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Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms
“ Righteous Porkchop is a searing, and utterly convincing, indictment of modern meat production. The book also brims with hope and charts a practical (and even beautiful) path out of the jungle.”
—Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food
“[A] necessary book—part memoir, part exposé…its reasoned case for healthy and humane farming practices has the sweet savor of truth.”
— O The Oprah Magazine A crusading environmental activist, vegetarian, and lawyer who has worked with Robert Kennedy, Jr. on environment issues, Nicolette Hahn Niman blows the lid off the shocking practices in the pork, meat, and poultry industries in Righteous Porkchop , a Fast Food Nation for the hog trade. Subtitled, “Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond the Factory Farm,” Righteous Porkchop is at once an eye-opening grand tour of Hahn Niman’s battles with the industrial farming conglomerates, a guide to avoiding unhealthy meats, and a very personal story of one woman’s reawakening.
—Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food
“[A] necessary book—part memoir, part exposé…its reasoned case for healthy and humane farming practices has the sweet savor of truth.”
— O The Oprah Magazine A crusading environmental activist, vegetarian, and lawyer who has worked with Robert Kennedy, Jr. on environment issues, Nicolette Hahn Niman blows the lid off the shocking practices in the pork, meat, and poultry industries in Righteous Porkchop , a Fast Food Nation for the hog trade. Subtitled, “Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond the Factory Farm,” Righteous Porkchop is at once an eye-opening grand tour of Hahn Niman’s battles with the industrial farming conglomerates, a guide to avoiding unhealthy meats, and a very personal story of one woman’s reawakening.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2009
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October 15, 2009
For many years, I thought I had been doing the right thing, eating the right foods and watching out for my health. I thought I was an environmentalist, caring about the preservation and good stewardship of the natural world we live in.
Holy cow, was I wrong.
Some time ago, I was reading another good book about human behavior, and what is required for us to behave against our own values. Compartmentalization was a concept I came to understand is absolutely necessary for most of us to act in ways that are not in accordance to our own values. To do wrong, we must push out of our awareness the realization of consequences to our actions. We must stuff things into a locked away place and live in denial.
Picture the mind as a house with many rooms, each with a door. Well, there was this room in my mind … and it had a door, and I had firmly closed it. Inside that room was a vague realization that animal abuse was happening in order to put food on my plate. Gee, I love that steak, that juicy burger, that slab of bacon! Did I really want to know how it got there?
Now I know. The door to that room is wide open, and I have no intention of closing it again. Once most of us are aware, most of us do change our behavior. Most of us, when you get down to it, are pretty nice people. Most of us want to do the right thing and we love our pets, we love the natural world around us, and we care to preserve it.
So how is it that our supermarkets are filled with food produced in food factories, by an industrialized form of agriculture that is fast ruining our environment and obliterating a type of lifestyle many of us find admirable? How is it that we tolerate the cruelest forms of animal abuse imaginable? And consider this: we don’t have to. We can still enjoy that steak, sizzle that bacon, and chow down on that juicy burger. Yes, we can have our delicious porkchop and eat it, too.
The person breaking down my denial door is author Nicolette Hahn Niman. Assigned to write a story about food production and food activism for the Kalamazoo College alumni magazine, I introduced myself to Nicolette when she (an alumnae) visited the college campus. She was talking to a rapt audience about her new book, Righteous Porkchop. Slides illustrating her experiences as a food activist working for Bobby Kennedy, Jr. added images to her words, and I’m pretty sure I could hear doors flying open throughout that room.
Niman had grown up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, majored in biology at Kalamazoo College, and had been raised in a family that shopped for local foods before it was something of a fad (a good one) to do so. By the time she was an adult, she was a vegetarian, and she considered herself pretty safe in thinking she was not participating in livestock abuse. But wait. She was still enjoying dairy products. She was still eating eggs and cheese. She still had an occasional meal of fish.
And me? I’ve been eating skinless chicken breasts that I purchased at the supermarket in frozen bags, along with salmon fillets, and only the occasional chunk of red meat. That’s good, right?
Wrong.
Niman’s wake up call was when she heard Bobby Kennedy, Jr. speak in Kalamazoo. That talk led to a meeting that led to a job offer. Nicolette was offered a job to work for Kennedy as a food activist. She would have to know a lot about pigs and a lot about, well, pig poop. Dream job? Turns out, it was. Nicolette had some political savvy already, having served as a city commissioner in Kalamazoo, but now she was traveling the country investigating industrialized food production.
In his foreword to Niman’s book, Kennedy writes: “The waste from hog factories is prodigious. A hog facility with 100,000 animals can produce the same amount of fecal waste as a city of one million people… Waste from these factories can contain a witch’s brew of nearly 400 dangerous substances—including heavy metals, antibiotics, biocides, chemical disinfectants, pesticides and disease-causing viruses and microbes.”
A necessary evil? You may be thinking … jobs in a lousy economy, maybe?
