I read this one when I was like 6 months veggie and I heard this is the bible of all the vegetarians. So as a newborn veggie I was kinda required to read this book.
In the beginning of the book Jonathan introduces himself. He starts with telling the readers which family he comes from and what eating meat means in that (Jewish) family. It's a light - hearted way of starting the book so I think this was a good starter to open the book with. When he just became a father of his firstborn child, he became more critical about everything in the world. He wants to give his child the best of the best in its life and so he also has its doubts about his choices in nutrition. What is the best nutrition he can give his child, what is healthy and what is ethically correct? With this questions in his mind he starts his research and travel to find the right answers about eating meat.
An important thing he says is that he isn't against eating meat basically. He's more concerned about the way the meat industries treat animals and after which battle an animal ends up on our plate. So he thinks eating meat is acceptable when an animal dies in a respectful way and when the overconsumption of meat wouldn't be that much present as it is now.
In his book he visits a lot of farmers. He researches how pigs, poultry and bovine animals are treated in the meat industries. He also visits smaller farms where they treat their animals with more respect than in the big meat industrie. After he visited and interviewed all of them he wrote all his critical reflections about them down, linked to his objective findings. He also writes down what effects the enormous meat industries have on our environment and he also gives some attention to the subject if eating no meat is unhealthy because of the risk of lack of vitamins. He writes down the hard reality, even when that is very shocking to read.
I think the book is very interesting and is a 'must - read' for every vegetarian or veganist. The only thing you should keep in mind is that the research has been done in America and that the legislation is different in the EU about the meat industrie than the legislation in the American countries. So don't base whole your persuasionmechanisms on the legal framework in the book because it doesn't matches with the one that we have in Europe. But next to that it is also quite similar.
So the book starts very accesible and light - hearted but it gets more research related and heavier to read the more chapters you pass. It surely interesses me, but the book does not keep my attention to the fullest because of all the statistics, all the research material. All these statistics are very heavy sometimes. After all it stays a book with a focus on research, what can make it sometimes not very accesible to read.
What I think that is very good is that he also puts light on the environmental problems we have because of the large meat consumption and the culturally determination of eating meat, what makes that being critical about eating meat is threatening to a lot of people. I also find it very pleasant that he talks about his own feelings, about his own life in the book. That makes it more accessible than the book would be purely a book of research.
