Book Review

Meat Market: Animals, Ethics, and Money
by Erik Marcus
Review by Cathe Olson

Erik Marcus' primary lifetime goal is to spare animals from confinement and slaughter. In his first book Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating, he outlined the health, ethical, and ecological reasons for adopting a vegan lifestyle. His new book, Meat Market, takes a different approach.

The first portion of the book describes the plight of factory-farmed animals. While this may be common knowledge for many vegans, there is some information that I have not read elsewhere. While most books speak mainly of the horror of beef slaughterhouses, Marcus asserts that (meat) chickens actually suffer the most per pound of meat. He also gives compelling reasons to stop eating eggs and dairy products. The hens and cows producing these products live outrageously miserable lives, under even worse conditions than animals raised for meat.

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The focus of Meat Market does not dwell as much on the horrors of factory farming as what to do about them. Marcus discusses the current movements and their limitations. He suggests that rather than using defensive methods like asking people to change their diets and stop using animal products, we join a new offensive movement he calls dismantlement.

The dismantlement movement Marcus describes is designed to weaken and ultimately eliminate animal agriculture. It is unique because it strives to unite both meat eaters and vegetarians to fight the problem of animal cruelty - something everyone can agree is wrong. Rather than trying to get others to change their diets (implying self-sacrifice), this movement seeks only to arouse revulsion for the cruel nature of animal agriculture and a commitment to end it. Even with all the outreach done by animal rights organizations, vegetarians and especially vegans are still a small percentage of citizens in the U.S.. If non-vegetarians joined the fight to end animal cruelty on factory farms, the meat industry has the potential to lose a lot of customers.

The book ends with inspiring essays by effective vegan activists and as well as an appendix of recommended reading. This is a great book to get stagnant activism juices flowing again and to get fired up about trying Marcus' new approaches to outreach.

Order Meat Market Now!

Cathe Olson is the author of the new nondairy ice cream cookbook: Lick It! Cream Dreamy Vegan Ice Cream Your Mouth Will Love, as well as Simply Natural Baby Food and The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook. Visit Cathe's website at www.simplynaturalbooks.com and her blog at http://catheolson.blogspot.com.

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