The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability (Flashpoint Press)

Fun to see a self proclaimed "dyed in the wool" vegetarian have an awakening. I do tons of research, I do know good research when I see it. She's got some good stuff here. Doesn't get it all right (no one does) but has lots to say. Not unlike Hyman's "Food Fix" book, it's quite depressing. I've known this for decades now after reading "Elephants In The Volkswagon". We are in a real pickle, no one really cares, everyone want to eat their poor excuse for food, and thanks to overpopulation (understatement) and special thanks to modern agriculture, it's unfixable. Man ,as far as the time frame of our human evolution, will surely be extinct in a blink of an eye. No getting around it. Takes a strong stomach to read a book like this. Truth hurts!

Lierre Keith goes into great depth describing the damage to her health caused by two decades of veganism. She discusses the millions of animals killed for agriculture that vegans think harms none. The answer, as described by Lierre, is to allow cattle, sheep, pigs, etc. to graze on grass. Feeding livestock on corn and other annual crops only makes the animals fat and unhealthy as well as wasting water to grow crops on land that would never naturally support those crops. Grasslands supported millions of bison. We can do better, and do it sustainability.

Its flaws notwithstanding, this is a thought provoking book which challenges many assumptions about nutrition and environmental issues. A devout vegangelical of 20 years, Keith explains that she was forced to resume to omnivory due to failing health. A rapid improvement in her physical condition led to an in-depth self exploration as well as extensive reading and thinking about the nutritional, moral, and environmental consequences of veganism. This book is the product of that work.The section on nutrition was the lengthiest but perhaps the weakest part of the book. Instead of arguing that a strictly plant based diet is unhealthy for many, if not most, people, she makes an impassioned attempt to convince us that a diet high in animal products and low in grains is the only healthy option for anyone. She quotes 2nd hand sources, some of questionable reputation, championing a paleo type diet. She dismisses mainstream medical research as junk science conducted by simpletons who never think to question Ansel Keyes' claim that coronary heart disease correlates with high fat diet. She fancies a conspiracy of sorts, between the grain industry and medical associations. This is ironically reminiscent of the sort of conspiracy theories about the meat industry that some vegans flap about when confronted with any sort of evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that suggests a plant based diet might not be healthy for everyone.Too bad Keith didn't bother with actual reports from peer reviewed journals, and look into some of that mainstream medical research herself. If she had, she would have discovered that the issue of dietary fat, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, is exquisitely complicated, with results of some studies suggesting a connection between diets high in saturated fat and increased morbidity and mortality.....as well as other studies that do not.But why bother to take on mainstream medicine at all? In my years as a health care provider, I never knew a single physician or nutritionist to recommend a vegan diet, and I never recommended it myself. A varied diet of lean animal products, fresh fruits, vegetables, and minimally processed grains is what most doctors and nutritionists suggest. It's as if Keith feels that in order to show that a plant based diet is unhealthy for at least some people, she has to prove that a predominately carnivorous diet devoid of grains is the only healthy diet for anybody. There is no need to paint such a black and white picture, and there really isn't evidence enough to back it up.I think she would have done much better to use anecdotal evidence, based on her experience with her vegan friends over many years, to argue that veganism is unhealthy for many people. Anecdotal evidence is entirely appropriate in this case, because no systematic study on the health of vegan adults or vegan from birth children accounts for the fact that many others have given it up, due to deteriorating health. And in no study is it possible to verify that people aren't cheating just a little bit, eating animal products from time to time. Cheating is not uncommon -- I have seen this myself, but don't take it from me: Google "ex-vegans" and read some of their accounts.The section on moral issues was somewhat better. She points out that production of vegetable crops results in direct killing or injuring of myriads of small creatures, and that large annual monocrops cause soil erosion and destroy huge expanses of wildlife habitat, along with various and sundry flora and fauna which depend upon it. Thus, even a vegan diet necessarily causes suffering individuals -- there is no such thing as "cruelty free" eating. Large annual monocrops also lead to extinction of entire species, not just suffering individuals. A vegan world, then, would be a rather lonely one, impoverished of species and habitat. However, her claim that plants "don't want to be eaten" was completely unnecessary and only weakened the argument by exposing her limited understanding of anatomy, physiology, and evolution, in my view. Here, she seems to confuse the results of natural selection with deliberate intent. Plants have no nervous system, and therefore lack the cerebral structures necessary for emotion, desire, or future planning.This brings us to the final section, To Save the World. Keith envisions locally based permaculture, in which animal and plant food production are integrated to mimic natural food webs of producers and consumers, prey and predator. In this system, animal wastes are used to feed the topsoil, and the animals convert cellulose into food that humans can digest. This is in sharp contrast to industrial agriculture, in which production of animal foods is separated from production of plant foods. The result is that animal waste is poisoning our wetlands and the many species that inhabit them, and greenhouse gas producing fossil fuel combustion is used to produce the chemical fertilizers needed for vegetable monocrops. In the end, though, she doesn't completely convince me that sustainable vegan permaculture is impossible. She does convince me that veganism is unhealthy for at least some, perhaps most (all?), people, and therefore some animal foods will always need to be produced, and we must find a more sustainable way to produce them.She makes a brief but compelling argument for local economy: if people depend on the resources in their own backyard, they are more likely to steward them appropriately. She makes the intriguing suggestion that deforestation in New England resulted not from the demand for animal products, but from the use of coal, rather than wood, for fuel. This is probably true: if New Englanders had had no option but to burn wood to keep warm, they would have maintained their woodlots. Hunters have been trying to tell us this for years: they are highly motivated to protect the species they depend on for food, and have done a better job at conserving wildlife than non-hunters.To sum up, this book definitely has some remarkable weaknesses, but these are outweighed by its strengths, in its synthesis of a huge amount of information from a wide variety of disciplines, and, in some instances, in its originality. To my knowledge, she is the first to liken veganism to a cult (which has been exactly my experience with vegan friends). She crushes the knee-jerk vegetarian notion of eating low on the food chain to save the environment, and, while she fails (in my opinion) to prove that a diet high in animal protein is the only healthy one, she at the very least casts serious doubt on the healthfulness of a plant based diet. All impressive accomplishments, especially for someone without a degree in ethics, nutrition, medicine, or ecology.If you are a vegan suffering from deteriorating health, a conscientious omnivore or vegetarian thinking of "going all the way", or if, like me, you have helplessly witnessed vegan friends reduce themselves to emaciated, anergic ghosts of their former selves, then read this book.Hopefully Keith will continue her research and eventually achieve a more nuanced view of health and nutrition, and continue her personal journey towards a less absolutist and self-righteous perspective on life. She still has a ways to go. I wish her well with it.