Kennedy writes: “Each pig factory puts family farmers out of business, replacing high-quality agricultural jobs with hourly-wage workers in degrading positions that are among the lowest paid and most dangerous in the United States. Because the animals are fed and watered by computer and are given almost no husbandry, as few as two workers may tend an operation with ten thousand pigs. Conditions are so miserable that employees seldom endure these jobs for more than a few months. Major slaughterhouses, including those owned by Smithfield, typically have a 100 percent annual employee turnover rate.”
But surely that nagging global problem of hunger?
Niman writes: “Global food production has actually outpaced population growth. Every year the world produces enough wheat, rice, and other grains to provide 4.3 pounds of food per person per day (including two and a half pounds of grain, beans, and nuts, a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly a pound of meat, milk, and eggs.) Moreover, in the last four decades, per capita food production has grown 16 percent faster than the world’s population, meaning there is now more food per person available on the planet than ever before in history. Clearly, abundance is not an issue.”
I’m hearing a chorus of belches at the buffet table by now, but it is coming from only one side of the table. Niman is right. We have only to look around at our epidemic of obesity to realize the table has a shorter leg on one side, all the food sliding into one set of mouths at one end of the table, while the other end is left high and dry. It is not about abundance; it is about distribution. Hunger is about poverty. If people have the resources and the means with which to purchase or grow their own food, they will not go hungry. This call is to focus our efforts where they belong—on eliminating poverty.
So let’s get back to what are the real issues at hand: the ills of industrialized food production. And I choose the word “ill” with multiple purpose. To read Niman’s account, the results of her nationwide research, in-person visits to food factories and feedlots and slaughterhouses is enough to make you ill. And it should. And it does. Because the abusive conditions of these great numbers of confined animals, purposefully (and don’t doubt that purpose, just think “out of sight, out of mind”) kept behind closed doors where most of us will never see what is really going on, is also making the animals ill. Living creatures, no matter what kind, need a few basics to survive and thrive: fresh air, exercise, good food. Subtract all of these, as industrialized food production does, and you have to substitute growth hormones, antibiotics, tranquilizers, steroids, and a host of other drugs just to keep these animals alive.
I stopped eating veal decades ago. All it took was seeing one photograph. That photograph appeared in Time magazine, and I can see it vividly in my mind still. It is a black and white photograph of a tiny newborn calf, standing wobbly and great-eyed in a wooden crate which prevented any and all movement. That crate prevents movement because people like tender meat. That is, meat without muscle. Get the picture? To prevent any movement that might develop muscle, that baby animal is crated for all its living days so that you can eat a tender piece of veal.
I was an easy convert. I already had one foot in the crate, or out of it. But Niman’s book led me into the immense metal barracks that hold battery cages of thousands upon thousands of chickens, the cages that hold pigs until they start to wave their heads back and forth and chew the air in what are visible signs of an animal going mad. Niman took me into the feedlot and the slaughterhouse, to realize that a disturbing number of animals are actually dismembered and gutted while still alive and fully conscious. Niman made me understand that we so little value the life of the chicken that after one year of holding these hens, their beaks cut off to prevent pecking each other out of stress, in cages so small that they cannot even turn around, that once they are considered “layed out,” they are sucked up into immense vacuums and dumped into bins with rotor blades to chop them up into mincemeat. Mind you, still alive. It's enough to make me put that drumstick down.
And this is necessary … why?
Which is Niman’s point. It is not only not necessary, it is, in fact, detrimental. This kind of food production is detrimental to animals, detrimental to human beings, detrimental to the environment. Wastes from confined animals end up in lagoons of liquefied manure that are often pumped into our water sources or allowed to seep into soil (the author writes about her helicopter adventures flying over these lagoons as food factory workers illegaly flush them into nearby rivers).
If you thought manure was a terrific fertilizer, you are right. But not in these incredible quantities. On traditional farms—those that we still try to sell to our children while singing ditties about Ol’ MacDonald had a farm—manure happens naturally, in quantities that can be used in soil to grow crops, and with the addition of sunshine, killing harmful bacteria. There’s a whole process there that works beautifully before we start super-sizing it and messing with it.
Instead, we have Mad Cow disease, and microbes flowing into streams and rivers and lakes. We have salmonella. We have noxious gasses that have been increasingly connected to a long list of ailments in anyone unlucky enough to live anywhere in the vicinity of modern agriculture. We have a growing mountain of evidence that industrialized farming is responsible for more climate-changing pollution than the auto industry and the cars we drive. Add to that statistics showing that Americans are throwing away more than half the food we produce in this country, and you can see that this is a recipe for disaster.
Just when I want to go screaming down that hall of suddenly open doors that have revealed to me the horrors of food factories, however, Niman lets some sunshine in the window. Yes, there is a better way. And we begin to understand that “progress” is not always foreword movement. Sometimes it is regression. Sometimes we have to go back to that place in the road where we took the wrong fork.
