My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki

My Year of Meats

Now that Michael Pollan's New York Times bestsellers have opened up a national dialogue about where food really comes from, conscientious readers everywhere will want to devour My Year of Meats. When documentarian Jane Takagi-Little finally lands a job producing a Japanese television show that just happens to be sponsored by the American meat-exporting industry, she begins to uncover some unsavory truths about love, fertility, and a very dangerous hormone called DES. A modern-day take on Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, veteran filmmaker Ruth Ozeki's novel has been hailed as "rare and provocative" (USA Today) and "up-to-the-minute" (Chicago Tribune).

4.5 Stars

I think this book was VERY good, despite my distaste for postmodern fiction. The main character was believable and fierce and I wanted her to round-house a million scheming meat industry idiots in about two chapters. Besides that, the novel really touches on the universal humanity we all share and the injustices we are suffering because we are unaware of what the meat industry is doing to our foods (hormones... MANNYY hormones). Ozeki emphasizes the point that there is SO much debilitating ignorance; this ignorance paralyzes the people that would mobilize protests against unfair practices in business. She based the novel's facts on valid research, so I had a bit of trouble eating beef after reading this novel.

Final Verdict: Fresh-Ground Goodness