The Mindful Carnivore

"A personal tale of how one man comes to terms with the meat on his plate and a historical look at humanity's connection to animals. The Mindful Carnivore delivers new insight in the too often simplistic vegetarian versus carnivore argument." -Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer A vegetarian-turned-hunter reignites the connection between humans and their food sources and continues the dialogue begun by Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver. As a boy, Tovar Cerulli spent his summers fishing for trout and hunting bullfrogs. While still in high school, he began to experiment with vegetarianism. By the age of twenty he was a vegan. A decade later, in the face of declining health, he returned to omnivory and within a few years found himself heading into the woods, rifle in hand. Through his personal quest, Cerulli bridges these disparate worldviews and questions moral certainties. Are fishing and hunting barbaric, murderous anachronisms? Or can they be respectful ways for humans to connect with nature (and their food)? How harmless is vegetarianism? Can hunters and vegetarians be motivated by similar values and instincts? In this time of intensifying concern over ecological degradation and animal welfare, how do we make peace with the fact that, even by growing organic vegetables, life is sustained by death? Drawing on personal experience, philosophy, history, and religion, Cerulli shows how America's overly sanitized habits of consumption have disconnected us from our food, resulting in many of the spiritual and environmental crises we now face.