Traditional farming had it right all along. While there is always room for improvement, farming in a manner that raises animals in a humane and healthy manner produces better quality food. In other words, if you don’t give a hoot about the pig, consider all that flavor and nutrition you and your family are missing. Niman takes us from the feedlot into the gourmet kitchen, where chefs across the country are discovering—or rediscovering, if you will—that foods coming from traditional farms taste a lot better.
Our palettes have become desensitized, but once you taste the difference between meat that comes from an animal that has been grazing on grass and eating healthy foods (you don’t even want to know how much animal poop is being used as feed for other animals, but you should know, because you are the next animal in line), you won’t want to go back. Ever tasted a greenhouse tomato and then taken a bite out of vine-ripened tomato? Then you have an idea what this food adventure is all about. It’s a flavor explosion. (Yes, I've been on a food adventure of my own since reading this book, and it's been truly delicious. I had no idea what I was missing.)
Niman’s book is unnerving. It pounds sense into our compartmentalized brains. Every lie we have come to believe about food is gutted. The author shows us what is going on behind all those closed doors and hidden-away buildings. She gives practical advice about how to shop organic, and what the labels mean and don’t mean. "Natural" is often anything but. "Organic," well, usually. "Open-range" can mean the door is left open for a while on the food factory, or that a chicken foot may have touched cement for a moment, but not earth. This is an exposé, and she encourages voting with your fork.
Personally, I don’t think I have ever encountered an easier crusade to join. It just tastes so darn good. The laws are mostly already in place, Niman writes. It is just a matter of insisting our legislators enforce them. Government subsidies are supporting food factories and helping to destroy traditional farms. Get the government out of the way, and organic food will be a lot more reasonable in price. It’s a movement to reclaim our good health, live in a sustainable manner on our good earth, and simply to do the right thing with respect to all living beings.
Still not enough for you? Okay, fine. Niman also tells a terrific love story. Ever heard of a vegetarian who falls in love with a cattle rancher? Nicolette Hahn Niman is the wife of nationally respected cattle rancher Bill Niman, formerly of Niman Ranch (you may see that on your menu at quality restaurants). The two (plus young son Miles) are now living on a cattle ranch in California, raising beef cattle and heritage turkeys.
There you have it. A delicious cause that will make you feel good, and right with the world, when you sit down to dinner. A love story with a happy ending. A well-written and interesting read that has just enough facts and figures to put it on solid ground, but not so dry that you won’t want to turn the page. My pages kept zipping by. A horror story that will keep you up nights, too, and should … but it is one you can change. Start with this important book—and start voting with your fork.
~Zinta Aistars for The Smoking Poet Winter 2009-2010 Issue
Holy cow, was I wrong.
Some time ago, I was reading another good book about human behavior, and what is required for us to behave against our own values. Compartmentalization was a concept I came to understand is absolutely necessary for most of us to act in ways that are not in accordance to our own values. To do wrong, we must push out of our awareness the realization of consequences to our actions. We must stuff things into a locked away place and live in denial.
Picture the mind as a house with many rooms, each with a door. Well, there was this room in my mind … and it had a door, and I had firmly closed it. Inside that room was a vague realization that animal abuse was happening in order to put food on my plate. Gee, I love that steak, that juicy burger, that slab of bacon! Did I really want to know how it got there?
Now I know. The door to that room is wide open, and I have no intention of closing it again. Once most of us are aware, most of us do change our behavior. Most of us, when you get down to it, are pretty nice people. Most of us want to do the right thing and we love our pets, we love the natural world around us, and we care to preserve it.
So how is it that our supermarkets are filled with food produced in food factories, by an industrialized form of agriculture that is fast ruining our environment and obliterating a type of lifestyle many of us find admirable? How is it that we tolerate the cruelest forms of animal abuse imaginable? And consider this: we don’t have to. We can still enjoy that steak, sizzle that bacon, and chow down on that juicy burger. Yes, we can have our delicious porkchop and eat it, too.
The person breaking down my denial door is author Nicolette Hahn Niman. Assigned to write a story about food production and food activism for the Kalamazoo College alumni magazine, I introduced myself to Nicolette when she (an alumnae) visited the college campus. She was talking to a rapt audience about her new book, Righteous Porkchop. Slides illustrating her experiences as a food activist working for Bobby Kennedy, Jr. added images to her words, and I’m pretty sure I could hear doors flying open throughout that room.
Niman had grown up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, majored in biology at Kalamazoo College, and had been raised in a family that shopped for local foods before it was something of a fad (a good one) to do so. By the time she was an adult, she was a vegetarian, and she considered herself pretty safe in thinking she was not participating in livestock abuse. But wait. She was still enjoying dairy products. She was still eating eggs and cheese. She still had an occasional meal of fish.
And me? I’ve been eating skinless chicken breasts that I purchased at the supermarket in frozen bags, along with salmon fillets, and only the occasional chunk of red meat. That’s good, right?
Wrong.
Niman’s wake up call was when she heard Bobby Kennedy, Jr. speak in Kalamazoo. That talk led to a meeting that led to a job offer. Nicolette was offered a job to work for Kennedy as a food activist. She would have to know a lot about pigs and a lot about, well, pig poop. Dream job? Turns out, it was. Nicolette had some political savvy already, having served as a city commissioner in Kalamazoo, but now she was traveling the country investigating industrialized food production.
