Good Eats: 32 Writers on Eating Ethically by Melissa A. Goldthwaite

Good Eats: 32 Writers on Eating Ethically Reviews

• 
  Kaitlyn Hermansen

  A collection of essays on food and eating ethically. I enjoyed this- the essays offered a very diverse group of thoughts with interesting social, political, cultural, and religious commentary on food. Some reads were funny, some thoughtful, some raw and gritty. I enjoyed most of the essays in this but could only really read one at a time because of the disjointedness of them. Some real gems in here though. I particularly enjoyed My Children’s First Garden by Michael Branch, My Children Shall Know the Pain They Consume by Lilace Guignard, Doves for Dinner by Lisa Knopp, and Men and Meat by Will Becker.
• 
  Ashley McMullen

  A thoughtful, analytical collection of essays on the importance of conscious, mindful food consumption. I appreciate the approach of using writers--not food bloggers, not food writers, not chefs--to build this book to give it a more poetic and narrative quality. Not that chefs or food bloggers and writers can't provide that, but writers just approach the world much differently. And because the list of authors is varied, so are their approaches to food and how they write about it.
  
  This will definitely be a collection I go back to, and I'm looking forward to owning the physical copy to mark up with annotations, highlights, thoughts, and then pass it to other family members to get their opinions on each essay. I wouldn't have thought about some of the arguments in this book the way they're presented, and it's changed my perspective on how I'll think about those ingredients moving forward. Excellently done.
  
  Thank you to NetGalley and NYU Press for giving me advanced reader access in exchange for an honest review. This title publishes today, January 9, 2024!
• 
  Leslie Ann

  I was hoping this book would give me ideas for my first-year writing class, which focuses on food writing. Sadly, many of the personal essays did not engage me as much as I had hoped as an instructor - or as a reader interested in food. The only section that holds some promise is the last one, "Our Pasts Are Present," because the writers described concepts and histories that my students could potentially research.
• 
  Danielle McClellan

  This book is a conversation, a collection of food stories, and a gathering of diverse, thoughtful people reckoning with the question of how to eat sustainably, ethically, and in light of the global challenges that face the world today. Eschewing any one definition of ethical eating, the editors take on four general principles adapted from the framework for biomedical ethics, “including fostering ‘beneficence,’ or protecting and helping others, promoting ‘normaleficence,’ or seeking to do no harm and to limit pain and suffering, respecting ‘autonomy,’ meaning the right to choice and self-determination, and furthering ‘justice,’ which includes fairness, equitable distribution, and recognition of both need and contribution.” The essays that follow sift through these ideas with many voices and directions.
  
  I was particularly drawn to Michael R. Branch’s hilarious and rueful essay “My Children’s First Garden tracks” the descent into madness that gardening can engender as a father attempts to create a simple vegetable garden for his daughters and finds himself in a battle with the surrounding natural world. Underlaying the humor is the sharper commentary on the extent to which we humans go to imprint our will on the land we tend.
  
  In a related piece, “My Children Shall Know the Pain the Consume,” Lilace Mellin Guignard details the decisions that she and her partner have made raising their children as meat eaters and hunters and exposing them to the full array of consequences of their food decisions. And in conversation with this piece, “The Plant,” the essay by Jenny Spinner discusses her own decision to raise vegetarian children. Lisa Knopp then muses in “Doves for Dinner” how her own vegetarianism has not been passed to her son, who together with his partner eats off the land and hunts. She details the steps that have led their family to their decisions.
  
  Other articles take up the dialogue in a number of ways and from a number of positions. I enjoyed Adrianne Su’s essay about the ethics of eating American Chinese-restaurant meals. She is articulate about her appreciation of its importance in her life, with its links to her family rituals and community, even as she recognizes problematic food sourcing and waste. In “Who’s Feeding Bob,” Amy J. Hammer discusses the complications of monitoring her adult brother’s diet due to extreme allergies.
  
  These are just a handful of examples. In general, I found the book to be well organized and a intriguing gateway into further thought and discussion.
  
  My thanks to NYU Press and Net Galley for providing me with an advance reading copy of this book.
• 
  Dora Okeyo

  The very first line about this book drew me in and it was a question, "In an age of mass factory farming, processed and pre-packaged meals, and unprecedented food waste, how does one eat ethically?"
  
  What has ethics got to do with food? Is what I asked myself, but for someone whose culture is woven around food and the recent drastic effects of climate change threatening our livelihood, I wanted to read this book, because there is an african saying that 'food brings happiness' and among our people- there is more to do with giving thanks for what had to be given up to nourish you- for example, for the cow that had to lose its life, or the chicken that had to lose its life so you could be treated to meal, or for the vegetables that is before you- and also for the farmers and the earth that toiled for seasons to present a bountiful harvest.
  
  I think for me, reading this book was more a reminder of knowing the journey of food, of what I consume through the stories told by all these authors.
  
  This is a conscious read, and I'd recommend it to anyone who is curious and open to discussing the journey of food, of how we eat, why we eat and what we eat through stories of course.
• 
  Racheal

  This is a wonderful collection of essays about eating ethically. It took me a long time to read it because I savored each chapter and took time to consider and think after each one.
  
  The book is organized into sections, with very different perspectives included in each one. I appreciated that many different ways of eating ethically were included in this book, and I felt like I learned a lot about different ways of eating.
  
  This is just the kind of book I love to have on my coffee table, and I would love to put a copy in our cabin to be able return to it again and again.
  
  Overall a great collection that I would recommend to anyone interested in understanding more about what it means to eat ethically!
  
  Thank you to NYU Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in advance of publication!
• 
  Taylor | Benter’s Bookshelf

  3.5⭐️
  This collection of essays provides a broad look at ethical eating through the lenses of sustainability, animal rights, memories, and societal pressures and expectations.
  
  It definitely made me think about my own household’s eating practices and at multiple points I found myself brainstorming ways we can do better.
  
  Not every essay was a hit for me personally but the collection as a whole spoke to my soul!
• 
  Sylvia Barker

  This book asks all the right questions and gets you thinking about what it means to truly eat ethically. Lots to think about here and the content will stay with me long after I finished reading the final pages.
  
  Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for they ARC in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  Margaret Heller

  Reviewed for Library Journal.
• 
  Maureen Stanton

  Wonderfully varied collection from a diverse array of writers. Food writing at its best.
• 
  Mona

  Mixed bag, some good some not so good