Why is it that when you eat those ninety nine percent fat free Yoplait yogurts that come in unnatural flavors like boo berry crunch or coffee banana, you don't really feel like the women in the Yoplait commercials who act like their practically having an orgasm when consuming this tasteless, bland, pretty nasty fat free mush that's loaded with artificial sugars, sweeteners, hfcs and saccharin? And afterwards, you don't really feel guilt free. You just feel hungry. You feel like roaming around looking for subsidence. You might binge on the empty calories of Wheat Thins or chocolate doughnuts which starts off a vicious cycle of nutrient deficiencies. The more you binge on junk, the more nutritionally deficient you become.Try a lifetime of this. It might lead to some pretty serious consequences like eating neurosis, constant bingeing on carbs and general deterioration of health not to mention the pure idea of living your whole life as a sacrifice to the slave of the fat-free.Lierre Keith tells you why those fat free yogurts taste like crap in her compelling book, "The Vegetarian Myth". Before you get all defensive about the value of having desserts disguised as health foods in your diary aisle, consider the ideas presented in this book that are pretty valid even to the most middle of the road dairy enthusiast and deserve the critical thought Keith gives them. First, the idea that civilization is a source of human happiness and contentment is a myth and you don't need to quote the statistics of sky high depression rates to believe it. Second, the idea that eating plants is better for you than eating animals and that plants don't want to be eaten any more than animals do and have some pretty nasty chemical tricks up their stems to ward off predators i.e. us. Third, the idea of symbiosis which has no expression in our industrial civilization at all. The idea that we evolved out of the need to consume the energy of the sun and since we can't photosynthesize, digest grass, but we can digest the animals who eat grass and thus the energy of the sun makes it to us.These ideas are so important, so fundamental to life itself but yet so many modern civilized people have no idea abut them. So many people are removed from their food and are brainwashed to eat the differentiated products of the agriculture industry that many people have never tasted real food or don't even have the slightest idea of the cycle of big fish eating little fish.Keith's at her best when she's explains the Cholesterol Myth and how the low fat diet was propagated in order serve the economics of an agriculture industry rather than telling people to eat what they want, which would be high fat delicious foods and actually enjoy their lives. Oh, Keith's chapters on this subject are fascinating, hard to put down and a well needed eye opener.What it comes down to, is the old question of the Matrix-red-pill-or-the-blue-pill question that so many people would rather read the easy to digest food stories of Michael Pollan rather than really discuss the underlying issues that our food system represents. Those being agriculture leads to empires which leads to endless war for resources which leads to Peak oil, overpopulation, diseases of civilization and so much more.Which is why I really highly recommend this book to everyone even those who are not vegetarian or interested in food issues. Keith goes where so many best selling authors can't go because they have to please a whole wide range of people to maintain their massive audiences.My favorite part comes at the end when Keith goes so far as to envision, even if only for a few paragraphs, a world without agriculture or civilization for that matter and how we can go back to the wild, be fed indefinitely by bison and salmon. It may be idealistic, and Western concepts of property ownership and capitalist tendency would not survive. We'd have to teach our children the lessons of the circle of life, symbiosis instead of capitalism and exploitation. We'd have to do away with idea that he who owns the means of production has a right to exploit those who do not. We have to teach children the truth instead of the lies of Christopher Columbus so we can, as Keith puts, at least attain adult knowledge and act according and within the limits of our one and only finite planet.Also, one last note, I know a lot of the reviewers of this book have and will go into great detail of their own dietary habits and what they eat or don't eat. I don't think that's as important as the question of what do you enjoy your life? Do you live a life of sacrifice to the Gods of Low Fat constantly worrying about early death or do you enjoy life and food? I know I enjoy my Greek yogurt with 14 grams of saturated fat. But don't take my word for it, try it for yourself and see what a difference it makes.

