4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mouth-watering but thought-provoking, June 4, 2008
I enjoyed this immensely. Like the author, I tried a vegetarian diet as an act of conscience several times but I have to admit I never felt worse ... even when I tried to follow the guidelines. Bourette's Meat puts meat-eating in North America in a cultural and historical context. It's not a screed against meat-eating though it's critical of the corporate meat industry. (The author's experiences working in a meat plant might have you skipping pork loins for some time.) Bourette's Meat: A Love Story is a call out to meat-eaters--a challenge not to give up meat but rather to eat better meats, to understand and value the origins of the meat on their tables. Bourette goes from cattle ranch and the Rockefellers' organic farm to the shop of a Manhattan celeb-butcher and a trendy butchering class. The raw-meat-eating cult has to be read to be believed--in Aspen of all places. The author went to end of the earth--on an ice floe for a whale hunt in Barrow, Alaska is just about the end of the earth--to find out why we eat meat, what meat means to us, and how we should eat it. It's pretty filling. It will stick to your ribs and stick in your mind long after you read it.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Meat: It's What's For Dinner (But Do You Know Why?), November 16, 2008
For people who adore low-carb living, this book sounds like a dream come true with a "love story" about one of the very staples of a low-carb diet. But investigative journalist Susan Bourette wanted to use this book to give people more of a reality check about the meat they are putting in their mouths so they can better appreciate not just the nourishment they are getting from it, but also the process it took to get it on your plate to begin with.
Going undercover and making the rounds through the meat industry over the course of a year, Bourette shines the light on many of the problems associated with meat-making that are well-documented in the many news headlines about Mad Cow Disease, E. Coli, and just about everything from those animal rights wacko groups. But she also grew to have a greater appreciation for how healthy meat can be in your diet when the animals are treated well, given the proper diet of grass in the case of cows, and not tampered with artificially.
In the end, she grew a deep appreciation for meat that she never thought about before and departed those lessons for all of us to enjoy. Whether you are a devout vegetarian and meat-eating maniac, you'll find something in this book that will give you an even greater appreciation for this basic of all foods.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Too much gristle...not enough meat, December 28, 2010
The book begins with Toronto-based journalist Susan Bourette working undercover in a slaughterhouse. Not surprisingly, Bourette finds this to be an unpleasant experience. The purpose of sharing her experience is not really to incite policy change, like Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, but more to explain why she's written a book about meat.
The slaughterhouse experience makes Bourette become a vegetarian like her boyfriend, Gare. (His saintly vegetarianism is pointed out every few pages, and it was a little annoying to me.) However, Bourette can't cut it as a vegetarian, and she continues to crave cheeseburgers. So, the book details her attempt to determine how to enjoy meat without guilt and visions of the slaughterhouse. I've read other takes on this concept, but was willing to hear her out and give this book a chance. Problem is - I don't think she really accomplished this.
Besides the fact that the guilt-free-meat-eating thing has already been done by other authors, Bourette doesn't really do anything. She takes all these trips to a fancy New York City butcher, a hunting camp, Alaska for whale blubber, a conference of raw meat fanatics, a South Texas ranch, the farm for Blue Hill Restaurant, and a top-line steakhouse. Even though she lists her goals for each journey, Bourette is unsuccessful at butchering; she can't manage to shoot a deer; she spits out the sacred whale blubber in front of her hosts (offensive!); she doesn't like the beef in South Texas; and she refuses to eat any raw meat. She does, however, eat the expensive Berkshire pork at Blue Hill (although she doesn't think it is good enough to justify the focus on animal welfare), and she manages to eat three (!) steaks at the steakhouse.
If I were her, I would have felt some guilt or embarrassment about my lack of success, but perhaps Bourette's editor believed that the author-going-outside-her-comfort-zone-and-failing thing hasn't been done enough. Combining that concept with carnivore chic and you've got a sale! Guess there is still hope for any of us to get our own food adventures published...
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