Product Description The amusingly enlightening adventure of a woman hunting for the truth about meat and why its still good enough to eat.
After spending a week working undercover at a slaughterhouse and being tormented by blood, the stink, and the squeals of animals being herded to their death, author Susan Bourette decided to go vegetarian. She lasted five weeks and thirty-seven hours.
Dissatisfied with tofu and lentils, Bourette wondered, Isnt there a way to have my meat and a clear conscience too? Its a question that will resonate with millions of happily carnivorous Americanswe eat more meat per capita than any other nationwho are unwilling to give up steak for soy but are alarmed about mad cow disease, E.coli poisoning, and the filthy, inhumane conditions on chicken and cattle farms.
On a quest for superior meat, Susan Bourette takes readers behind the bucolic facade of the famous Blue Hill farm, north of New York City; on a long, hot cattle drive at a Texas ranch; a whale hunt with the Inuit in Canada; a Canadian moose hunt; and behind the counter in a Greenwich Village butcher shop. Humorous yet authoritative, Meat: A Love Story celebrates the deliciousness of meat and the lives of the passionate professionals who hunt, raise, or cook it. With a deft touch, Bourette explores what it means to be a compassionate carnivore.
Mouth-watering but thought-provokingJune 4, 2008 Thomas Andrew Bradley(Buffalo, NY) 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I enjoyed this immensely. Like the author, I tried a vegetarian diet as an act of conscience several times but I have to admit I never felt worse ... even when I tried to follow the guidelines. Bourette's Meat puts meat-eating in North America in a cultural and historical context. It's not a screed against meat-eating though it's critical of the corporate meat industry. (The author's experiences working in a meat plant might have you skipping pork loins for some time.) Bourette's Meat: A Love Story is a call out to meat-eaters--a challenge not to give up meat but rather to eat better meats, to understand and value the origins of the meat on their tables. Bourette goes from cattle ranch and the Rockefellers' organic farm to the shop of a Manhattan celeb-butcher and a trendy butchering class. The raw-meat-eating cult has to be read to be believed--in Aspen of all places. The author went to end of the earth--on an ice floe for a whale hunt in Barrow, Alaska is just about the end of the earth--to find out why we eat meat, what meat means to us, and how we should eat it. It's pretty filling. It will stick to your ribs and stick in your mind long after you read it.
Meat: It's What's For Dinner (But Do You Know Why?)November 17, 2008 Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Man(Spartanburg, SC) 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
For people who adore low-carb living, this book sounds like a dream come true with a "love story" about one of the very staples of a low-carb diet. But investigative journalist Susan Bourette wanted to use this book to give people more of a reality check about the meat they are putting in their mouths so they can better appreciate not just the nourishment they are getting from it, but also the process it took to get it on your plate to begin with.
Going undercover and making the rounds through the meat industry over the course of a year, Bourette shines the light on many of the problems associated with meat-making that are well-documented in the many news headlines about Mad Cow Disease, E. Coli, and just about everything from those animal rights wacko groups. But she also grew to have a greater appreciation for how healthy meat can be in your diet when the animals are treated well, given the proper diet of grass in the case of cows, and not tampered with artificially.
In the end, she grew a deep appreciation for meat that she never thought about before and departed those lessons for all of us to enjoy. Whether you are a devout vegetarian and meat-eating maniac, you'll find something in this book that will give you an even greater appreciation for this basic of all foods.
A good first step in having one's meat and being proud of it too...July 2, 2008 William E. Adams(Midland, Texas USA) 4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I have dear friends (in Kansas City, of all places...home of great steaks) who have been vegetarians for 30 years, partly due to the horrors of how our society turns animals into table fare. Susan, the author of this unusual memoir, served a week in a pork plant (I have another friend who works in one of those, but who still eats meat) and became a vegetarian for a month, but couldn't make it stick. I did vegetarian during a five-day visit to my KC friends, but before I even got to my home from the airport I was eating a burger. So I identified with Susan...a lot. This book tries to describe two things: why most humans crave and indulge in meat, despite health risks, and how we might keep it on our menus and yet not enrich the corporations who treat livestock and fowl inhumanely. The answer is obvious: eat meat less often, but indulge in higher quality when we do, purchasing our entrees from those who raise the animals on a small scale, in pastures, and who feed them without filling them full of fattening chemicals. A fuller explanation of how this can be done by those of us not living in large cities or on large budgets must wait until someone writes a sequel to "Meat...a love story" but Susan's work is the necessary background to that effort. If you want to continue eating beef, pork and chicken dishes, but desire to feel less guilty about it, this is the book for you.
Seeing is BelievingFebruary 4, 2009 S(Upperville, VA USA) 1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I raise grass fed beef cattle along with pastured chickens and hogs to supply my family and a network of friends with meat and eggs so nothing in this book surprised me. Five years ago when I lived in the suburbs I ate my share of McD's BK and packaged meat from the supermarket. The difference between the meat I eat now and the stuff I used to put into my system are like day and night. I've seen my family become healthier, more energetic and become skeptical of any meat they do not personally "know" while it is still on the hoof.
Not bad, but what about that not-so-subtle anti-meat motive?July 24, 2009 Alesia The premise of this book is interesting: Follow along as the author goes on a moose hunt, eats whale blubber, works on the kill floor of a pig-processing plant, visit a cattle ranch, and more.
However, it seems to me if you really love meat you don't try to put people off of it or play the guilt card by describing in detail how chickens are debeaked or how sheep are castrated--not much of a love story there. What she can't seem to keep from doing is lavishing praise on PETA terrorists (and they ARE terrorists) or talking about her vegetarian boyfriend (who tells her she stinks when she eats meat). The writing is conversational if a bit overwrought, and the best quotes are from the people she meets, not from her own voice.
Regardless, the book made me want to eat steak night and day. If you do read the book, skip the epilogue--it seems to negate everything positive she says about the whole cultural, communal experience of hunting for, preparing and eating meat.
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