In his foreword to Niman’s book, Kennedy writes: “The waste from hog factories is prodigious. A hog facility with 100,000 animals can produce the same amount of fecal waste as a city of one million people… Waste from these factories can contain a witch’s brew of nearly 400 dangerous substances—including heavy metals, antibiotics, biocides, chemical disinfectants, pesticides and disease-causing viruses and microbes.”
A necessary evil? You may be thinking … jobs in a lousy economy, maybe?
Kennedy writes: “Each pig factory puts family farmers out of business, replacing high-quality agricultural jobs with hourly-wage workers in degrading positions that are among the lowest paid and most dangerous in the United States. Because the animals are fed and watered by computer and are given almost no husbandry, as few as two workers may tend an operation with ten thousand pigs. Conditions are so miserable that employees seldom endure these jobs for more than a few months. Major slaughterhouses, including those owned by Smithfield, typically have a 100 percent annual employee turnover rate.”
But surely that nagging global problem of hunger?
Niman writes: “Global food production has actually outpaced population growth. Every year the world produces enough wheat, rice, and other grains to provide 4.3 pounds of food per person per day (including two and a half pounds of grain, beans, and nuts, a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly a pound of meat, milk, and eggs.) Moreover, in the last four decades, per capita food production has grown 16 percent faster than the world’s population, meaning there is now more food per person available on the planet than ever before in history. Clearly, abundance is not an issue.”
I’m hearing a chorus of belches at the buffet table by now, but it is coming from only one side of the table. Niman is right. We have only to look around at our epidemic of obesity to realize the table has a shorter leg on one side, all the food sliding into one set of mouths at one end of the table, while the other end is left high and dry. It is not about abundance; it is about distribution. Hunger is about poverty. If people have the resources and the means with which to purchase or grow their own food, they will not go hungry. This call is to focus our efforts where they belong—on eliminating poverty.
So let’s get back to what are the real issues at hand: the ills of industrialized food production. And I choose the word “ill” with multiple purpose. To read Niman’s account, the results of her nationwide research, in-person visits to food factories and feedlots and slaughterhouses is enough to make you ill. And it should. And it does. Because the abusive conditions of these great numbers of confined animals, purposefully (and don’t doubt that purpose, just think “out of sight, out of mind”) kept behind closed doors where most of us will never see what is really going on, is also making the animals ill. Living creatures, no matter what kind, need a few basics to survive and thrive: fresh air, exercise, good food. Subtract all of these, as industrialized food production does, and you have to substitute growth hormones, antibiotics, tranquilizers, steroids, and a host of other drugs just to keep these animals alive.
I stopped eating veal decades ago. All it took was seeing one photograph. That photograph appeared in Time magazine, and I can see it vividly in my mind still. It is a black and white photograph of a tiny newborn calf, standing wobbly and great-eyed in a wooden crate which prevented any and all movement. That crate prevents movement because people like tender meat. That is, meat without muscle. Get the picture? To prevent any movement that might develop muscle, that baby animal is crated for all its living days so that you can eat a tender piece of veal.
I was an easy convert. I already had one foot in the crate, or out of it. But Niman’s book led me into the immense metal barracks that hold battery cages of thousands upon thousands of chickens, the cages that hold pigs until they start to wave their heads back and forth and chew the air in what are visible signs of an animal going mad. Niman took me into the feedlot and the slaughterhouse, to realize that a disturbing number of animals are actually dismembered and gutted while still alive and fully conscious. Niman made me understand that we so little value the life of the chicken that after one year of holding these hens, their beaks cut off to prevent pecking each other out of stress, in cages so small that they cannot even turn around, that once they are considered “layed out,” they are sucked up into immense vacuums and dumped into bins with rotor blades to chop them up into mincemeat. Mind you, still alive. It's enough to make me put that drumstick down.
And this is necessary … why?
Which is Niman’s point. It is not only not necessary, it is, in fact, detrimental. This kind of food production is detrimental to animals, detrimental to human beings, detrimental to the environment. Wastes from confined animals end up in lagoons of liquefied manure that are often pumped into our water sources or allowed to seep into soil (the author writes about her helicopter adventures flying over these lagoons as food factory workers illegaly flush them into nearby rivers).
If you thought manure was a terrific fertilizer, you are right. But not in these incredible quantities. On traditional farms—those that we still try to sell to our children while singing ditties about Ol’ MacDonald had a farm—manure happens naturally, in quantities that can be used in soil to grow crops, and with the addition of sunshine, killing harmful bacteria. There’s a whole process there that works beautifully before we start super-sizing it and messing with it.
Instead, we have Mad Cow disease, and microbes flowing into streams and rivers and lakes. We have salmonella. We have noxious gasses that have been increasingly connected to a long list of ailments in anyone unlucky enough to live anywhere in the vicinity of modern agriculture. We have a growing mountain of evidence that industrialized farming is responsible for more climate-changing pollution than the auto industry and the cars we drive. Add to that statistics showing that Americans are throwing away more than half the food we produce in this country, and you can see that this is a recipe for disaster.
