Michael Pollan provided a section from this book as cover story of the New York Times Magazine of Sunday, March 26.  It is about how, as part of his attempt to make a full meal from ingredients that he got himself, without buying them, he learned how to hunt, and eventually was able to shoot and kill a feral pig in a forest in northern California.  I for one was disgusted.  And Pollan to his credit does not shirk from reporting certain disgusting aspects of the experience.  On balance, though, it struck me as an unspeakable exercise in anthropocentric self-righteousness.

In the April 9 issue, a letter-writer, who claims to be a vegetarian, wrote to comment, saying in effect that we non-carnivores should get over aversion to slaughtering animals for food: "Farmers use animal manure, blood meal and crushed bone to fertilize the fields that produce the 'vegetarian' plants.  The truth is that it is difficult and impractical to grow organic produce without relying on the slaughterhouse."  I suspect there is a non-sequitur in there.

I cannot wait to read this book. While I have only read one other Pollan book, I found his writing style to be exactly what I want from a non-fiction writer, i.e. funny. The long tangents that he goes off on are what makes his books interesting, rather than PhD dissertations. While I have no idea about it since I have not read the book, the hunting/gathering section might be an important part of the book, especially as it relates to food and our omnivorous lifestyle.

Eating meat, while may be disgusting to some is especially important in northern climes, since there is a very large part of the year when there is no or barely any other food available. Being able to kill and dress your own meat is a skill that all of us should have and all should do in order to further understand where our food comes from. I don't fully understand how people can say that eating meat is unsustainable if the meat is not factory farmed and if it is an occasional meal.

Yes, Atreyger, you are right that Michael Pollan is an engaging writer, well worth reading, and you are right that hunting is not only acceptable but actually necessary in certain parts of the world.

Pollan's book is excellent, in urging us to think about what we eat, where it comes from, and how it gets to our table.  It would be a good and beneficial thing if we all did that.  It should be observed, though, that that is easier said than done, and Pollan says as much: the food industry is such, that even those of us who conscientiously want to know more about the origins and marketing of our food do not find it at all easy to come by that information.

The reason I did not like the chapter on hunting the pig was that Pollan came across really as interested in himself exclusively, and his own experience.  He was not really thinking about the pigs in that forest, and specifically the one that he finally shot a couple of bullets into, in spite of some comments to that effect.  He was morally "wobbly."  ("To wobble" is something of a technical term in Buddhist ethics, I am told.  Compare what Yoda says to Luke Skywalker in TESB: "No, try not!  Do, or do not!  There is no try!")

Much much better on hunting is the most unwobbly Rick Bass, another engaging writer whom I highly recommend.  He lives in NW Montana, and says he is a "ninety-percenter" (or some similarly high percentage), meaning 90% of all the meat he eats in a year is from animals whom he has hunted and killed himself.  In "Caribou Rising," about his visit to the Gwich'in community in Gwich'in Village, AK, on the southern edge of ANWR, he tells us that he surprised his hosts by showing up with a gun, and asking to go hunting for caribou with them.  All their visitors from the Lower 48 of course tend to bring with them nothing more serious than a camera.

I am not opposed to either hunting or even carnivory in general.  But I am strongly opposed to thoughtlessness.  And I believe that one of the greatest reforms in American life, regarding meat-eating, is to require that the walls of slaughterhouses be transparent.