Is eating meat benign, extravagant, or something else…?
If there’s one thing that Simon Fairlie’s Meat: A Benign Extravagance reinforces, it’s just how utterly complex the issue of food can be. Especially when it comes to the meat debate. Is eating meat “bad”? Is veganism an appropriate response to decreasing our environmental impacts and greenhouse gas emissions? Just where the heck did some of these popular numbers about carbon emissions and raising animals come from, anyway? Should humans eat meat?
Fairlie does a respectable job of breaking down all of this and much, much more in his book, and though there still isn’t a totally 100% absolute answer by the end (when do absolutes ever exist?), there is definitely a sign pointing in a pretty good direction of what sustainable agriculture can look like, and what is included in it. And some folks will either be pleasantly surprised or disappointed by the message, depending on their proclivities.
