The Face on Your Plate: The Truth About Food
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
The Face on Your Plate: The Truth About Food
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson shows how food affects our moral selves, our health and the environment. He raises questions to make us conscious of the decisions behind every bite we take: like the effect eating animals has on our land, waters, even global warming; what the results of farming practices - de-beaking chickens and separating calves from their mothers - are on animals and humans; and, how the health of animals affects the health of our planet and our bodies. As a psychoanalyst, Masson looks at how denial keeps us from recognising the animal at the end of our fork - think pig, not bacon - and investigates each culture's distinctions among animals considered food and those that are forbidden.
3.3 out of 5 based on 3 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Food & Drink, Society, Politics & Philosophy |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
288 |
| RRP |
£15.99 |
| Date of Publication |
June 2009 |
| ISBN |
978-0393065954 |
| Publisher |
W. W. Norton & Co. |
| |
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson shows how food affects our moral selves, our health and the environment. He raises questions to make us conscious of the decisions behind every bite we take: like the effect eating animals has on our land, waters, even global warming; what the results of farming practices - de-beaking chickens and separating calves from their mothers - are on animals and humans; and, how the health of animals affects the health of our planet and our bodies. As a psychoanalyst, Masson looks at how denial keeps us from recognising the animal at the end of our fork - think pig, not bacon - and investigates each culture's distinctions among animals considered food and those that are forbidden.
"A Man With Opinions on Food With a Face" (New York Times, 14/4/09)
Reviews
The Los Angeles Times
Susan Salter Reynolds
"It's a challenge to create transformative moments with books, but he does it... Masson is a wise, clear writer, but it doesn't hurt, while reading this important book, to look at the image of the young cow on the cover or the 67-year-old author's vivid, healthy photo on the back flap."
16/03/2009
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The Washington Post
Jennifer Howard
"Upsetting... Masson's message is, Think before you eat. If you believe that eating free-range or organically raised animals and animal products lets you off the ethical hook, think again."
05/04/2009
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The Financial Times
Emmanuelle Smit
"The Face on Your Plate is persuasive, but the evangelical tone and highly prescriptive advice left me cold rather than converted. There is something objectionable to comparing farming methods to slavery, the Holocaust, or genocides in Darfur or Rwanda."
13/07/2009
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