From Publishers Weekly
Ethicist Singer and co-author Mason (Animal Factories) document corporate
deception, widespread waste and desensitization to inhumane practices in
this consideration of ethical eating. The authors examine three families'
grocery-buying habits and the motivations behind those choices. One woman
says she's "absorbed in my life and my family...and I don't think very
much
about the welfare of the meat I'm eating," while a wealthier husband and
wife mull the virtues of "triple certified" coffee, buying local and
avoiding chocolate harvested by child slave labor, though "no one seems to
be pondering that as they eat." In investigating food production
conditions,
the authors' first-hand experiences alternate between horror and comedy,
from slaughterhouses to artificial turkey-insemination ("the hardest,
fastest, dirtiest, most disgusting, worst-paid work"). This
sometimes-graphic exposé is not myopic: profitability and animal welfare
are
given equal consideration, though the reader finishes the book agreeing
with
the authors' conclusion that "America's food industry seeks to keep
Americans in the dark about the ethical components of their food choices."
A
no-holds-barred treatise on ethical consumption, this is an important read
for those concerned with the long, frightening trip between farm and
plate.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/157954889X/latenightline-20
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