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Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: As a person who has embraced vegetarianism not for a few months in college, but for all of my adult life (27 years), I really wanted to find this the hard-hitting expose the cover suggests: "Recalling Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle' " No, not quite. Not even close. While the book examines the dairy to beef story, it does so in a fairly innocuous way that seems to be how many carnivores think. Well, it's not that bad, the people are hard-working, the animals may be mistreated, but it's not for long blah blah. There is one hard-core vegetarian in the book, and he's a full-fledged kook. The author performs the classic carnivorous cop-out at the end, preserving the animals he cares about but ignoring those he doesn't. (This after a lengthy phony suspenseful buildup--or at least felt pretty phony to me.) He acknowledges how simple it is when we see the animals as only members of a group, then drops it as if it is self-evident that one really has to do this. Not a bad book, but not exceptional, provocative, or poetic. I did not feel compelled to read any of it aloud to my wife--my usual evaluative technique. I wonder who his audience is. Not I.
Rating: 
Summary: Real Issues for Real Farmers
Review: I enjoyed this book because of the insight it provides to the life of farmers who produce beef for consumption in the US. I read Diet for a New America, years ago, and thought that this book added an important dimension to the whole vegetarian, organic debate. The author makes us realize that to change our diet from meat based to vegetarian, will require a major shift for American Farmers. The author has done a wonderful job of showing the differences between large farm economics and the sometimes harsh realities of the small farmer's finances. I'd recommend the book to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: From Conception to Consumption
Review: Imagine that you are walking into a McDonalds restaurant with your child, who is all, excited because with every happy meal you get a teanie beanie baby. This is part of the Ty Beanie Baby promotion that is done every year, with different beanies to choose from each year. As you are standing in line you glance over at the toy display on the counter and notice that one of the beanies is a red bull named "snort" and another is a black and white cow named "Daisy". Do you think that when you saw this you would immediately think of the irony of it all? Standing in a restaurant that sold cow patties on a bun to, probably millions daily all over the world and here they are selling cute little stuffed cows with names.
This is how Peter Lovenheim came up with the idea for his book about watching a cow go from "conception to consumption." "
"It struck me as odd that a company selling ground beef would offer toys in the shape of cattle. Were children really expected to hug and play with a toy cow while eating the remains of a real one?"
In the process of producing this book Lovenheim meets many interesting people on his journey through farms, meat auctions, and a stud center in Ithaca, New York where the journey began.
In Ithaca there is an artificial insemination factory where they keep prime bulls for semen collection to sell to farms across the country. Lovenheim watches one bull in particular, Bonanza, as they collect semen from him and package it in a straw sized tube. It is then put into a container filled with liquid nitrogen to freeze it for shipping. This shipment is being sent to Lawnel Farm in York, New York. This farm is owned and run by Andrew and Sue Smith who raise dairy and beef cattle.
On their farm the cows are assigned numbers instead of names. One in particular is of interest to the journalist and that cow is number 4923. This is the cow that was artificially inseminated with the frozen semen from Bonanza. She gave birth to twins, a heifer and a steer, numbers seven and eight, both of which Lovenheim saw birthed and bought to raise and follow through the beef process.
Another farming family he meets is Shelly and Peter Vonglis who lived just five miles south of the Smith's. At this farm he boards his two calves, and gives strict instructions to Peter to raise the bull, number eight, as he would any other beef critter. Lovenheim visits each farm on a weekly basis, traveling half an hour from his home to the farms. On his visits he observes the cows, watches the milking process, accompanies Andrew on his harvester machine in the fields, and overall has basically free run of the Lawnel farm. At the Vonglis's he watches his calves grow bigger, and talks with Shelly and Peter about their daily lives and what goes on.
Throughout this book he goes over the ethics of raising cattle on farms, and gives descriptions on the various diseases and health problems that dairy cows face because of the standing and the overly large udders that are genetically bred into their genes for higher milk production. The cows that are not producing enough milk daily, below the percentage line of the daily milk productions are culled out of the herd and shipped away to the Pavilion where they are auctioned off as beef. After arrival the cows and calves are separated and then divided into "good cows" which are healthy, "slow cows" which are weak and somewhat sickly, and the "double-exes" which are the cows who are about to die anyway. Here big companies and some small businesses buy beef. This is the place where his calves will be auctioned off and bought either by Taylor Packing who buys, slaughters, and sells the meat for McDonalds food, where this all started.
