The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

 

 

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It's not much fun, sitting down to a meal and having your conscience nagging at you about what you're eating. Anybody on a diet can impart the agonies of decision-making when various foods are on offer. However, as Singer and Mason go to some length to point out, there's even more thinking involved in partaking of the foods offered today. The most important issue they argue is learning where the food originated, and how it was treated before reaching your table. "Ethical eating" has become a major consideration to an increasing number of US consumers. In this exhaustive study, the authors portray a trio of families, using their food buying habits as gateways to examining where the food comes from. The picture is generally grim, but they demonstrate how change is taking place.

The three families represent a troika of ethical choices. One follows the Standard American Diet [SAD], of high levels of meat consumption and fast food. Their primary consideration is availability and cost. The second, although aware of the ethical options behind food production, are constrained by available time and family demands. The third, a "vegan" family has managed to shun all animal foods. Their greatest problem is acquiring foods that meet their standards. They are fully aware of the ethical questions arising from modern farming methods.

Farming in North America has undergone immense changes in only a few years. Where the "family farm" was once considered an optimum lifestyle, "agribusiness" has concentrated land, and coalesced the production methods. Now, "barrage" animal housing has usurped the open paddock and "free ranging" livestock. Chickens, whether as egg producers or meat, are crammed in ranks of cages, unable to move. Beaks are clipped and forced moults are a practice achieved by starving the fowl. Cattle and pigs fare no better, as they are closeted in pens or "farrow crates" to maintain complete control over their condition. Many justifications are offered for these practices, but the ultimate one remains profit. Animal raisers claim that losses due to the enclosure techniques are more acceptable than would be the case in open living animals. Chicken raisers cite the threat of "avian flu" while the pig and cattle raisers deem grain feeding as better than grass or rooting. The result is huge concentrations of thousands of animals, all living in purely artificial situations.

The authors met with great reluctance by the major distributers when they sought to view food animal raising conditions. Through various means and with the cooperation of a few producers, they were able to see, but not film, barracks breeding establishments. They interviewed farmers and distributers, where possible, and toured retail stores with the subject families. Their investigations also reached to the new practice of "fish farming" and relate the impact of this practice on the remaining wild stocks. They also discovered how "renaming" some species to make them more marketable has become a common practice. Another ploy has been to simply overlook the source of some seafood, with shrimp arriving from the Far East and elsewhere.

They conclude the study with an examination of what is meant by the terms "ethical" in consuming and "organic" in producing. As they spell out the options and disputes surrounding these concepts, their scope is wide. Narrow definitions and rigid ideals have no place in a global food market. Is it more ethical to pay a local farmer directly, or pay for foreign produce that may spell the difference between subsistence and abject poverty for Third World producers? Is it actually cheaper to fly in New Zealand products than buy "US made"? Why should that be the case? The consumer is obviously caught up in these conundrums, and it takes a great deal of dedicated interest to make intelligent and proper decisions. Shopping shouldn't be a chore in our times and the retailer has as much responsibility in providing correct information as the consumer is in seeking it out. The book is an invaluable resource for all levels of food production and consumption. If you can read without flinching about the conditions under which your evening hamburger is produced, then this volume should be high on your list of references. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

"The Way We Eat" definitely has a bias. There is no doubt that Singer & Mason think that the factory food industry is unethical. However, they perform such meticulate research and present such a clear picture of the meat industry that it is basically impossible to argue that they are wrong.

An early quote comes from a Professor of Animal Science named Peter Cheeke. He is quoted as writing "for modern animal agriculture, the less the consumer knows about what's happening before the meat hits the plate, the better." If they did know, he thinks that many people would "swear off eating chicken and perhaps all meat."

What Singer & Mason do is actually find out how the meat got to the plate, and the answers are shocking. Rather than a PETA video, which hammers you over the head with animal cruelty, this book just builds and builds and builds the evidence until you finally realize that eating meat basically means condoning animal torture.

Highly recommended. Read this book. Think about what it says. Decide how you feel about it, and ask yourself if the meat industry deserves your money.

I just finished reading Singer and Mason (2006) "The Ethics of What We Eat." People should know where their food comes from, how it is produced, and what is the impact of that production. The book explores the production of meat (chicken, porc, beef), fish and seafood, and dairy products in North America, it explains the unethical issues about the production and consumption of these products. It also explores topics such as buying organic, local, free range. The authors' opinions are well thought and carefully justified, they are persuasive but also take into account several limitations people face when trying to make ethical food choices. This book is a MUST!

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