The Omnivore?s Deception

Offers the most powerful case yet for ending our exploitation of animals for food

Millions of Americans see themselves as "conflicted omnivores," worrying about the ethical and environmental implications of their choice to eat animals. Yet their attempts to justify their choices only obscure the truth of the matter: in John Sanbonmatsu?s view, killing and eating animals is unethical, regardless of whether they are "free range" or factory farmed. Shattering the conventional wisdom around the meat economy, he reframes the question of animal agriculture from one of "sustainability" to one of existential and moral purpose, presenting a powerful case for the total abolition of the animal economy. In a rejoinder to Michael Pollan and other critics who have told us that we can have our meat and our consciences, too, he shows why "humane meat" is always a contradiction in terms.

The Omnivore?s Deception provides a deeply observed philosophical meditation on the nature of our relationship with animals. Peeling back the myriad layers of myth, falsehoods, and bad faith that keep us eating meat, the book offers a novel perspective on our troubled relations with animals in the food economy. The problem with raising and killing animals for food isn't just that it's "bad for the environment,? but the wrong way to live a human life.

A tour de force of moral philosophy and cultural critique, The Omnivore's Deception will change the way we think about meat, animals, and human purpose.

"This is perhaps the single best book ever written about animal suffering and why the world needs to go vegan. Few philosophers have spoken to us with such power and conviction on a matter of life and death--a matter as consequential for our own future as for the other animals. The reach of the author's scholarship in laying out the myriad implications of the animal system is astonishing. Yet rarely does reading a book of this depth give such pleasure. There is hardly a sentence that is not deep, surprising, important, and with the capacity to change our lives. The great poet Rainer Maria Rilke famously ended his poem ?Archaic Torso of Apollo? with the words: 'You must change your life.' The Omnivore's Deception will do that for you. You cannot read this book without changing your life. It is a work not only of immense moral significance, but a masterpiece."