Vegetarianism Books

Frey critically examines the claims of moral vegetarianism. Is eating meat Wrong because, 1) it violates animal rights, because 2) killing animals is wrong, because 3) it causes animals pain and suffering? Frey examines each of these arguments and finds them wanting.
His own perspective is utilitarian but rejects the utilitarian arguments of Peter Singer and Tom Regan. He is well versed in the ethical literature, and this work bears on many ethical issues beyond animal welfare.
Frey's work is a serious challenge to those who wish to offer more than emotional arguments for moral vegetarianism (as in other reviews offered here!).

If you want to empathise with animals in factory farms, which are forced to lead a monotonous, repetitive life - read this book. In tortuous, laboured prose, Frey looks at some of the arguments in favour of vegetarianism and rejects. His main objection to vegetarianism is that it doesn't make any difference if one person becomes a vegetarian, as modern agribusiness is so powerful. It could equally have been argued that there was no point in objecting to anti-semitism in '30s Germany, as the Nazis were so powerful. One of his other arguments is the possible knock-on effect of mass vegetarianism on the enonomies of places like Iowa, South Dakota and Poland, and the tourist industry in the South of France (I'm not making this up) Again, the logical corrolary of this argument is that drug addicts should continue their habits to support the enonomies of Columbia, Afgahnistan and Burma. He doesn't list any of the potential positive outcomes of mass vegetarianism, like increased food yields, reduced methane emissions, or reduced diseases in the small part of the world where meat is a major part of people's diet; which makes a mockery of his claim to objectivity.

It couldn't decide whether it was vegetarian propaganda or a sociological history of the movement and, accordingly, both sides fail. I was looking for a decent history of the movement, and this wasn't it.

an odd & unique little book, written, i believe, by someone who hasnt put out anything else. it is primarily a collection of biographies of various vegetarians, from gandhi to hitler & an explication of several vegetarian movements. written in the early-mid 70s, the style of the vegetable passion is evocative of its time..... while it does meander, more information is packed into less space & there isnt an imposed message or point of view. it is more scholarly than most books i have seen on the topic. the information is unusual, as are the photographs. if one would like a history of some of the worlds more famous vegetarians & specifically, their views on vegetarianism & how it is integrated into their lives, this would be a good book to read.

It's a vanity press special. The book is horrible and only serves as a bullet point on the child author's resume. The writing displays a complete lack of emotional maturity. The whole piece is an exercise in narcissism. Don't waste a cent on this piece of trash.

First, Im sorry if I spel anythig wrong, my keybords kind of damaged, and some letters don't always come out. Anyway, I hate this book. A lot. It's about a kid who gets suked into a black hole hidden under the Bermuda Triangl, and is traped there with a bunch of Hydras, but its badly ritten and the pictures make it wors. This is dul, dum, and really just awful.

After reading the reviews, I bought this as a joke. But the level of badly-written parts is no joking matter. And the author has stuffed the Bermuda Triangle into this. It's odd. It's about an orphan who falls into a black hole under (you guessed it) the Bermuda Triangle. Under it he meets an alien who thinks everyone is dying because of meat. The kid saves them (with no interest in it whatsoever) and then they use a cannon to shoot him to the surface in a coffin.
I just wish he died in the coffin. I hate this book.

This is the worst book ever, and is about a kid who lives in an orphanage, runs away, gets sucked into an underwater black hole, and meets an alien from a species that eats too much meat. They turn all the aliens into vegitariens and then the kid goes back home. Point-none. If it were allowed, I would give this zero stars. Pity it isn't

I hated this book, and I usually love sci-fi. It's a dumb thing about a boy in an orpahnage who gets sucked into an underwater black hole and meets dumb characters, and befriends a vegitarien alien who is royalty and heir to the throne. At the end they stick the kid in a metal box and shoot him to the surface, after a page of copied and pasted calculations and the kid saying "Yo!". Soemthing is wrong with this book.

