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

Despite its unusual title, The Vegetarian’s Guide to Eating Meat, the idea becomes clear as you read Marissa Landrigan’s series of experiences in her book. Her transition from (not-so-ethical) vegetarian to mindful omnivore, and her curiosity about our foods, particularly meat, prompted this memoir, many of its pages have appeared in some form or as excerpts in previous publications. Landrigan’s writing is excellent, and every chapter reads well and easily and is entertaining. All focus is directly or indirectly on food. With her ethical philosophy, she writes mostly on the negative aspects of food production: eg, the herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers on the gigantic strawberry fields of California that wash into rivers and eventually into the ocean, or the toxins that fish accumulate, or ethical elk hunting in Montana, or killing and butchering steers in a slaughter house. Landrigan is not squeamish, and, as a good writer, she personally experiences everything she writes. There is also a bit of her early life, starting with making the annual pasta for the family while she was a little girl in her Italian American household through her early adulthood. Whether you are a vegetarian or an omnivore, this is a good reading material.