Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The author is bitter to the extreme about her ill health and places the blame entirely on her veganism. These leaps of faith and/or logic occur throughout this diatribe against not only veganism and vegetarianism, but on agriculture as a whole, and furthermore the nature of civilization itself. Because it's such a novel and grandiose (utopian) worldview presented (it's like a Pollan book on crack crosspollinated with Derrick Jensen on speed), it appears to some readers that Keith has stumbled upon the "truth"TM, however her arguments are merely smoke and mirrors. Working from the same sort of framework as Pollan with plants ruling the planet, and getting humans to do their will, but with a more apocalyptic vision, she creates an interesting narrative of the destruction of the earth through agriculture. This all encompassing narrative over the history of civilization tells us that soil is a living thing (millions of living things rather, in a single teaspoon) being destroyed by agriculture. Oh and plants have feelings too, and gives an example of a "breathing tree" as well. Her arguments are in many ways flawed, her nutrition "facts", provided by the diet faddist Atkins who died from his own meat consumption, and the Weston A Price foundation, a staunchly anti-soy, veg lobby group, among others. She also has the annoying habit of lumping every veg/vegan as one entity, malnourished apparently, and unable to get proper nutrients for health because of the lack of animal products in their diets. Vegans are, as she was, children, until they reach that epiphany of beyond veganism that is the transition to adulthood. Throughout the book are constant barrages against vegans because she has found the way and seen the light. What is Lierre's solution the agriculture problem? Nothing less than the end of civilization as we know it. Stop growing monocrops, and give the land back to the earth, in the process kill off maybe 5 billion people. Lierre has the answer, she has found the truth that "no one" else knows. So by all means embrace genocide everywhere, and global war, for her vision to exist, civilization no longer can, let the fields lay fallow, let the wetlands come back, and the forests return. You'll find Lierre and Derrick Jensen at the end of "the road" rejoicing in the demise of the human race. In The last chapter "To save the world" she admits maybe i don't have the answers to these questions, but i can raise the issues, and then goes on a diatribe against masculinity which she equates with patriarchy. and she still doesn't know what to do about breakfast, a theme throughout this last chapter of what one can and can't eat (it must be local and present in that particular vicinity at least back to the indigenous peoples who lived in that area, but maybe before them, because burning brush created some forests in New England. I think this, more than anything sums up this ill conceived book. Maybe when Lierre decides whether or not cows and maple syrup are ok in New England she'll write a new book to inform us of such so we can all follow her rules for her utopian post civilization society.