The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability

Written by Lierre Keith

Narrated by Joyce Bean

We’ve been told that a vegetarian diet can feed the hungry, honor the animals, and save the planet. Lierre Keith believed in that plant-based diet and spent twenty years as a vegan. But in The Vegetarian Myth, she argues that we’ve been led astray - not by our longings for a just and sustainable world, but by our ignorance.

The truth is that agriculture is a relentless assault against the planet, and more of the same won’t save us. In service to annual grains, humans have devastated prairies and forests, driven countless species extinct, altered the climate, and destroyed the topsoil - the basis of life itself. Keith argues that if we are to save this planet, our food must be an act of profound and abiding repair: it must come from inside living communities, not be imposed across them.

Part memoir, part nutritional primer, and part political manifesto, The Vegetarian Myth will challenge everything you thought you knew about food politics.

"Lierre Keith’s book is beyond fantastic."
-Dr. Michael Eades, author of Protein Power

"This book saved my life. Not only does The Vegetarian Myth make clear how we should be eating, but also how the dominant food system is killing the planet. This necessary book challenges many of the destructive myths we live by and offers us a way back into our bodies, and back into the fight to save the planet."
-Derrick Jensen, author of Endgame and A Language Older Than Words

"Everyone interested in healthy eating should be grateful to Lierre Keith."
-Sally Fallon Morell, President, The Weston A. Price Foundation

"Whether you are a vegan, vegetarian, or never gave up meat at all, you will benefit from this author's painful mistakes and her laser-like focus on the path to a sane diet and all that it entails."
-Peter Bane, Permaculture Activist

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Feb 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781455864164

Lierre Keith

Lierre Keith is a writer, small farmer, and radical feminist activist. She is the author of six books including, The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability, which has been called “the most important ecological book of this generation.” She is also coauthor, with Derrick Jensen and Aric McBay, of Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet. She’s been arrested six times for acts of political resistance. She lives in northern California where she shares 20 acres with giant trees and giant dogs. (www.lierrekeith.com)

Reviews for The Vegetarian Myth

[snjoslin · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I really did want to like this book and it seemed to start off on the right foot. However, the more I read the more I realized that the "evidence" (frequently anecdotes) presented was often flimsy at best. Worse, there are many instances where items stated as fact (i.e. humans have no bacteria in the stomach) are patently false.While I do certainly believe that a paleo-style diet is a good choice for humans, other authors like Mark Sisson and Gary Taubes do a much better job of analyzing primary literature and leading the reader through scientific studies. My final impression of this book is that Keith has simply traded one extremist view for another.

[paperloverevolution · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was one of the more controversial books we carried this year. A quick look at the online reviews will tell you the same thing - people are worked up about this thing. Lierre Keith is a brave, brave woman. I wouldn't want to pick a fight with every vegan in the world at the same time.

What I think has been lost in the furor is that her point - the heart of her point, at any rate - is very simple, and very hard to argue with. We take turns eating and being eaten - we consume today, but will be consumed in our turn. If you stop to think about this simple fact, and how it weaves all of us on earth together into an unending cycle of renewal and need, it can give you shivers. It's holy. And it's an idea that encourages us to be more reverent towards all of our food - not just the food with faces, but all of it, the seeds and fruit and leaves, and even the soil itself, richly and deeply alive.

To be reverent and respectful is to think about where your food comes from. It's not enough to give up animal products and think you're doing the world any favors. Monocrops and industrial agriculture, reliant as they are on huge amounts of water, fossil fuel, and chemicals, are not sustainable. And they're slaughtering animal and insect life all around them, so that even your vegetarian meal carries a heavy toll. And who is growing and processing your food, and how? How much fossil fuel is used to get it to your plate? It's at the very least a gross mistake for vegans to feel that their dietary choices have exempted them from considering these things. At worst it's a self-serving lie.

Honestly, I don't care if people are vegan or not. I have known healthy vegans and seriously emaciated unhealthy vegans, who really just needed to eat a steak or something. Keith's nutritional arguments in favor of meat eating are well constructed and meticulously footnoted, but I think it's a little beside the point. Which is hard to argue with: we are not, as a people, healthy, and we are quickly fucking up the earth.

