ISBN: 157954889X
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 1
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Summary: A Book That Leaves Morals to the Market
The way we eat is more than a matter of physical nourishment; it also involves nourishing our community life. Thinking about what we eat is profoundly important, but The Way We Eat: Why Food Choices Matter falls short of the mark. The authors discuss animal husbandry, international trade, genetic manipulation and crop production all as sets of choices, some better than others, from the perspective of a US consumer.
Chapter 17, "The Ethics of Eating Meat," addresses the question of how many domesticated animals can be "humanely" raised on land appropriated for agriculture, versus how many free-living animals could be supported if that land offers natural habitat. Natural habitat supports animals with an autonomy that simply cannot be compared with the quality of life of farm animals. This omission glares through the authors' repetitive suggestion that hens, pigs and dairy cows be allotted more space.
The claims of free-living animals are not accounted for by Singer and Mason; and animal agribusiness certainly doesn't meet its match in this book. Indeed, decision-makers within global agribusiness are implicitly deemed experts, capable of supplying morally acceptable options to society. For the authors' endorsement of corporate authority is interwoven throughout The Way We Eat, and they bless even the quintessence of corporate dominance -- McDonald's. This the authors do by telling us that locally owned burger joints might not meet McDonald's standards of animal husbandry and slaughter.
Nowhere does the book recommend supporting the local vegetarian restaurant. The authors do cover a Philadelphia restaurant whose owner "can't go vegetarian because that could put me out of business," but vaunts the venture as "capitalism for the common good." Fair trade is clearly not a big issue for Singer and Mason. The authors promote an export paradigm rather than local empowerment, and they accept genetic modification without noting the results of serious critiques that have been done on the specific examples they approve.
Given the major ethical, logical, and environmental shortcomings in The Way We Eat, those aspiring to understand the global food supply through the lens of justice and fairness are likely to seek other references.
Summary: Out of Whack
I read reviews saying despite his vegan bent, Singer was balanced in this book. While I am no fan of factory farming, I don't share Singer's extreme animal rights sympathies, so many of his arguments fall flat if you don't believe animals should be living at Club Med sipping cocktails by the beach (or whatever he thinks is a suitable life experience for farm animals). Any respect for his ideas was blown early when he criticizes the admittedly awful conditions of huge chicken farms by observing chickens are so packed together they peck at each other and are so hungry at times they constantly peck at the ground. Having a dozen chickens myself, free ranging in the bucolic hills of Vermont, I can tell you this is normal chicken behavior. Silly, urban consumer statements like this reflect the authors' unmitigated desire to criticize virtually every food production method (and leaving the reader with almost nothing that is okay to eat).
Most people live in the real world, where we can't, or don't want to, spend all our waking hours figuring out how to eat an ethically pure diet (by these authors' ethics). Rather than feeling guilty about the compromises I must make in my diet, this book simply made me feel I wasted my money and time on this book--my money and time would have been better spent buying the eggs from New Zealand grown by socially conscious, non-violent, naked, vegetarian, anti-nuclear nymphs.
Summary: What's for Dinner?
I daresay this book will change something about the way all of us - from fast-food addicts to committed vegans - choose our food. In tracing the pathways via which three family's meals reached the table, Singer and Mason inform, reason, problematize, and sometimes shock. But they do not preach. Increasing awareness and concerns about what we eat and where our foods come from are changing global and local and global norms. "The Way We Eat" is an indespensable resource for those seeking to act as global citizens rather than simply global consumers.
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