picked this up because I’ve followed Alicia Kennedy’s food writing for a couple years and really enjoy her short form essays & journalism. I’m what she describes in this book as a “conscientious omnivore” but have been vegetarian & cook & eat most meals in my week without meat. I worked in a vegan restaurant for close to 3 years but I’ve never really understood veganism beyond its role in the lives of people close to me as an eating disorder enabler. That said, I’m sympathetic towards anyone else operating with the goal of reducing the environmental impact of our diets (as a meat eater something I care a lot about and build my diet around!) and very curious about the cultural history of veganism!

Unfortunately I didn’t like this book! I’m always saying this about every nonfiction book but I really really mean it here: it needed a much better edit than it got. there’s so much less flow and clarity here than Kennedy usually has in her writing; so many sentences or whole paragraphs are clunky, with weird syntax and awkward quotes. Chapters lead with anecdotes that are never really connected back to the main topic. Major issues are brought up and then quickly dismissed (my qualms about restrictive eating and the wellness industry’s overlap with veganism get kind of given lip service in chapter 7, about raw veganism, but aren’t really addressed beyond a few sentences that are like “yeah we definitely see thinness as culturally important & healthy - and that’s not great!”). Despite Kennedy’s opposition to the commercialization and depoliticization of vegan food, sections of the book read like just a list of vegan/plant-based companies, brands, restaurants, and pro-chefs.

Weird things are taken for granted as already known by the reader (I was like “what the fuck is rejuvelac” for 2 chapters before it’s explained) but so much of the book also feels like re-treading 101 territory for people interested in food justice and sustainability that I’m actually not sure who the intended audience is. It doesn’t seem to be vegans… there’s a slight defensiveness that seems geared toward omnivores or highly skeptical vegetarians, but it’s certainly not written with the goal of changing anyone’s mind about their diet either. idk not that a book about veganism has to proselytize either… I guess the unstated goal here seems to have been to change the (potentially non-vegan) reader’s opinion on what veganism is - ie. it is political, the food can taste good, many people and movements have contributed to the development of a vegan cuisine. It just feels a bit disorganized in its approach sadly.

There are some interesting bits in this book! Like the first soy dairy business being a Chinese anarchist scientist in Paris was fascinating and I could have read way more about that! The sections on commune cooking and cookbooks were great but don’t super address how these communes settled on veganism in the first place. I would have loved more information about non-western veganism, and more just straight up stats and numbers and sciencey facts, especially in the “Wheatgrass and Wellness” chapter re: claims of the health benefits of veganism and raw diets (not made by Kennedy necessarily, but by the figures she is writing about). 

Anyways dang. I wanted this to be really good but found it a little bit of a slog and felt disappointed. I hope forthcoming books get a better editing treatment and the benefit of more experience and knowledge.