To respond to reviewers comments:
Tofu - I checked a variety of protein values for tofu, and while not consistent, all are lower than those listed in my book. This and all other factual information will be checked and corrected in the next edition. (This is Important!!!!)
Iron anemia - I think it is interesting that a slight anemia is a NORMAL result of pregnancy. Obviously it is not the ideal!
Too many stories - these comments sure date my pregnancy - to a time when vegetarian diets were spurned by most people, especially for pregnant women. Fortunately, times have changed, and even books like mine have contributed to a cultural change of heart on this. I am VERY glad to know that reassurance is no longer a problem worth so much space in a book.
Recipes - I am not a recipe person, and did not make the leap into providing recipes for others. However, this is clearly a weakness in the book. The next edition will include them, most definitely!
Finally - This book holds the kind of information I wish I'd had when I was pregnant. It is exciting that things have changed so much since then. Thank you all for your feedback. May all your pregnancies be happy and healthy. Sharon

I agree that this book is poorly organized -- but on top of that, the information in it isn't even true! For example, she claims that tofu has 20 grams of protein for four ounces-- not on this planet. In reality it's about half of that, about 9-13 grams. Same deal with beans-- she says 22 grams of protein in 1/2 cup of black beans--truth is more like about 7g! She also says that "iron anemia during pregnancy is normal." Yikes!! It's terirbly dangerous and can make you hemorrage during birth! Chuck this book!

Useless anecdotal information from the author and a ridiculous number of stories from other vegetarian mothers. We get it already - it's OK to be a pregnant vegetarian!! The first two sections are nearly totally the above and the rest is simplistic nutritional information which can be had anywhere. If you want eating plans and recipes don't buy this book. I agree with the other reviewer that What To Eat When Your Expecting is a gem next to this one. Don't waste your money!

I am a vegetarian of 15 years and my husband and are trying to get pregnant. I thought that getting as much knowledge as possible on making sure the baby's health was protected was a smart choice. I purchased a few books from Amazon.com and this book left me annoyed. It had good information but could have been condensed to half it's size. She repeated herself throughout the entire book. She added too many personal experiences from others in which she said answered an add that she wrote. To me it was a easy way to write a book. I wish she had researched the issue more and had valid facts instead of so many opinions. The last thing was that throughout the book (almost after every line) she says (See... this and that section). Simply reverting back to previous sections. It just seemed to me that she was filling pages to make a book and not really caring that if the content was truely informational.

I was expecting a guide to putting together a balanced diet for myself during pregnancy. I was terribly disappointed. This book is full of opinions, medical and nutritional misinformation, and personal anecdotes. Its main message is that it is OK to follow a vegetarian diet during pregnancy. I knew that before I read the book.

I found "What to Eat When You're Expecting" to be much more helpful. "What to Eat" has plenty of guidelines for putting together a diet that contains the nutrients you need, whether or not you make a vegetarian choice.

This "book" barely had any diet tips in it! It spent the short pointless chapters trying to convince the reader that the meat and dairy industries are devils reincarnate and that everyone should become vegan. They even say at the end of the book that its inspiration was their lack of wanting to get real jobs! As a medical professional, I discovered that the "studies" and "statistics" they quote are ridiculous, manipulated and skewed to say the least. Total waste of time to read/listen to (audio book). Not only would I not recommend this, but I wouldn't even burden another person looking for true education on nutrition by selling it used!

I never expected to be so moved. Meat-eaters will, of course, feel personally threatened by this book. Relax. Read. Learn. Thank you for a fabulous book!

Skinny Bitch & Skinny Bitch in the Kitchen I saw these books on ELLEN and was not aware that they were political or vegeterian. I was going to buy them for my grown daughters, but not now since there is "potty language" in them, there is no call for that. The English language is abundant with descriptive words, there is no need for using any "potty" language. The point can still come across with clean language. It (clean language) has been used for eons.

Nowhere on the cover of this book does it say it is a book that scares you into becoming a vegetarian or that it is even about being a vegetarian. I have no intention of ever becoming a vegetarian and would have never purchased this book if it had said that on the cover. It is a poor excuse of a book. The author has some good information in the book, but it cannot be shared with our younger generation due to her toxic potty mouth. She uses this book as her political soupbox to tout her opinions about our FDA and what is wrong with our food chain. It is true that many of the ingredients in our foods are bad for us and that the American public needs to become educated. This book is a turnoff to education though. Her foul language and her scare tactics are only enough to get me to turn off the CD, not to listen to it. It is a shame the publisher does not tell you exactly what this book is about. If they did, you would not purchase it. I certainly would not have purchased it. It seems very much like a bait and switch book - they bait you into thinking this is a common sense book about eating and diet and it is nothing more than a political forum for one potty mouth vegetarian. If you really want to educate the American public, this will not do it! Shame on you for misrepresenting your book! I want my money back!

