Really, no books or even articles need to be written about it. Would you kill and eat a human being even if there were other food available, just because you liked the taste, or thought it would provide a bit more nutrition? If the answer is no, you shouldn't be eating animals either.

Christ. First Debra Dickenson on why Barack Obama is not really black, and now this crap. Hey Salon, what's next: "Man-Boy Sex: Maybe it's not so bad!"

Are you that desperate for attention?

Pathetic, truly pathetic.

Laura Miller has written an interesting and thoughtful review, however has failed to ask the obvious question. Was the author a shill for the meat marketing corporations? Just kidding, but it certainly sounds like it. Don't eat meat and you too can be crazy as a coot! I liked Laura's point about morality being bound to its time and place. At this time in the world many people regard with horror the eating of rodents but at many times and places rat is/was considered a staple if not a delicacy.

I don't eat meat. I have my own reasons. Other people who don't eat meat have theirs which may well be vastly different from mine. To think of all non meat eaters as a heterogenious group called vegitarians and that we share a common belief system is as foolish as believing all Christians are basically the same and share a common dogma.

A discussion of the history of meat eating versus non-meat eating is interesting but has very little relevance as to wheather a meat free diet is personally /globally advantageous in 2007.

David Edler

Salon Premium members. Self righteous faux hippy wannabes are juicy and tender and best of all they jump in the pot themselves.

Are you putting me on..? Is this some kind of sophisticated joke..? What would possess someone to bother writing a book on such a topic..?

I think the author of the review must have meant Petrarch, who did write famous sonnets. Plutarch was known primarily for his lives of ancient Greeks and Romans.

While I admit it's a moderately interesting topic, this looks to be another pot-boiler for Salon designed to generate clicks and ad revenue as people get their undies in a bunch.

While I'd like to think we're in for a lot of thoughtful responses, realistically:

Look forward to 300+ posts of screechy people who aren't making even a half-assed effort to think the issues through before screeching half truths.

Here comes KStone...

It will be interesting to see how the arguments against meat eating survive against artificially grown meat, which will certainly be a reality in less than ten years. It hard to argue that taking a few cell sample to use to grow just meat masses that have no attached brain is cruel, and it's a good bet that the packaging conditions will be more sanitary than todays (no feces to contaminate the meat). Will they be reduced to the feeble "but, but, it's not natural"?

Really at that point is there a difference between artificial meat and all the crap they add to textured vegetable protein to simulate "meatiness". I ask this as someone who has on and off flirted with a vegetarian diet over the years, yet avoided the TVP stuff since a quick read of the ingredient revealed more food science (read voodoo) than anything else on the shelf.

Maybe the argument will simply move to whether or not it's morally acceptable to eat artificially grown meat from human muscle tissue samples.

Vegetarianism doesn't automatically mean cruelty-free, especially when it comes to the dining habits of a family of psychopaths, as Bonnie Stansfield illustrates in her short story, "A Tasy Dish":

http://electricstorytime.blogspot.com/2006/11/tasty-dish.html

I'm having a steak tonight. Rare.