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reebsforspace's reviews
216 reviews
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
1.0
Truly a testament to how deep animal abuse runs in our culture. This book has contradictory moral "justifications" to soothe moral qualms and misinformation all delivered through bad writing and bad editing.
The blatant lies in this book made me question the other supposed facts throughout. One of the most egregious is when he makes the bold claim that specific chemical compounds humans need can only be found in "animals (like B-12). " The notion that humans need meat for survival has zero scientific backing and furthers the harmful notion that other animals must be subjugated and exploited for the human species. There is no nutrient that is in meat that can not be found in plants, meat is not a macronutrient. Of course, B-12 is found in neither animals nor plants, it is bacteria. Due to the nature of modern sanitization, water and plants for human consumption are rid of B-12. If given the opportunity to graze, animals get B-12 by eating plants or more often, if in factory farms from getting B-12 injections. B-12 can be found in fortified plants or a supplement. If you eat flesh for B-12 on the basis of needing it for survival, you are in essence using flesh itself as a supplement. (This is excluding even the recommendation for most Americans to take a B-12 supplement regardless of diet).
Now in order of appearance other qualms:
Pollan speaks of how there is little focus on farming's role in global warming, rightfully so, and then completely misses the mark. "...if the sixteen million acres now being used to grow corn to feed cows in the United States became well-managed pasture, that would remove fourteen billion pounds of carbon from the atmosphere..." For a book ruminating on "the omnivore's dilemma" I see very little dilemma or elucidation. Taking his calculation at face value, it's great that moving towards more pasture would remove 14 billion pounds of carbon. And what? He fails to even mention that instead of pasture, which in of itself is not feasible to feed the human population (the world does not have that much land), moving to growing plants directly for humans rather than growing plants for animals for human consumption would result in the least carbon emissions. Animal agriculture is responsible for more environmental degradation than all forms of transportation combined. The amount of food we grow to feed animals could end world hunger. If you follow every single recommendation by the state of California to save water (i.e. shorter showers, less use of laundry machines), you save 47 gallons of water per day. You eat one hamburger and use 660 gallons of water. If part of the omnivore's dilemma is environmental concern, to continue being an omnivore will never solve this issue. The logical environmentalist knows that to be an omnivore and an environmentalist is refusing to take action on the single thing at the individual level that will help the environment the MOST: a plant based diet. In other words, to be an environmentalist and not be plant based is to be hypocritical, or at the very least, not valuing the cause you claim to support. Airplanes and cars? depending on the area are difficult to avoid. Not eating animals? Available option to almost everyone in this country.
His view on animal ethics is spiritual, contradictory nonsense. Saying you respect an animal's life before you unnecessarily take their life and eat them is the furthest thing from respect.
On talking about how he dangled chickens by their feet and pushed them (his words) into a crate: "I don't know if there is a more humane way to catch three hundred chickens, but I could see why doing it as fast and as surely possible was best for all concerned."
Do not kid yourself, the best for all concerned is the option you have of not breeding the chickens, shoving them in crates, silting their throats, and eating them. You can not humanely kill a being that does not want to be killed.
"Giving up our speciesism can bring us to an ethical cliff which we may not be prepared to jump, even when logic is pushing us to the edge."
Incoming: Grown man unwilling to cease his harmful actions because he is lazy. Everyone says they hate factory farming and every one of those people continue to eat animals, thank you so much for your lip service!
"This, it seems to me, is where the animal rightists betray a deep ignorance about the workings of nature. To think of domestication as a form of slavery or even exploitation is to misconstrue that whole relationship-to project a human idea of power onto what is in fact an example of mutualism or symbiosis between species."
Did you know prematurely killing animals, ripping babies away from their mothers, breeding animals to grow at such fast rates that they develop numerous ill health conditions, is actually an example of mutualism! These animals wouldn't be alive otherwise you see, so doing so is a symbiotic relationship. We give them life and in exchange, take that life! How sweet are we? :)
"It is wrong, the rightists say, to treat animals as a means rather than ends, yet the happiness of a working animal like the dog consists precisely in serving as a means to a human ends. Liberation is the last thing such a creature wants."
Of course, there is absolutely no way dogs can be happy without humans.
"In a similar way chickens depend for their well-being on the existence of their human predators. Not the individual chicken perhaps, but Chicken-the species. The surest way to achieve the extinction of the species would be to grant chickens a right to life."
The quote was too long but the similar way he is referring to is how wolves in the wild eat deer and in doing so nature preserves her ecology. This natural way obviously relates to humans breeding chickens in mass and don't you know preserving the natural world is an action humans are all too happy to do, just take a look around you!
If you are against giving someone basic rights just know you are on the wrong side of history.
"Indian hunters and bison lived in a symbiotic relationship, the bison feeding and clothing the hunters while the hunters, by culling the herds and forcing them to move frequently, helped keep the grasslands in good health. Predation is deeply woven into the fabric of nature, and that fabric would quickly unravel if it somehow ended, if humans somehow managed 'to do something about it.'"
For sure, there is no way the natural world would ensure the grasslands were healthy without us humans forcing animals to graze! Note that if the smallest animals like ants or bees were to disappear entire ecosystems would be in disarray. If the human animal were to disappear, all other life would benefit.
