The Vegetarian’s Guide to Eating Meat: A Young Woman’s Search for Ethical Food

Essayist Landrigan’s interesting but somewhat meandering debut book argues that far too many people in Western societies are wholly disconnected from the people and processes that determine what winds up on their plates. Her detailed culinary journey charts her own course from an Italian-American home through a rebellious youth as a militant herbivore and, eventually, an accountable omnivore. Her current choices were heavily influenced by a series of life-altering experiences working on farms, hunting for game, and studying how vegetarian products are often sold by the same corporations running industrial feed lots and slaughterhouses. Landrigan’s voice is friendly and accessible, but the book feels at times like an essay that’s been stuffed to fill the requirements of a full-length tome. Biographical details about the author’s personal relationships and peripatetic travels seem unnecessary to sustain her core argument that simply cutting out meat is not enough to define ethical eating. Her questionable inclusion of a gruesome chapter on cutting up raw chicken for the first time may prove stomach-turning for some readers and feels gratuitous compared to other, more nuanced analysis that better defines the most compassionate ways to consume nature’s bounty. (Apr.)