There are some flaws in the book. People have taken issue with her flowery, personally revealing narrative, but I thought it was lovely and compassionate. She could have drawn from a wider range of books for her research, but that's a minor quibble. A larger point of issue is her attack on agriculture. It seems clear that the advent of large scale single crop agriculture brought with it a decline in ecological and human health. But the hunter gathering model, which she favors, isn't an entirely unagricultural enterprise. Many such societies managed certain resources - plants, berries, shellfish - for maximum yields, or controlled the environment in other ways, like by burning. If this is the model to strive for - semi-wild, with a diversity of plant and animal life mixed in (including meat and dairy animals) - then what we're looking at is starting to sound a lot like permaculture. Right? Maybe I'm just being too picky about terminology.

Anyway, there is a great deal to chew on in this book. I can see it stimulating some great discussions, and helping spur people to action. It's unfortunate that the online discussions I've seen have sort of devolved into mudslinging, though given the deep philosophical feelings of the vegan community, it's not surprising.

[owen1218 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have my issues with The Vegetarian Myth, one of the first being the title, which I find more polemic than the text itself. But on the whole she provides a great deal of solid information showing how vegetarian and particularly vegan diets are both ecologically destructive and personally unhealthy, how addiction to grains has influenced much of our human history, how eating meat and animal products can be a moral and responsible choice, and why we need to focus our fight against factory farms and large agribusinesses instead. She backs her points up with scientific citations as well as her own powerful experiences.

[Keri · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

At first it seemed like it would be a well researched book, and there was a good mix of facts and personal story line to get me through, but by half of the book the research was picking research based on confirmation bias. I do not think it was intentional of the author but the bias is clearly there. Overall there is something to be learned from this book, but take the information with a grain of salt.

[moonwalk_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Feed your mind... Get background on American [your] food issues...This book is only at "Mother Earth News" as far as I can determine...This "LibraryThing" program couldn't find it anywhere...

[dgiese_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't know whether or not a diet high in animal fat is bad for you or good for you at this point. I do, however know that carbs make me feel aweful. Even the whole grain ones. The book is well written and researched. I worry a bit about the facts being a bit skewed, but I also worry about the vegetarian side doing the same. Also, her solution to save the Earth and ourselves is to end agriculture which is never going to happen. Unrealistic solutions really are not solutions at all.

[Gonzalo Rodríguez · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I was looking for a scientific read. Loads of fallacies and even quotes Wikipedia

[paganmoon · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Was recommended this book by a collegue who swears by LCHF.

I'm a meateater so it didn't really change anything for me, and the book might have some points, but my problem was that most if not all the facts presented were anecdotal or had no source.
Tho that might be a problem with expectation I had of it being a factual book and not more like a biography.

[Khalil Saadiq · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Impactful, informative and well written. A likely dilemma most vegans face, in some way, whether they are willing to admit it or night. Great listen.

[Nancy Jo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So well researched, so well thought out. I only wish some of my loved ones could hear what she has to say.

[Lucy Smith · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An excellent read, written by an extremely brave woman.

I'm surprised at people saying things about her points not being backed up by sources. Audiobook listeners should realise that the endnotes and bibliography are not included in the audio version. If you want to see the sources, you need to see a hard or digital copy.

The reviewer who says that she claims there's no bacteria in the human stomach read a different book from the one I did! She writes: "The first is the competition model used by carnivores. The animal's immune system keeps the microbes in the digestive tract from eating the animal. Antimicrobial acid is secreted by the animal's stomach, which prevents the bacteria from eating the carnivore's food. The host then uses digestive enzymes to further break down food. This process means quick transit through the stomach, accompanied by a slower rate of passage through the lower digestive tract, where the food — now "enzymic digestive products" — is absorbed. It means a larger number of microbes in the hind gut, as opposed to the stomach. ... this exactly describes the human digestive system, especially in contrast with herbivores."

If you're not a fan of personal narratives and some literary flourishes in writing, then you may not like the style. I loved that aspect of it. This is an emotive subject, and animals and the environment clearly matter profoundly to the author, so it would make sense for her to write it in the way that she did. It’s not supposed to be a purely scientific read. People seeking pure science should look elsewhere.

Otherwise, I would suggest ignoring the detractors. I was nearly put off by them but I’m glad I wasn’t. (Don't forget that most people clearly don't read books properly!) Read it for yourself and make up your own mind.