Scan barcode
A review by bookwyrm_kate
The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability by Lierre Keith
1.0
I'm reading this book because I am a seeker of knowledge and I appreciate Truth, even in painful forms. That having been said, this book was not logical at all, and contained twisted truths at best. The examples given are highly emotional, yet utterly ridiculous anecdotal evidence that the author was a non-educated vegan, and instead of eating healthy, whole foods, she admittedly ate bread for every meal (pg. 69), and had very poor health overall (she mentions alcoholism and mental illness in addition to reproductive and skin disorders, which she apparantly did not seek medical treatment for). She uses this as evidence that humans are meant to eat meat, when in truth, she had been a vegetarian who never ate vegetables. Admittedly, there are vegetarians and vegans out there who share her mistake, but the vast majority have made the decision to go vegetarian because they are highly educated about being conscious consumers and advocates of their own health. She attempts to make vegetarians looks like bumbling idiots, by making arguments like vegetarians think "Someone should build a fence down the middle of the Serengeti, and divide the predators from the prey." (pg. 7) This is a ridiculous concept, and the vast majority of vegans would be highly offended at being villianized to the extreme of libel.
Instead of arguing the compelling arguments of Dr. Neal Barnard(Physicians Council of Responsible Medicine) or T. Colin Campbell (The China Study), she instead makes fun of a charicature of the idiot vegan. Her arguments include such concepts as [we exploit and kill trees by not eating and pooping out the seeds, as trees intended by making fruit, so we are really raping and killing plant life, therefore, what is the difference if it is a tree or a cow? You can not kill and rape a tree and say that I may not use a cow. ] She says that deforestation to produce grain is killing our planet and the topsoil, which is the truth, but she doesn't address the fact that 90% of the grain produced goes to feed livestock. She says that if we all ate vegetables, we would have to clear the planet to farm, but the fact is, we already produce more food than could feed twice the number of people on our planet, we just use it to feed our meat, and the rest sits in the supermarket until it spoils and must be thrown out. Surely you've heard the statistic that it takes 15 lbs of grain to produce 1 lb of beef. She does not address that at all. She mentions it in her introduction, but does not address it.
Anyway, I could write an entire book refuting her uneducated arguments, but the fact is, hundreds of those books are already published. If you are curious, read her viewpoint, but I beg of you, don't abandon logic because you want her to be right. Her arguments just don't stand up. At times they even made me laugh out loud.
Instead of arguing the compelling arguments of Dr. Neal Barnard(Physicians Council of Responsible Medicine) or T. Colin Campbell (The China Study), she instead makes fun of a charicature of the idiot vegan. Her arguments include such concepts as [we exploit and kill trees by not eating and pooping out the seeds, as trees intended by making fruit, so we are really raping and killing plant life, therefore, what is the difference if it is a tree or a cow? You can not kill and rape a tree and say that I may not use a cow. ] She says that deforestation to produce grain is killing our planet and the topsoil, which is the truth, but she doesn't address the fact that 90% of the grain produced goes to feed livestock. She says that if we all ate vegetables, we would have to clear the planet to farm, but the fact is, we already produce more food than could feed twice the number of people on our planet, we just use it to feed our meat, and the rest sits in the supermarket until it spoils and must be thrown out. Surely you've heard the statistic that it takes 15 lbs of grain to produce 1 lb of beef. She does not address that at all. She mentions it in her introduction, but does not address it.
Anyway, I could write an entire book refuting her uneducated arguments, but the fact is, hundreds of those books are already published. If you are curious, read her viewpoint, but I beg of you, don't abandon logic because you want her to be right. Her arguments just don't stand up. At times they even made me laugh out loud.