Once Upon a Time We Ate Animals is
Roanne Van Voorst's exercise in applying her field of "futures
anthropology" to the topic of the exploitation of nonhuman animals. I
was expecting something different from this book. My repeated confusion
about what in this book counts as anthropology led me to google the
field, where I found that there is a substudy called "sociocultural
anthropology" which I assume this closely resembled. I expected a book
that described the past, present, and hopeful future of nonhuman animal
and human interactions using the science of anthropology. This book is
more a collection of disorganized thoughts on a variety of issues
related to human mistreatment of other animals, often referencing fields
she is not an expert in. That is not to say that this book offers
nothing or has no value. It's just very scattered and if you have any
knowledge on any of these topics, you may not learn much. There are
better sources on these topics.
I read the ARC, so
I am unsure if citations within the text are supposed to be added to
the final version. I have never encountered an ARC referencing a
scientific topic that lacks citations. There is a bibliography at the
end of the book, but sorting through it all without knowing which claims
the sources are referencing in makes it even more tedious than
validating a properly cited text. If she is going to choose to speak on
issues outside of her field- nutrition, cosmology, climate science, etc-
and make some of the sweeping claims that she does, those citations
need to be there.
The book begins in a way that is a
constant pet peeve of mine when people write about a single issue
struggle. She introduces her text and multiple points and chapters by
repeatedly mentioning slavery suffrage, gay rights, etc. There is a way
to do this properly by discussing collective liberation, the connections
between struggles, and overal authoritarian structures that seek to
oppress. She does not do this well if at all. It's the same old trope of
throwing out a few (very Western focused) victories and making it seem
like now those struggles are over and we can wake up to the struggle
against the oppression of other animals. This is incredibly flawed as a
motivational tool for anyone who isn't of her demographic (which she
seems to be writing solely to an audience of.) It's also unhelpful as I
could say something like, "In XXXX year the Animal Welfare Act began
protecting animals, in XXXX year killing endangered species became
illegal in some places," and that would not at all mean animals are
liberated. I let the introduction go, but then she just repeated it over
and over, only once mentioning that animal oppression is not to be
compared to chattel slavery. I get what she was trying to do- show us
that horrific things that were once normalized are now seen as
unacceptable. But, the point is not made well.
The
next section drew me back in with her discussion of those who formerly
farmed and exploited other animals for profit. The in depth stories of
their journeys, their honesty, and their growth were truly inspiring and
interesting. It is one thing for someone growing up in the middle of a
suburb to choose veganism, it is another for someone who was raised on
an animal farm- taught from birth that it was 100% necessary to abuse
animals- to wake up and change. It was also a good section dispelling
the myths around "humane" animal abuse and slaughter and the suffering
of fishes on farms. Many of the farmers were dealing with immense trauma
due to what they did to countless animals in these places. This was a
very important discussion that could benefit a wide range of people to
read. There are a few rude and unnecessary descriptions of interviewees
appearances- I don't know why writers do this- but otherwise a great
section.
Another thing the author did well was to
discuss the ingrained nature of eating animals in peoples lives without
shaming them. At first. She has decent discussions about sociocultural
attitudes and how difficult they can be to overcome. That said, she
seems to be duped by some of the marketing tactics for mainstream white
veganism that involve health shaming and focus on a false binary of
animal consumers being unhealthy and vegans being fit. She leaves no
room whatsoever for disabled, fat, etc vegans. On he contrary, she
maligns the image of vegans being anything other than "fit" and "sexy."
Marginalized vegans exist in large numbers within vegans as a whole, but
are often silenced by those who think selling plant based diets as a
cure all will work. It doesn't. Studies show that the people who go and
stay vegan do it for ethical reasons, not health. Yes, plant based diets
can be healthier, but they aren't cures for everything. It's fine and
dandy to be unhealthy, fat, and/or disabled regardless of your diet and
regardless of if you take an imperfect action that contributes to ill
health- we all do.
These blind spots lead to
cringey advice like, "...never ever let yourself be put into a
retirement home and fed pre-made meals..." I don't know if being Dutch
has clouded what healthcare and elder care access is for people
elsewhere, but no one wants to "let" themselves be institutionalized,
regardless of if it's the only (extremely shitty) option in an already
bad situation. She does acknowledge places where plant based diets can
be imperfect, but again, since she's not a dietician, many things are
poorly organized or not well explained and citations were needed when I
wanted to look up a source for a claim she made.
She
does well to dispell the myth that veganism is a rich people thing.
Historically we know that plant based diets were often practiced by the
poor because animal products are extremely expensive and resource
intensive and indigenous communities accross the globe have shown
histories of caring for other animals (not as a noble savage trope,
their are exceptions, but overall.) She also acknowledges that due to
subsidies and lobbying, in some neighborhoods, buying a pound of animal
flesh at a fast food restaurant is the cheapest and only option. I was
really hoping for more stuff like this- discussions of anthropological
relationships with nonhuman animals- but, it only made up small chunks
of the book. There are a lot of pop culture references and so on which
seem more like sociology than anthropology, but to be honest, I am not
educated enough on either topic to say.
There are a
couple sections in the book where she goes off on a speculative fiction
story of a post-animal consumption world, but the stories are poorly
written. I would much rather have liked to see her discuss what these
realities would look like rather than present them in fiction form. I
really wanted more focus from her field of study.
Her
discussion of domestication was interesting and well argued. In talking
about the long history of many humans forcing nonhuman animals to
change for human needs and criteria rather than changing themselves, it
has strengthened oppressive systems in general. This would have been a
good opportunity to discuss collective liberation, but her focus
remained on other animals. Nonetheless, it was still a good section.
Her
section on climate change was a mixed bag. There was a lot of pertinent
and correct information about both the urgency of the climate crisis as
well as the massive contribution that animal agriculure adds to climate
change- more than many other big sources such as transportation. Again,
citations here are critical for a skeptical reader. Her solution
though- that the "most effective" way to combat climate change is to go
vegan- once again misses the mark and the bigger picture of
authoritarianism, capitalism, and the people with the most power. The US
government for instance has repeatedly bailed out the cow dairy
industry here time and again when their sales tanked due to people (not
just vegans) boycotting or avoiding animal dairy. Just going vegan will
not be enough to stop climate change and to explain in depth why would
add even more to this already long review.
I've
been an ethical vegan for about 16 years. I've had chronic illnesses and
disability since I was a child (I am now 39 and eat healthier as a
vegan but it did not cure me.) I am marginalized in multiple other ways.
I have also made a ton of ignorant white person mistakes that Roanne
Van Voorst did in this book. That is why I am being hard on her in this
review. She seems to be a little newer to veganism and animal rights.
For many of us, the awakening and acceptance of what other animals can
go through on such massive scales can be so overwhelming and
traumatizing that we desperately grasp onto any glimmer of a solution-
including non-solutions or bad ones. Human and other animal liberation
is intimately connected. This book could have offered much more if the
author gave us more from her anthropology background and imagined an
audience that was much larger than normative, middle+ class, white,
attractive westerners. Even the resources section at the end- which is a
good idea, but poorly executed- is mostly a collection of mainstream
white single issue vegans. If you "want to learn" about Black veganism,
there are two books listed at the end. If you want animal liberation,
you NEED to educate yourself about Black veganism, disabled peoples'
veganism, veganarchism, etc. Single issue topics are always ok to
highlight and focus on. What is not ok is to erase, neglect, or do harm
to interconnected struggles. We need each other if we are ever going to
get anywhere.
This was also posted to my goodreads.
