Best Food Books of 2006: The Way We Eat

Continuing the book recommendations, we move on this week to two food books.

First, today, we have The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter by Peter Singer and Jim Mason.

Here are some notes from my personal book report journal:

It’s an influential book and a worthy follow-up to
Fresh Choices : More than 100 Easy Recipes for Pure Food When You Can’t Buy 100% Organic [a personal favorite food reference, though not by the same authors], it’s a rational look at ethical choices with food. Three
families are surveyed, and then the authors delve behind their eating
choices, asking a number of questions along the way, such as:

  – Are there foods that it’s unconscionable to eat?

  o Some: veal, foie gras, shrimp, others

  – What animals have feelings?

  o All but in-shell mollusks

  – What’s an ethical way to treat animals?

  o Let them live their lives as they normally would

  – What about the cost of organic foods?

  o What about the ethical and environmental costs of not doing so?

  – What about buying local?

  o It can sometimes have a worse environmental impact. It’s also dangerous to be snobs saying we need to support our own.