Just when I want to go screaming down that hall of suddenly open doors that have revealed to me the horrors of food factories, however, Niman lets some sunshine in the window. Yes, there is a better way. And we begin to understand that “progress” is not always foreword movement. Sometimes it is regression. Sometimes we have to go back to that place in the road where we took the wrong fork.
Traditional farming had it right all along. While there is always room for improvement, farming in a manner that raises animals in a humane and healthy manner produces better quality food. In other words, if you don’t give a hoot about the pig, consider all that flavor and nutrition you and your family are missing. Niman takes us from the feedlot into the gourmet kitchen, where chefs across the country are discovering—or rediscovering, if you will—that foods coming from traditional farms taste a lot better.
Our palettes have become desensitized, but once you taste the difference between meat that comes from an animal that has been grazing on grass and eating healthy foods (you don’t even want to know how much animal poop is being used as feed for other animals, but you should know, because you are the next animal in line), you won’t want to go back. Ever tasted a greenhouse tomato and then taken a bite out of vine-ripened tomato? Then you have an idea what this food adventure is all about. It’s a flavor explosion. (Yes, I've been on a food adventure of my own since reading this book, and it's been truly delicious. I had no idea what I was missing.)
Niman’s book is unnerving. It pounds sense into our compartmentalized brains. Every lie we have come to believe about food is gutted. The author shows us what is going on behind all those closed doors and hidden-away buildings. She gives practical advice about how to shop organic, and what the labels mean and don’t mean. "Natural" is often anything but. "Organic," well, usually. "Open-range" can mean the door is left open for a while on the food factory, or that a chicken foot may have touched cement for a moment, but not earth. This is an exposé, and she encourages voting with your fork.
Personally, I don’t think I have ever encountered an easier crusade to join. It just tastes so darn good. The laws are mostly already in place, Niman writes. It is just a matter of insisting our legislators enforce them. Government subsidies are supporting food factories and helping to destroy traditional farms. Get the government out of the way, and organic food will be a lot more reasonable in price. It’s a movement to reclaim our good health, live in a sustainable manner on our good earth, and simply to do the right thing with respect to all living beings.
Still not enough for you? Okay, fine. Niman also tells a terrific love story. Ever heard of a vegetarian who falls in love with a cattle rancher? Nicolette Hahn Niman is the wife of nationally respected cattle rancher Bill Niman, formerly of Niman Ranch (you may see that on your menu at quality restaurants). The two (plus young son Miles) are now living on a cattle ranch in California, raising beef cattle and heritage turkeys.
There you have it. A delicious cause that will make you feel good, and right with the world, when you sit down to dinner. A love story with a happy ending. A well-written and interesting read that has just enough facts and figures to put it on solid ground, but not so dry that you won’t want to turn the page. My pages kept zipping by. A horror story that will keep you up nights, too, and should … but it is one you can change. Start with this important book—and start voting with your fork.
~Zinta Aistars for The Smoking Poet Winter 2009-2010 Issue
June 28, 2010
One of the best books I've read in years. this was a really well written book on industrial farming. She starts with the hog industry in NC, and how the closed containment farms are a disaster for the environment, the polluted rivers and estuaries are a result of the manure and urine of the hogs. And how superbugs/viruses have developed as a result of antibiotics that are added to the daily feed of the animals (pig, chicken) living in crowded, stressed, disease laden envirnoments. The antibx come out in the manure, which is collected in manure lagoons, disgusting, which then has to be disseminated somewhere - sometimes onto corn and soy fields, sometimes directly onto pastures that cows are crazing on. (yuck). Illegal dumping is commonplace, and it ends up in the groundwater, poisoning fish and plant life. She goes on to talk about all animal farming - dairy, meat cattle, chicken, egg, fish farming. I'll be buying this book as a gift for years to come. Everyone should read it to become aware of where their food comes from, it isn't a book that tries to make you a veggie, just an informed consumer. And she provides a compelling argument that our meat/eggs/milk don't have to be produced this way, smaller farms can be more economically feasible. And certainly healthier for all of us. Read it.
August 26, 2026
Good. How animals are raised for meat, milk, or eggs. Mostly pretty bad. How big ag gets away with lots of illegal stuff, pollution, especially; and how that pollution from liquid manure makes such problems for waterways and fish. Really disturbing. What we can do to counteract it. Where/ how to find good animal products to eat.
February 25, 2026
Nicolette Niman. What a life she has lived! This book is a must read for animal advocates, environmentalists, and anyone wondering where their food comes from. I would lump this novel into the genre of “how could we, as human beings, let it get THIS bad?” I will undoubtedly never shop at a grocery store the same after reading such a great story. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair gave my brain the itch. Righteous Porkchop has helped me scratch it.
March 24, 2012
If you are going to read a book about where food comes from, read this one.
