The Compassionate Carnivore: Or, How to Keep Animals Happy, Save Old MacDonald’s Farm, Reduce Your Hoofprint, and Still Eat Meat
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 1600940072
Manufacturer: Da Capo Press
Average Customer Review: 
(From 4 total reviews)
List Price: $24.00
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Editorial Reviews
Product Description:
From a distressing lesson about her favorite Minnesota State Fair food (pork-chop-on-a-stick) to the surprising gratitude that came from eating an animal she’d raised and loved, Friend takes us on a wild and woolly ride through her small farm (with several brief detours into life on factory farms), along the way raising questions such as: What are the differences between factory, conventional, sustainable, and organic farms, and more importantly, why do we need to understand those differences? What do all those labels—from organic to local to grass fed and pasture raised—really mean? If you’re buying from a small farmer, what are the key questions to ask? How do you find that small farmer, and what’s the best way to help her help you?
In the same witty and warm style that characterized her memoir Hit by a Farm, Friend uses her perspective as a sustainable farmer and carnivore to consider meat animals’ quality of life—while still supporting the choice to eat meat. Regardless of whether you eat meat once a day, once a week, or once a year, your perspective of what goes on your plate—and in your mouth—will never be the same.
Customer Reviews
Bridging The Gap by Chris J. Kallin
I am a 37yo barely-above-ignorant carnivore, engaged to a 27yo understanding vegetarian… a never-eaten-meat lifer whose vegetarian roots go back two generations. I read this book because I was looking for a non-scientific text to help me develop an approach that would make us both happy (not that we weren’t already, but clearly I could be more sympathetic to her preferences as she has been with mine). Catherine Friend’s book has helped bridge the gap in my understanding and equipped me to be compassionate not only to animals, but to my fiance as well. I recommend this book to anyone interested in developing a sense of responsibility where the consumption of meat is concerned. My life, my fiance’s life, and the lives of the animals I choose to eat are better for it.
Food for Thought by P. Schmatz
I loved this book because it made me think, and also actually made me change my behavior.
I’ve been a vegetarian for most of my adult life, for a variety of reasons. I grew up in a hunting family, but farm-raised meat - between the cruelty of practices and the scary hormones and drugs in the meat - is something I have always avoided. So when I quit hunting, I quit eating meat.
But as Friend points out in her book, the growing percentage of vegetarians in the U.S. has done absolutely nothing to cut down overall meat consumption, or to influence the industry.
She says that by walking away from the meat table, as a vegetarian I essentially leave the meat industry to those who DON’T care about the ethics of it. But if I stay, and speak with my money, I can participate.
Despite my mostly-vegetarianism, I did occasionally eat poultry in restaurants. But Friend’s description of factory-farmed chicken was so vivid and disturbing that I now ask at every restaurant if their chicken is free-range and if the answer is no, I order something else.
This book is packed with excellent information, all delivered in Friend’s easy, accessible voice. It’s got some laughs, some horrifying realities, and solid suggestions for growing into a responsible eater in a totally irresponsible culture.
I applaud compassion, but… by Sandra J. Landsman
I am so sorry, but, telling lambs that you are raising them and killing them so that their breed does not die out is just another act of selfishness of mankind.It really does nothing to persuade me that the act of murder is justified so that we can see new baby lambs after we eat the first batch. I feel bad attacking this author because she is one of the good guys in the agriculture business but that chapter made me really sad. If society has to continue to eat meat, then her way is the way to go but I am still hoping for a much more humane way of getting my amino acids. I would be really comfortable telling my daughter that lambs went extinct because people stopped eating them. I prefer it to telling her that many other animals became extinct because of mankind’s greed and corruption.
A Perfect Addition to Any Savvy Consumer’s Library by Story Circle Book Reviews
While Catherine Friend is an aspiring “Super-Compassionate Carnivore, able to leap over inhumanely raised meat in a single bound,” she is better known as the award-winning author of the memoir, Hit by a Farm, epic adventure stories, and numerous children’s books.
A perfect addition to any savvy consumer’s library, The Compassionate Carnivore offers insight on methods of feeding, raising, and finishing animals. Since the mid-1990s, Friend and her partner, Melissa, have owned and operated a small sustainable farm in Minnesota and have learned first-hand “the impact modern agriculture has on animals, the environment, and [all of us].” In a comprehensive reader-friendly format, the author discusses timely topics, including nutrition, production, how animals live, reproduce and die, buying factory vs. non-factory meat, as well as how each person can make a difference. The book is filled with thought-provoking information, and all references are cited at the end. Friend explores what the meat industry, specifically super-sized “farms,” cost consumers with respect to their health and their wallets.
The author fulfills her promise that “This will not be one of those cheerful self-help books that makes change sound so ridiculously easy…[and] at the other extreme, it’s not intended to be one of those books about factory farming that’s so depressing that you can’t get out of bed for a week,” in a practical way. She recommends taking one step at a time and not getting discouraged by minor setbacks, like eating pork from an inhumanely raised sow. Being a farmer greatly impacts the way she thinks about the meat she eats. She freely admits, “My path to becoming a compassionate carnivore has been paved with good intentions, but littered with the bones of pork-chop-on-a-stick.” However, she and Melissa do all they can to raise happy sheep, and they take pride in providing nourishment. It’s possible to show appreciation, kindness, and respect for animals and still eat them. She supports those who choose to be vegetarian and even recommends more vegetable sources of protein over factory-farmed meat, but she makes a great case for people who enjoy meat and want to eat it without an extra helping of guilt.
The Compassionate Carnivore is filled with insightful and often humorous anecdotes. When not horrifying me with various practices of making meat ready for market (E. coli from slaughtered animals who have soiled themselves, butchering animals while they’re still alive, or not halting factory production even if a worker loses an arm), Friend had me roaring with laughter as she recounted about their flock not receiving the memo that sheep are supposed to follow, not lead, or how long it took two healthy women to catch a gimpy baby lamb. Backed by research, practical experience, and the desire to improve standards, Friend offers many sound suggestions. If more carnivores demand humanely raised meat, the supply will hopefully follow. Each of us can have a positive influence on the market, she believes. We can start by reducing waste–taking only portions of food we can finish–and working our way up from there.
by Cheri Rosenberg
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
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Tags: agriculture, catherine friend, farming, food, humane, living green, local, local food, organic farming, sustainability
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