Second, thank you for such a wonderfully worded review of this book. I am currently only halfway thru it’s pages, but I already agree with everything you’ve said about it’s content. I hope you don’t mind if I refer the readers of my vegan blog over to this entry for an accurate review of this amazing book. I could not have said it better myself.

i became a vegetarian at 12 years old, 1991. i quit meat because my childhood compassion for animals became a teenage awareness of animal rights. it was a choice fueled by morrissey, a desperate need to be original, reading diet for a new america at an impressionable age, and probably degrassi junior high. also my mother was a terrible cook raised on home ec classes that emphasized thanks to the wonders of science, people didn’t need fresh food anymore. i don’t think i ate a single vegetable that wasn’t canned or frozen as a kid. being a vegetarian meant i had free license to make my own meals.

so i am still a vegetarian today, 20 years later. i definitely have my ups and downs, nutrition-wise, but i have not eaten any meat since the day i quit. when people ask me why i am a vegetarian, i tell them it is out of habit. at one time i had the energy to argue and facts at hand to try to educate people but anymore i feel lost and uninspired. in the last five years i have become lactose intolerant, and in the last two years i have acquired allergies to some of my favorite foods – cucumbers, potatoes, melon, nuts, apples – seriously? depressing.

for about a year i have been thinking maybe now is the time to reevaluate what i eat, even if that means to start eating meat. i need a big change because something is just not working. maybe going vegan is what that change should be, an option i hadn’t really considered before reading your post. i will check out foer’s book and the cookbook, and do some soul searching, thanks to you! <3

I highly recommend Foer’s book (obviously!), and if you’ll check my most recent post on the blog, you’ll see another book recommendation. This time it’s for a cookbook that I think you’ll find really wonderful if you’re a vegetable-lover.

I read The Jungle in high school and became a vegetarian for a little while, because I was so grossed out. Now, as an adult, I go back and forth between eating meat and not eating meat. For the past two years, I’ve mainly bought grass-fed and/or local meat and because it is so expensive, I end up not eating very much meat at all. And now, I find that I can go a whole week without including meat in any of our meals, and I don’t really miss it at all. And of course, because there is no meat to fill me up, I am eating a ton more vegetables (as opposed to just eating the same amount vegetables and omitting the meat.) So, this probably means that I’m on the path again to being a vegetarian, for reasons of personal economy and health. And now I have to go read the Foer book and the Singer book, I suppose! As usual, thanks for your thoughts and also, for your willingness to put yourself out there.

It certainly also raises questions about the likes of eggs, milk and cheese given that terms like ‘free range’ and ‘organic’ are meaningless in many cases and that these animals are also abused – I haven’t eliminated these yet (but am making sure they are sourced from local family farms) and will be doing more research in this area.

Now to peruse your recipes … I seem to recall a delicious chilli being mentioned, mmmmm. I think my palate is about to bloom and grow so bring it on!

I notice that you don’t talk about the health impact of not eating eggs / dairy / meat. I’m severely anemic and my doctors wouldn’t support veganism. Also, I can’t see how taking copious supplements can be any better for the earth.

Is there a middle way that involves being knowledgeable about where your animal products come from? What if they were reared on my village farm, and animals I knew personally? Would that be ok? Where do you draw the line?

I am continously inspired by people like you.

That said, I have found this website quite interesting and informative — perhaps you will see some value in it as well:
http://www.jewishveg.com/

Between the ages of 12-16 I somehow began to dive into the truth about the food we ate as well as animal testing. I was also strongly influenced by Morrisey and sXe friends. When I was younger I was much more vocal about my believes and trying to convince others to become vegetarian and educate themselves. As I got older I became more self-conscious about coming off preachy and so I kept my mouth shut more and more.

I used to have a lot of vegetarian and vegan friends and now somehow most of them have given up. I am so glad to hear you are going back and that you chose to share this book and your views on the touchy subject. Thankyou.

Way cool being so personal. Thank you for sharing this.
I am a vegetarian too. But not vegan… I’ll think about your points… I do buy almost everything organic I would like to say in my defence and I give my childeren soy milk… I have always considered my “buying-potential” to be somewhat like my voting potential and I vote organic.

As a Safran Foer fan I would like to send you this link:

http://www.vpro.nl/programma/wintergasten/afleveringen/24496640/

It is a link to a 3 hour TV interview with Jonathan Safran Foer broadcast on the TV here in the Netherlands. I really liked it.
He is interviewed by a Belgian writer in his house shortly before he became a father. The concept of this program is that a celebrity can point out his (or her) favorite TV-shows for an entire evening (hence the 3 hours) and talk about them with the interviewer.
They chopped up the interview into segments that you can click on to watch in the righthand column.

Because it is in Dutch I offer this translation:
eerste= first, twee= two, drie= three, vier= four, vijf= five, zes= six, zeven= seven, acht= eight, negen= nine, tiende= tenth (because the order is somewhat scrambled).

Enjoy. I add a kiss for you, if you get a reaction to this post or veganism that hurts you you can put the kiss on it.

I’ve been vegie for nearly two years – first I stopped eating meat, then I stopped eating fish, then a few months ago I stopped eating eggs and milk. I don’t eat gelatine (amazing how many sweets contain pork gelatine or beef gelatine). I’m ashamed I didn’t make the change sooner – I was always fearful I didn’t like vegetables enough… Anyway, as someone said to me, it doesn’t matter when you get on the bus, as long as you’re on the bus.

I’ve had Jonathan’s book for a couple of months now, but am afraid to read it – I find both the images and the text of animal welfare material very disturbing, so can only take in a wee bit at a time. Having said that, I just became more active in a professional organisation that works in the animal welfare area, and am learning heaps.

All the best, and thanks again. Yes, little things multiplied by millions will make a difference.\!

I’ll definitely check out the book.