by John Robbins
Why couldn't I have read this when it was published in 1987, before I brainwashed two innocent children with the same screwed up fallacies about nutrition that I was raised on? When I was pregnant, I faithfully read the pregnancy and "first year" books and believed all of the nonsense they taught--must have balanced protein. Must drink milk. Animal cholesterol required for growing brain. Must take prenatal vitamins.
And all this hogwash is based on (1) Western cultural history (2) studies on rats who were fed milk protein (3) the wisdom of farmers. The idea that cows' milk is good for human beings reminds me strongly of sympathetic magic--walnuts look like little brains, therefore they must be good for the brain. Kidney beans are good for the kidneys. Powdered rhino horn makes you horny.
If I'd put the book together, I'd have inverted the order--first would have came the health section, second the one on big business, and last the ethical implications of eating the way we do. Pull people in by convincing them that a non-animal based diet is better for them; freak them out by pointing out how much power the American agribusiness giants have over our nutrition information; then show them what life is really like for the animals in a CAFO.
But that's me. I skimmed the sections on animal farming--I already know just how screwed up the process has become. Any more would bring on nightmares.
I hope my new healthy diet will offset the unhealthy anger I feel every time I think about how we've let big business sell our society on "milk for healthy bones", "the incredible edible egg", or "meat will make us strong." And if it doesn't, we'll find a drug to fix it.
