I got my hands on an advanced readers copy of The Carnivore's Manifesto: Eating Well, Eating Responsibly, and Eating Meat by Patrick Martins and enjoyed the book. The book comes out on June 10th, 2014 and you can pre-order it on Amazon.
The Carnivore's Manifesto: Eating Well, Eating Responsibly, and Eating Meat really is a manifesto. The author, Patrick Martins, has been instrumental in founding the Slow Food movement and is passionate about clean, sustainable, eating and farming. He uses words and phrases like 'complicit in their crimes' and talks about the extinction of heritage pigs and turkeys. He wouldn't be out of place in Berkeley, yelling on Sproul Plaza about his cause.
The book is a series of short essays on a topic ranging from the food supply chain, breeding conditions, artisan producers and vignettes told from the perspective of a cow, pig and turkey. I'd read a few at night before going to bed.
Like other books I've read, this book does not take the stance that being a meat eater is good and vegetarianism isn't. This isn't a foil to the vegetarians, but to the Concentrated Agriculture Feeding Organizations. His view is that if you're going to eat meat, give the animal the best life, rather than constrain it to some dark, fume filled barn. The activist in Patrick wants people to make decisions that get food production out of the big corporate, profit centric organizations and into the hands of sustainable, heritage producers and help them become profitable. These sustainable operations not only make great tasting food, but they help the whole life cycle as opposed to creating waste while producing genetically modified meat.
Something I found to be very interesting was his perspective on ground meat - we need to eat more of it. This allows the farmer to sell the fewer desirable cuts of meat from the cow/pig/turkey and get a good price for the rest of it. If we only buy filet or pork loins, the farmer won't have a good opportunity to sell the rest.
It's a good read, but every once in a while you have to push past the activist cries. This book won't change vegetarian's opinions, but I don't think it was meant to. It's really targeted to those that already eat meat, but don't yet understand the dark side of what happens to get meat into your grocery store.
The book is a series of short essays on a topic ranging from the food supply chain, breeding conditions, artisan producers and vignettes told from the perspective of a cow, pig and turkey. I'd read a few at night before going to bed.
Like other books I've read, this book does not take the stance that being a meat eater is good and vegetarianism isn't. This isn't a foil to the vegetarians, but to the Concentrated Agriculture Feeding Organizations. His view is that if you're going to eat meat, give the animal the best life, rather than constrain it to some dark, fume filled barn. The activist in Patrick wants people to make decisions that get food production out of the big corporate, profit centric organizations and into the hands of sustainable, heritage producers and help them become profitable. These sustainable operations not only make great tasting food, but they help the whole life cycle as opposed to creating waste while producing genetically modified meat.
Something I found to be very interesting was his perspective on ground meat - we need to eat more of it. This allows the farmer to sell the fewer desirable cuts of meat from the cow/pig/turkey and get a good price for the rest of it. If we only buy filet or pork loins, the farmer won't have a good opportunity to sell the rest.
It's a good read, but every once in a while you have to push past the activist cries. This book won't change vegetarian's opinions, but I don't think it was meant to. It's really targeted to those that already eat meat, but don't yet understand the dark side of what happens to get meat into your grocery store.
As a note, this isn't a sponsored post, but an my own book review and like everything else, my own opinion. The post does contain affiliate links, so if you click it to Amazon, I'll get a little back. I was able to get my hands on the advanced readers copy at work. As I write my reviews on Goodreads, I think about the book reports that my kids have to write for school. Now, if any publishers would like me to read and review books on clean living or the paleo lifestyle, I'd be happy to!
No comments:
Post a Comment