A Vegan Manifesto, with Recipes: a Review of “Protest Kitchen”
Protest Kitchen, by Carol J Adams and Virginia Messina, is a book that I immediately wanted to like. As a member of the Food Ethics Council, encouraging producers and consumers to take a more consciously ethical approach to their food, the subtitle “Fight Injustice, Save the Planet, and Fuel Your Resistance One Meal at a Time” was instantly appealing. And it comes with recipes! A social and environmental justice manifesto, a 30-day plan, and 50 recipes, all rolled up together. What’s not to love about that? The authors have impressive credentials: Carol Adams is the author of the vegan bible “Sexual Politics of Meat,” and Virginia Messina is a registered dietitian. Their aim is to position veganism within a broader context of protest against social injustice, and to show you how your kitchen can integrate with your daily struggle for a fairer, more sustainable world.
To some extent, they succeed. The main chapters cover the relationship of food to climate change, misogyny, inclusivity, compassion, improving your diet and overall self-care. The chapter on climate change covers a number of broader environmental concerns including biodiversity, water stress, chemical runoff, and the disproportionate impact of food and environmental injustice on the poor and vulnerable. Other social justice issues directly related to food include the exploitation of children in the cocoa industry, the psychological stress of working in a slaughterhouse, and the use of animal metaphors as a vehical for racism, exploitation and “otherness”. The impact of corporate control comes up frequently; in the US, for example, any action “intended to deter animal enterprises” may be regarded by law enforcement authorities as terrorism, and it is unlawful to photograph animals on industrial farms without permission.
Unfortunately, the arguments often lack rigor, and a critical reader will soon suspect that the book started from a viewpoint of “how to best support veganism?” rather than “what is the best diet for the planet?” The authors point out that factory farming, with its battery chickens, farrowing crates, intensive milk production, and other abusive practices, was a response to the rising demand for meat after WWII. They then move too quickly to the conclusion that all animal and fish farming is bad, so the only response is veganism. No consideration is given to the options for combining modern technology with traditional non-intensive farming methods, and there is little attempt to think rigorously about whether veganism will scale up to feed the 9.8 billion people that we expect to inhabit the earth by 2050. Arguments in favour of limited meat production made by Simon Fairlie for example, such as how to make the best use of non-arable land, are simply ignored.
Other arguments also suggest cherry-picking: community gardens are encouraged, but there is no mention of the option of keeping your own chickens for eggs. Vegan food is better for you, but you will need to take supplements for essential vitamins. There are vague health claims like “just how much you can protect your serotonin levels by eating beans and berries isn’t known at this point. But there’s no doubt that these foods are good for you,” while the vastly more important issue of anti-microbial resistance doesn’t get a mention. Corporate bad behaviour is highlighted when it affects animals, but not when it comes to seed control by companies like Monsanto. Key food system issues that you would expect to see in a wholistic approach to food justice, such as organic farming, genetic modification, and the huge impact of food waste, are not covered.
The book is also badly edited. Some claims are backed up by footnotes, but some are not — for example the claim that “North Carolina lawmakers have put extensive limits on lawsuits against farm owners” regarding waste spillage from pig farms; similarly there is no source given for the link between chocolate bars and child slavery. There are lists of resources in the back, but you can’t count on the web sites referenced in the text to appear in those lists. The list of cookbooks doesn’t include any online recipe sites, which just seems perverse; you’ll need to make your own list as you read through the text.
The recipes themselves are useful and interesting, and there are some that I will definitely try. I prefer recipes that highlight the natural taste of vegetables, and feel there is too much emphasis here on vegan substitutes for meat and dairy products, but they might be helpful for people who really can’t live without the taste of bacon and mayonnaise. There are useful guidelines, for example a table of different plant milks and what they are best used for. But again, one runs into claims that are just wrong: dried beans do not provide “slower carbs” than tinned beans. If you buy low-salt tinned beans, they’re essentially the same. And it seems odd for a book on health and social justice to advocate ready-to-eat cereals and pre-washed bags of vegetables; just because something is vegan, it doesn’t follow that it is either nutritious or ethically produced.
The thing is: more vegans in the world is actually a good thing. Given that the world does produce and eat far too much meat, it is undoubtedly good for a larger proportion of people to be vegan in order to offset the die-hard steak-eaters on the planet. It is true, as claimed, that “replacing animal foods with plants is the most effective dietary change you can make for the health of the planet”, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that a vegan world would be better or more sustainable world. (To illustrate why you can’t make this assumption: it is also true that the most effective thing I can do for the planet is not to have children, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that the entire human race should have no more children.) We need more rigorously-argued, clear-eyed books and great recipes that help us move in that direction. Unfortunately this one needs to be taken with more than your daily allowance of salt.