This title was chosen for the 2012 Linn Area Reads program - which brings the community together through reading a single book. I started too late to participate in the book discussions but am excited about the various events in the next few months including meeting the author!
At first glance I thought this book would be similar to Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals: part memoir, part indictment of the industrial food industry. Both books look at different segments of big ag animal business: beef, pork, poultry, seafood, etc. But Righteous Porkchop is the better book by far.
Foer's book is very focused on eliciting gut responses: for example the section page 24 is called "The case for eating dogs." Niman never pulls any PR punches like that. She presents her case methodically and rationally but does not lack readability. Righteous Porkchop is part-memoir because Niman's life has become about the issue of factory farms and the threat they pose to animals, to small farmers, to the environment, and to us. Her life has become irrevocably intertwined with these issues and that keeps her interjections of personal stories grounded in this book.
Righteous Porkchop is not a vegetarian manifesto (although Niman is a vegetarian, she is also a cattle rancher). Instead it is an argument for humane and responsible treatment and raising of animals that provide us with milk, eggs, and meat. Niman writes that current large scale industrial practices hurt local economies and small farms, maintain low costs only by polluting our air, water, and ground and by using tax dollars for subsidies unavailable to small farmers, and by taking animals away from nature so that they suffer.
But the biggest and best part of this book (in my opinion) is that Niman argues (and provides in my mind) that these practices are not necessary - for example she writes that the same number of pigs are raised in the United States today as were at the start of the 20th century. The difference is that much larger numbers are raised on a much smaller number of farms. This bad for the pigs, its bad for the environment (TONS of POO anyone?), and its bad for us (the result is less flavorful meat that is raised with antibiotics and is contributing to antibiotic-resistant bacteria).
Instead, we should "vote with our fork" for meat and animal products that are raised humanely, responsibly, and sustainably.
This title was chosen for the 2012 Linn Area Reads program - which brings the community together through reading a single book. I started too late to participate in the book discussions but am excited about the various events in the next few months including meeting the author!
At first glance I thought this book would be similar to Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals: part memoir, part indictment of the industrial food industry. Both books look at different segments of big ag animal business: beef, pork, poultry, seafood, etc. But Righteous Porkchop is the better book by far.
Foer's book is very focused on eliciting gut responses: for example the section page 24 is called "The case for eating dogs." Niman never pulls any PR punches like that. She presents her case methodically and rationally but does not lack readability. Righteous Porkchop is part-memoir because Niman's life has become about the issue of factory farms and the threat they pose to animals, to small farmers, to the environment, and to us. Her life has become irrevocably intertwined with these issues and that keeps her interjections of personal stories grounded in this book.
Righteous Porkchop is not a vegetarian manifesto (although Niman is a vegetarian, she is also a cattle rancher). Instead it is an argument for humane and responsible treatment and raising of animals that provide us with milk, eggs, and meat. Niman writes that current large scale industrial practices hurt local economies and small farms, maintain low costs only by polluting our air, water, and ground and by using tax dollars for subsidies unavailable to small farmers, and by taking animals away from nature so that they suffer.
But the biggest and best part of this book (in my opinion) is that Niman argues (and provides in my mind) that these practices are not necessary - for example she writes that the same number of pigs are raised in the United States today as were at the start of the 20th century. The difference is that much larger numbers are raised on a much smaller number of farms. This bad for the pigs, its bad for the environment (TONS of POO anyone?), and its bad for us (the result is less flavorful meat that is raised with antibiotics and is contributing to antibiotic-resistant bacteria).
Instead, we should "vote with our fork" for meat and animal products that are raised humanely, responsibly, and sustainably.
July 20, 2010
"While I fully accept the appropriateness of humans raising animals for food, I do not accept that humans have a right to treat animals cruelly in the process, least of all for the purpose of higher profits"
That sentiment about sums up the philosophy of Nicolette Hahn Niman after a books worth of life-journey and immersion in the practices of producing food from animals.
Bobby Kennedy, Jr decides to set his Waterkeepers organization after the confinement pork industry because of the strain they put on the natural systems they inhabit. He hires attorney Niman to be the point person. Niman happily abandons her Manhattan life for the role of environmental activist. In the first part of the book we learn the confinement meat industry and the harms that can come of it. We also meet farmers who have avoided the trap of industrial production, developing a culture of respect for nature and the animals.
Our author eventually moves on from the Waterkeepers campaign, lives a little more life, does a little more activism, and marries one of the good farmers she has come to know. She moves to his California ranch and throws herself in to the life of a ranch wife. She discovers the joys of raising animals in the traditional ways and comes to love the work and rhythms of ranching.
She ends with a summary of the progress she sees in the holistic ranching world and a plea to consumers to be more concerned about the source of their food.
I had already read Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" and it had helped me see some of the ways our society has gone wrong in our constant efforts to make more and make it cheaper. This book puts an exclamation point on the issue. Nicolette Hahn Niman is a good writer. She is well versed in her subject and she is passionate about the state of our food supply. Don't read this book if you want to keep getting your regular meat supply at the supermarket or if you don't want to be put off the occasional quarter pounder. Do read it if you want to know what we are capable of doing to ourselves in the name of "efficiency" and how you can turn your back on that system.