This one is very interesting to me: "Note the rhetorical shift in focus from the Pig, which is how the Park Service ecologists would have us see the matter, to images of individual pigs, wounded and orphaned, being hunted down by dogs and men wielding bludgeons. "
???????? Referring to individuals as a group can create abstractions, it is with individual stories and focus that we connect with the consequences of our actions to a group of individuals. Also, what does it matter to the me if you don't kill 9 other people but decide to kill me? You're still killing. ????? Same principles of desensitization and logic apply to animals.
"The farmer would point out to the vegan that even she has a "serious clash of interests" with other animals. The grain that the vegan eats is harvested with a combine that shreds field mice..."
This is laughable. If you are unfamiliar: eating a plant-based diet can result in animal deaths from things like a harvester, approximately 2 deaths every 7 years. Intent also matters. If I eat chicken I am 100% complicit in killing. If I eat grain there is not that 100% If I am driving and accidentally hit a dog with my car and they die, are the moral implications of that the same as if I purposefully hit and killed the dog?
The cognitive dissonance still pokes through in Pollan's exchanges, it is I wager what made him write the book to begin with.
"There was the one about the sow Angelo couldn't bring himself to shoot because her piglets were trailing behind"
Why care about their lives to begin with if you justify hunting them on the basis that they are pests for the land they occupy?
"I have to say there is a part of me that envies the moral clarity of the vegetarian, the blamelessness of the tofu eater. Yet part of me pities him, too. Dreams of innocence are just that; they usually depend on a denial of reality that can be its own form of hubris."
Guess what, If you don't confine animals and rip them from the natural order to eat them when you don't have to is a denial of reality! Don't you know nature is brutal? And we sure do base our morals off animals in the wild! So its a denial of reality to not behave brutality and kill when you don't have to :) Animals in the wild eat other animals so we can too ! :) Animals in the wild also assault and commit infanticide so we can too! :) It is denying reality to not!!! :(
"Some of that sacrifice had proven expensive to me, emotionally speaking, yet it was cheering to realize just how little this preindustrial and mostly preagricultural meal has diminished the world. My pig's place would soon be taken by another pig, and the life of these forests was little altered by our presence and what we had removed."
Actually, hunting does affect the natural ecology very significantly. Some animals have evolved towards growing smaller antlers because hunters target ones that have large antlers. There have been cases of overpopulation of prey because hunters disturb the natural ecology by killing predators. And on Pollan's last note, this is a great example of speciesism, if I kill a human, nothing in nature would be affected, the world would continue as it was in the grand scheme of things, and it should all be fine cause there will be another human born to replace the one I killed.
Another thing too, I take issue with: mentioning Weston Price and his followers without mentioning that his claims are not backed by science and cause serious harm.
Also it is clear Pollan takes reverence for the animals live he takes unnecessarily very seriously, he's opposed to factory farming and wrote this book about trying to reconcile taking life, he even "picked up a takeaway plastic tray of sushi -Japanese fast food-and, you know it tastes just great," and wrote about eating at McDonalds so he is super serious about causing less harm and the treatment of life in factory farms, his actions say so!
"But cooking doesn't only distance us from our destructiveness, turning the pile of blood and guts into a savory salami, it also symbolically redeems it, making good our karmic debts..."
I can't do this anymore....
1 star for the discussion about corn, boring (not the subject to be clear, rather the way he wrote it) but I learned something new.
Like others have said, there is no dilemma. Align your actions with your values, cut the speciesism, go vegan.
The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony by Will Tuttle
4.5
Really insightful, pairs well alongside vegan research (my main outlets are Ed Winters and Dr. Michael Greger).
Although a lot of information in here was impactful, some arguments could have benefited by being expounded upon like the mention of topics in other books, as well as some jargon (I had to research to find out that the "K" being referred to was K-Casein, jargon isn't bad, but odd when placed in an otherwise laymen's text).
I really appreciated some of the spiritual conversations, especially the domination of the feminine section, how women are viewed as meat, etc.
Overall, I think the main argument of our herding culture leading to the world's problems would have gelled with me more if it was structured better. There was more evidence for this argument, one that permeates the book, towards the end chapters rather than in the beginning when it was first mentioned.
I think this is a good, encompassing introduction or reference to veganism though it does have some "woo" in it; I was waiting for the science on why it's better to not take medication (like Advil) when the reasoning was attributed to more spirituality based 'trust' in the body.
Not without its flaws, but offers great conversations to think about.
Although a lot of information in here was impactful, some arguments could have benefited by being expounded upon like the mention of topics in other books, as well as some jargon (I had to research to find out that the "K" being referred to was K-Casein, jargon isn't bad, but odd when placed in an otherwise laymen's text).
I really appreciated some of the spiritual conversations, especially the domination of the feminine section, how women are viewed as meat, etc.
Overall, I think the main argument of our herding culture leading to the world's problems would have gelled with me more if it was structured better. There was more evidence for this argument, one that permeates the book, towards the end chapters rather than in the beginning when it was first mentioned.
I think this is a good, encompassing introduction or reference to veganism though it does have some "woo" in it; I was waiting for the science on why it's better to not take medication (like Advil) when the reasoning was attributed to more spirituality based 'trust' in the body.
Not without its flaws, but offers great conversations to think about.