenge you to act. You must decide upon breakfast.
I think that this book has been life-changing for me. I have been a vegetarian for 21 years (but a vegan for only 1 year of that ). I no longer think that it is enough that you yourself eat lower on the food chain. You must ensure that the animals you ingest eat lower on the food chain too - or rather, that we all take up our proper place in the circle. Keith puts it even better:
"We owe our bodies what we owe the world; we must inhabit both and, in the act of inhabiting, nourish both."
Despite the fact that Keith claims the vegan diet destroyed her health forever, thank goodness it did not ruin her ability to think and research and write.