That sentiment about sums up the philosophy of Nicolette Hahn Niman after a books worth of life-journey and immersion in the practices of producing food from animals.
Bobby Kennedy, Jr decides to set his Waterkeepers organization after the confinement pork industry because of the strain they put on the natural systems they inhabit. He hires attorney Niman to be the point person. Niman happily abandons her Manhattan life for the role of environmental activist. In the first part of the book we learn the confinement meat industry and the harms that can come of it. We also meet farmers who have avoided the trap of industrial production, developing a culture of respect for nature and the animals.
Our author eventually moves on from the Waterkeepers campaign, lives a little more life, does a little more activism, and marries one of the good farmers she has come to know. She moves to his California ranch and throws herself in to the life of a ranch wife. She discovers the joys of raising animals in the traditional ways and comes to love the work and rhythms of ranching.
She ends with a summary of the progress she sees in the holistic ranching world and a plea to consumers to be more concerned about the source of their food.
I had already read Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" and it had helped me see some of the ways our society has gone wrong in our constant efforts to make more and make it cheaper. This book puts an exclamation point on the issue. Nicolette Hahn Niman is a good writer. She is well versed in her subject and she is passionate about the state of our food supply. Don't read this book if you want to keep getting your regular meat supply at the supermarket or if you don't want to be put off the occasional quarter pounder. Do read it if you want to know what we are capable of doing to ourselves in the name of "efficiency" and how you can turn your back on that system.
February 14, 2020
This book is over ten years old at this point, so some of the information is out of date, but I still think it is worth the read. The chapters about industrial chicken operations, pig farms, beef, dairy, and farmed fish are an excellent crash course for those concerned about industrial animal husbandry (if it can even be called that still) but not looking for vitriolic non-meat propaganda. Additionally, the second to last chapter, "Answering Obstacles to Reform" also provides a broad answer to the many excuses often given by industrial agriculture. No, industrial agriculture is not economic Darwinism, it is not an economy of scale, and we do not need to revert to it in order to feed the world's hungry. Niman does a thorough job of refuting these main points.
The reason I'm only giving this book three stars is because of two things: it's starry-eyed love affair with traditional farming, and it's blatant privilege in food sourcing. Let's start with that traditional farming bit. I am a traditional farmer, raising hogs, meat chickens, and laying hens by hand on pasture. There are, indeed, many romantic parts to it. But it is hard work, and often stinky work, and a hard field to break into if you don't already have access to land, and equipment, and equity. Niman makes the dairy and turkey farms she visited sound like bucolic little wells of eternal profit. I'm not saying a family farm can't turn a profit, but it doesn't just happen from hanging out with the cows all day. In fact, Niman Ranch, the farm owned by her husband, was bought out itself after disagreements arose in management. Niman's new ranch, BN ranch, is now owned by Blue Apron. So while they tout the romanticism of the free market and small family farm, the Nimans do not seem to be dancing to that tune, themselves.
Second, Niman dedicates a whole chapter to how we need to start seeking out our food from better sources, spending more time and money on it. In theory, I agree with her wholeheartedly. And for someone in my position or in hers (plenty of disposable time and at least close to enough disposable income), this is fine advice. But what about the single mom who works two jobs? What about the sandwich generation couple taking care of a parent with dementia and a child struggling with ADD? What about the undocumented immigrant who isn't yet fluent in English and quite frankly terrified of interacting with the (predominantly white, affluent) farmer's market crowd? It matters to them what they eat, too, but they often lack the resources (aka time and money) to make it into the personal hobby that Niman has. This chapter in particular seems blissfully ignorant of that fact.
Those two criticisms aside, I stand by my original opinion that it is worth the read. Even as someone well-versed in the industry, I found Niman's history of industrialization illuminating, and learned much about early industrialized agriculture that I did not know. But you don't have to be in agriculture to enjoy it - even the layman will find it a fascinating read. And, I hope, it will do what Niman sets forth as her goal: inspire everyone to be a more conscious consumer (I would add the caveat of "when they can"), and encourage us to actively engage in changing food policy, whether it be voting with our fork or voting for like-minded representatives, publicly calling for change, and continuing to educate ourselves about the system that touches all other parts of our lives: food.
The reason I'm only giving this book three stars is because of two things: it's starry-eyed love affair with traditional farming, and it's blatant privilege in food sourcing. Let's start with that traditional farming bit. I am a traditional farmer, raising hogs, meat chickens, and laying hens by hand on pasture. There are, indeed, many romantic parts to it. But it is hard work, and often stinky work, and a hard field to break into if you don't already have access to land, and equipment, and equity. Niman makes the dairy and turkey farms she visited sound like bucolic little wells of eternal profit. I'm not saying a family farm can't turn a profit, but it doesn't just happen from hanging out with the cows all day. In fact, Niman Ranch, the farm owned by her husband, was bought out itself after disagreements arose in management. Niman's new ranch, BN ranch, is now owned by Blue Apron. So while they tout the romanticism of the free market and small family farm, the Nimans do not seem to be dancing to that tune, themselves.
