Bee Wilson

From a vital new voice in food ethics comes a smart, nuanced investigation into the current meat debate. Our future diet will be shaped by diverse forces. It will be shaped by novel technologies, by geopolitical tensions, and the evolution of cultural preferences, by shocks to the status quo— pandemics and economic strife, the escalation of the climate and ecological crises—and by how we choose to respond. It will also be shaped by our emotions. It will be shaped by the meat paradox. "Should we eat animals?” was, until recently, a question reserved for moral philosophers and an ethically minded minority, but it is now posed on restaurant menus and supermarket shelves, on social media and morning television. The recent surge in popularity for veganism in the UK, Europe and North America has created a rupture in the rites and rituals of meat, challenging the cultural narratives that sustain our omnivory. In The Meat Paradox, Rob Percival, an expert in the politics of meat, searches for the evolutionary origins of the meat paradox, asking when our relationship with meat first became emotionally and ethically complicated. Every society must eat, and meat provides an important source of nutrients. But every society is moved by its empathy. We must all find a way of balancing competing and contradictory imperatives. This new book is essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of our empathy, the psychology of our dietary choices, and anyone who has wondered whether they should or shouldn't eat meat.

One of the world’s leading scientists of food and nutrition reveals why so much of the current advice about food and nutrition is dangerously inaccurate, misleading and often downright wrong. We are all bombarded with advice about what we should and shouldn’t eat, and new scientific discoveries are announced every day. Yet the more we are told about nutrition, the less we seem to understand. Through his pioneering scientific research, Tim Spector has been shocked to discover how little good evidence there is for many of our most deep-rooted ideas about food. In a series of short, myth-busting chapters, Spoon-Fed reveals why almost everything we’ve been told about food is wrong. Spector explores the scandalous lack of good science behind many medical and government food recommendations, and how the food industry holds sway over these policies and our choices. Spoon-Fed is a groundbreaking book that forces us to question every diet plan, official recommendation, miracle cure or food label we encounter, and encourages us to rethink our whole relationship with food. Diet may be the most important medicine we all possess. We urgently need to learn how best to use it, not just for our health as individuals but for the future of the planet.