I first heard about this book at a conference for vegetarians. One of the speakers was talking about how some of the attitudes some ( not all ) vegetarians have drive people away from becoming vegetarians or cause existing vegetarians to quit. The speaker mentioned this book as an exploration of that topic.

Having been a vegetarian for 26 years and having encountered all sorts of attitudes, the book sounded intriguing to me. I bought a copy.

I wasn't expecting hard data, but I was still disappointed.

The author wanted to make the point that some vegetarians can be arrogant, rigid, and vegetarian for motives other than what they think( I don't disagree with these points ). However, she did not come out and say that directly.

Instead she kept framing all of these points as questions and then took selective, short, quotes from the people she interviewed to back up her "argument". I found these two things to be very annoying. I felt like I was in a conversation with someone who wanted to tell me something, but who would not stop beating around the bush. I was also interested to hear what the people she interviewed had to say, but she would only use 1 line to 1 paragraph at a time before jerking the reader away.

One of the ideas the author explored is the tendency among vegetarians to view non-vegetarians, especially ex-vegetarians as being less ethical, less spiritual, than they could be because they live off of the killing of animals.

The author "argued" that this point was wrong based on a friend who had various occult experiences telling her that everything can suffer, even plants, even table salt.

I'm amazed that a woman who is intelligent and educated enough to hold a position as a philosophy professor would choose to offer something like that as a justification in an argument...or that she would believe that using such a point would not hurt her credibility.

The author uses a lot of exclamation points at the end of sentences to get across how strongly he feels, which is the mark of an amateur writer, and this book certainly has unprofessional touches throughout. For instance, the footnoting that the author did is the oddest I've ever come across, and I'm an avid, broad reader. He has the requisite subscripted numbers to indicate where he is making reference to another work, but when I turned to the back of the book to get the title and author of said work, the bibliography doesn't jibe with the numeric cross-referencing. Before the bibliography page there is something the author calls "Reference Notes*" and following the asterisk to the bottom of the page I read the author's awkward explanation, "The number in parentheses refer to the numbers which appear before the books listed in the Bibliography, in other words, to the reference sources." When an author has to write, "in other words," it means he didn't choose the best words to begin with, which in this instance is no surprise for the reader who got past page one of the book as the author often chooses the not best words to make his point. But worse for the reader looking to match up references with authors, Mr. Gregerson didn't bother to learn how to footnote properly and chose an idiosyncratic and not effective 'alternate' method. This book reads like a college term paper written by a student who feels strongly about his subject but lacks the technical skill with which to do the subject justice.

Vegetarism, A History by Colin Spencer (perhaps to stand apart from this book which shares the title, it is also called, "The Heretic's Feast, A History of Vegetarianism") gives vegetarianism and its history broader and more thorough treatment--from our primate beginnings to our current ecological concerns, and his writing style is clean and interesting. I recommend that potential readers buy Mr. Spencer's book and skip Mr. Gregerson's.

I'm a new teen vegetarian who wanted to read this book for more information. I was appalled at the way it treated vegetarianism--like just another diet to help you slim down! It hardly mentioned environmental, ethical, or moral reasons for becoming a vegetarian. According to the book, "Just follow Dr. Salter's plan and enjoy the healthier, slimmer you that will emerge." This is sending completely the wrong message to teens. Vegetarianism is not a just a diet--it is a whole new lifestyle. I definetly do not recommend this book. Their are many others that offer information on ALL aspects of vegetarianism, and in a less condescending way. I can just say that I'm glad I got this book at the library instead of wasting any money on it.

I ordered this book out of concern for my ninth grade students who are considering/experimenting with vegetarianism. As one who declines red meat, and is gradually phasing out fish and fowl, I found the book accurate, but too preachy. Any reference book a student picks up "for fun" needs to be hip, interesting, eye-catching, and must, at all costs, avoid talking down to the reader. My students have responded far better to Judy Krizminac's "A Teen's guide to Going Vegetarian."

as i have not received my item which has been awaiting delivery now for 2 months,icannot give you a review,where are my goods ?????