As the ending of the book draws near Lovenheim is having second thoughts about selling his two calves for beef at the pavilion. He has done just what he didn't want to do in the first place and that was get attached to them.
I found this book to be a very interesting read. Before this class I never really gave any second thought about where my food came from. I knew it came from farms and slaughterhouses but I never had so much detail about what goes into the process raising beef and dairy cattle. As I read through the book it was easy to see the struggle that some farms go through while others are somewhat well off. It shows this in the difference between the Smith's farm and the Vonglis's farm. The Smith farm is a small farm that raises cattle to sell locally and for the family with Peter working full time at a larger farm, and Shelly is going to school to become a nurse. Sue and Andrew run their farm and have employees who help with the milking shifts and the cows.
I think that it is rough what these animals have to go through but it is also rough for the farmers who raise the animals and put them through "conception to consumption."
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and readable account
Review: Standing in line in a McDonald's one day with his daughter, the author has one of those epiphanies we've been hearing about in the TV commercials these days--he suddenly realizes the disconnect that exists between his consumption of a hamburger and how much he really knows about those cow's lives and the people who raise them for our delectation. He buys cows number 7 and 8 from a local rancher, and he sets out to raise them himself from calf to burger to find out as much as he can about the process. Recalling Sinclair's The Jungle, the book is an unfliching and detailed look at the entire beef and milk industry, but it also provides interesting insights into the day-to-day lives of the hard-working farmers and ranchers whose business it is to supply these products for our tables. Overall, an interesting and frank account of this area of American farm life.
Rating: 
Summary: A book which helped me decide to give up meat
Review: This book first caught my eye when it was featured on BookTV, what struck me the most was that the author was not a vegetarian. Although at first glance this book might appear as a story of the dirty meat industry, it is instead unbiased truth. Yes, the meat industry is dirty and farmers don't have it easy, but it allows one to not feel pressed to give up meat, but presents the facts, or the story which allows the reader to become informed and go from there. From this story which I could hardly ever put down, I realized that I could not eat a cow. Furthermore, it also showed me that there was a lot more about the food I eat than I realized, which led me to other books. I encourage anyone and everyone to read this book and to understand where their meat comes from, and how they should go from there.
Rating:
Summary: A book which helped me decide to give up meat
Review: This book first caught my eye when it was featured on BookTV, what struck me the most was that the author was not a vegetarian. Although at first glance this book might appear as a story of the dirty meat industry, it is instead unbiased truth. Yes, the meat industry is dirty and farmers don't have it easy, but it allows one to not feel pressed to give up meat, but presents the facts, or the story which allows the reader to become informed and go from there. From this story which I could hardly ever put down, I realized that I could not eat a cow. Furthermore, it also showed me that there was a lot more about the food I eat than I realized, which led me to other books. I encourage anyone and everyone to read this book and to understand where their meat comes from, and how they should go from there.
Rating:
Summary: Thorough, scholarship, thought provoking, spiritual
Review: When I started this book I imagined another informative expose reinforcing my concerns about the eating of beef. However, what I found was a thorough, thoughtful, and engaging study of the dairy and beef industries, in which the author went to painful lengths to give fair consideration to all sides on the issue. Lovenheim's book is not sensationalist muckracking. While I think his observations would reinforce many of the worries of those concerned about eating beef, or drinking milk induced by bovine growth hormone, the most striking part of this work is the otherwise overlooked consideration of cows as living creatures. I was struck by his descriptions of the cows' actual sense of community, their adaption and response (or seeming lack thereof) in the face of continual danger; that in fact they aren't quite the dumb animals we have been raised to believe they are. Lovenheim makes you consider that these animals are different than plants, and that you are making a conscious decision to take a living feeling creature and choosing to process it as a commodity entirely out of your own dietary choice and convenience. The author's sensitivity, compassion, and admiration for those engaged in the various aspects of the dairy and beef industries is admirable. He also gives ample consideration to the historical place of beef in our diets, frequently alluding to his own Jewish spiritual tradition. This is a substantive, worthwhile, and quite "readable" work. I highly recommend it; I was pleased to have picked it up, and felt I had both learned and acquired greater sensitivity as a result of completing it.
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