What a great book; being a former vegetarian, I can attest to how bad my health deteriorated during the almost 8 years I embraced this diet/lifestyle. The additional information Ms Keith presents regarding the impact plant based diets have on the soil and our environment are eye opening! If you've ever consider going the route of becoming a vegan or vegetarian, my advice is to stop looking at the biased information found on google and read this book and others like it to understand the bigger picture!

Ich habe in manchen Kommentaren gelesen, dass Keith ihre Quellen aus Wikipedia zieht und somit kaum ernst zu nehmen ist. Das ist totaler Schwachsinn und diese Leute fühlen sich wohl in ihrem Glaubenssystem angegriffen. Das ist verständlich, da man in unserer Welt eingetrichtert bekommt, dass Fleisch böse ist und wir uns für dessen Konsum schuldig fühlen müssen... Diesen Glauben loszulassen braucht viel Überwindung. Ein Anfang wäre dieses Buch. Denn wer lebt schon gerne mit dem Wissen, dass man brainwashed ist. Keith bezieht sich auf etwa 200 Quellen an Literatur, der Bibliographie Abschnitt ist sehr lang und voll von angesehener professioneller Literatur, die unser einer wohl nicht mal annähernd verstehen würde. 5 dieser 200 Quellen sind Wikipedia. Natürlich ist das nicht die seriöseste Seite, doch völlig vertretbar um eine einfache Definition oder einen einfachen Zusammenhang zu zitieren.Das Buch ist mit das beste Buch, das ich je gelesen habe. Auch wenn ich vorher schon tierisch basiert gegessen habe, hat es meinen Blickwinkel auf viele Sachen nochmal verändert. Man merkt, dass das Buch mit viel Herzblut geschrieben wurde und auf keinen Fall einen Mensch aufgrund seiner Ernährung angreifen möchte.Wenn jeder Mensch dieses Buch gelesen hätte, würden wir in einer besseren Welt leben, da bin ich sicher!The book has changed the way I think in so many ways. Nature is beautiful and society slowly loses its connection to it. Vegans are on the very wrong path and falsely believe to be so connected to mother nature and being on a spiritual level 'normal people' can't understand. Which is due to being high on sugar all the time, btw. I love how the book respectfully and profound describes every single aspect of all the things that are wrong with not eating meat. But Keith goes far beyond that. On most pages I totally forgot that the book is about vegetarianism, rather than nature, plants and animals.I'd give more than 5 stars if I could.

The Vegetarian Myth is really a science book, not a novel or a thriller - and I could hardly put it down! This is a beautifully written and well- researched discussion of human eating practices through history. It manages to be interesting and entertaining and funny and personal, at the same time as being factual and scientific - no small feat! This is an important book that calls into question so much we thought we knew about agriculture, health, the environment. I recommend this for everyone, not just vegans or vegetarians. Omnivores will benefit their own health and that of the planet by this discussion of both plant and animal farming. This IS a personal book, so it does sometimes diverge into somewhat unrelated topics, but that is what keeps it real and interesting, besides being scientific and factual. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Read it and pass it on!

