Book Review: Once Upon a Time We Ate Animals

 

Image: The cover of the book is a navy blue background with illustrated green leaves coating it. In large white letters is the title of the book, 1 or 2 words each forming a new line. In between these lines, in smaller orange letters with horizontal lines extending on both sides of each word is, "the future of food." Inside the "o" of "once" and "upon" is a bird and apple silhouette. Inside the "a" of "ate" and "animals" are two more bird silhouettes. Across the bottom in small white letters is the author's name: Roanne Van Voorst.

 

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.