Great book!

This book is a must read! Whether you’re an omnivore, vegetarian or vegan, the observations, ideas and evidence presented in this book are essential if we want to understand the impact human diet has on our environment, health and the sustainability of life on Earth.The author beautifully and eloquently describes how our ever-growing dependence on grains and agriculture is creating a world which is stripped bare of life at all levels (from top soil and the necessary microbes and bugs that live in it, to plants, wildlife, other animals, and ultimately us humans), leaving an infertile stony and sandy rock in its wake. She shows how complex and intertwined our ecosystem is, and how each species affects each other to the benefit or detriment of us all. Death, ours included, the bones and blood of animals, humans and every other living being on this earth are crucial to life on Earth, without which life itself would not exist.Yes, the book feels anecdotal at times (it is in reality well researched and referenced), and I wish she hadn’t started with arguing for the sentience of plants, and that killing plants may be equal to killing animals. You don’t have to agree with all of it, or even any of it, to benefit from reading this book. This book is not an endpoint for understanding the impact our diet has on ourselves, and the Earth, but a start from which further research can be made.It is comprehensive and holistic in its treatment of food, health, the life cycle, the ecosystem, the environment, and climate change. Anyone who claims to be an environmentalist, and care about the sustainability of life on Earth must understand and consider these arguments. Don’t buy into ideologies of any kind, vegan or otherwise, look at what’s real, and question your beliefs. Life on Earth depends on it. If you are afraid of reading this book, isn’t that already a sign that your identity and belief system are somehow tied up in an ideology? Read, and come to your own conclusions.Some topics discussed in this book are: 1. Why agriculture is the most destructive thing humans have done to this planet (agriculture destroys entire ecosystem) 2. What do plants eat? Animals. Or fossil fuels. 3. The necessity of holistically managed grass fed animals for our ecosystems and health (the author is vehemently against corn/grain fed factory farming of animals) 4. The fallacy of “2,500-6,000 pounds of water per pound of meat” argument (commonly stated as an argument against eating meat and growing livestock) - this is true ONLY if you feed the livestock grain. This means, the water is actually used to grow GRAIN not animals (grass fed animals only use about 122 pounds of water per pound of meat) 5. Importance of a healthy alive top soil for plant life and growth, and how, without top soil, land becomes decertified and infertile rock and sand 6. Why herd animals (such as cows) are essential for maintaining top soil (without animals to disturb the land, and contribute nutritious poop, life in soil dies away and is eventually washed away by rain) - to find out more about this, check out Allan Savory’s TED talk 7. How rivers are sucked dry, fish disappear, and ever increasing farmlands are left unusable through salinisation, as a direct result of grain agriculture 8. Who profits from grain production and agricultural consumption? (this includes companies such as McDonalds); the conflicts of interest in agriculture/grain industry (which to me, reminds the conflicts of interest in medical and pharma industries) 9. Difference between carnivore/omnivore and herbivore digestion (hint - humans have the former kind), and what happens to your health when you eat too many plants 10. Importance of animal fats to human health; how grains perpetuate food cravings, and conditions such anxiety, depression and more.There is much more in this book, many of which you may not agree with. But approach this book with an open mind, and you will benefit both yourself, and our planet.If you want to know more on what this author writes about, check out Allan Savory’s wonderful TED talk and related book “The Grazing Revolution”, and his work on healing dry infertile desertified environments with livestock, and the importance of grasslands (grazed by livestock) to absorbing carbon dioxide and reversing climate change.

Lierre Keith writes the journey of her life into this book, from her values and ideals as a vegan until the time of writing. I found the book incredibly insightful and very thought provoking. Lierre still holds many of the values of life that she had as a vegan, and her journey recounts her struggle to align her early vegan ideals with the facts about how our world works - the climate, the animals, both small and large, sentient or not, and their behaviour, microbes and other life that we cannot see. Of greatest importance is life and death - the circle of life. How are our ideals about food affecting our world? What are we doing that is affecting the life of other animals on the planet? What is happening to their habitats? What is happening to our rivers, and plains? The way that we eat - what is the most sustainable way to nourish ourselves and help the planet to survive at the same time. I am far from being vegan and found this book to be very reassuring about my food choices, and has given me more food for thought about how to make the way I live much more sustainable.