Second, Niman dedicates a whole chapter to how we need to start seeking out our food from better sources, spending more time and money on it. In theory, I agree with her wholeheartedly. And for someone in my position or in hers (plenty of disposable time and at least close to enough disposable income), this is fine advice. But what about the single mom who works two jobs? What about the sandwich generation couple taking care of a parent with dementia and a child struggling with ADD? What about the undocumented immigrant who isn't yet fluent in English and quite frankly terrified of interacting with the (predominantly white, affluent) farmer's market crowd? It matters to them what they eat, too, but they often lack the resources (aka time and money) to make it into the personal hobby that Niman has. This chapter in particular seems blissfully ignorant of that fact.
Those two criticisms aside, I stand by my original opinion that it is worth the read. Even as someone well-versed in the industry, I found Niman's history of industrialization illuminating, and learned much about early industrialized agriculture that I did not know. But you don't have to be in agriculture to enjoy it - even the layman will find it a fascinating read. And, I hope, it will do what Niman sets forth as her goal: inspire everyone to be a more conscious consumer (I would add the caveat of "when they can"), and encourage us to actively engage in changing food policy, whether it be voting with our fork or voting for like-minded representatives, publicly calling for change, and continuing to educate ourselves about the system that touches all other parts of our lives: food.
July 14, 2024
AN INTERESTING VEGETARIAN DEFENSE OF "HUMANE" MEAT-EATING
Nicolette Hahn Niman is an environmental advocate and cattle rancher, and is also married to Bill Niman, the founder of Niman Ranch (e.g., 'Niman Ranch Cookbook: From Farm to Table with America's Finest Meat'), which attempts to raise food animals in a more humane environment.
While discussing modern meat production with a Sierra Club employee, she was told that "these aren't farms. They're FACTORIES!" (Pg. 7) She concludes that the disappearance of the family farm was not inevitable, but had been "aided by public policy and stimulated by individual entrepreneurs looking to maximize profits. Much of this 'progress' had occurred at the expense of farmers and animals." (Pg. 61)
She is shocked by the fact that at egg-producing operations, male chicks are killed almost at birth, and she observes, "I was baffled that anyone could consider a system 'progress' that throws away millions of newborn animals every year---one of every two live births." (Pg. 45) She details how the hens are "debeaked," because "hens' frustration and boredom caused them to aggressively peck each other." (Pg. 52) Similarly, pigs' tails are "docked" because the pigs in their crowded captive conditions bite each others' tails. (Pg. 108) By contrast, however, she finds that "most American beef cattle are raised in a way that I find morally acceptable." (Pg. 136)
She is no vegan, however, but a vegetarian. She deplores "how lots of vegans subsist on utterly unnatural foods... highly processed, industrial creations," such as pretend-meats, fake bacon, tofu jerky, etc. (Pg. 133) Noting that "I still eat eggs and dairy, plenty. My favorite foods include cheese, butter, yogurt, and ice cream (with eggs not far behind)," she now only uses products from "good farmers who treat their animals respectfully." (Pg. 176) Although she does not eat fish, she observes that with modern fish farming and the state of wild fisheries, "there are no good choices" about eating fish." (Pg. 218) [More controversially, she criticizes "vegan extremists" who feel that all meat-eaters are "a charter member of the axis of evil." (Pg. 258)]
Opinionated, this also a lively and heartfelt book that will be of particular interest to those non-vegetarians who are interested in more humane ways of raising animals for food.
Nicolette Hahn Niman is an environmental advocate and cattle rancher, and is also married to Bill Niman, the founder of Niman Ranch (e.g., 'Niman Ranch Cookbook: From Farm to Table with America's Finest Meat'), which attempts to raise food animals in a more humane environment.
While discussing modern meat production with a Sierra Club employee, she was told that "these aren't farms. They're FACTORIES!" (Pg. 7) She concludes that the disappearance of the family farm was not inevitable, but had been "aided by public policy and stimulated by individual entrepreneurs looking to maximize profits. Much of this 'progress' had occurred at the expense of farmers and animals." (Pg. 61)
She is shocked by the fact that at egg-producing operations, male chicks are killed almost at birth, and she observes, "I was baffled that anyone could consider a system 'progress' that throws away millions of newborn animals every year---one of every two live births." (Pg. 45) She details how the hens are "debeaked," because "hens' frustration and boredom caused them to aggressively peck each other." (Pg. 52) Similarly, pigs' tails are "docked" because the pigs in their crowded captive conditions bite each others' tails. (Pg. 108) By contrast, however, she finds that "most American beef cattle are raised in a way that I find morally acceptable." (Pg. 136)
She is no vegan, however, but a vegetarian. She deplores "how lots of vegans subsist on utterly unnatural foods... highly processed, industrial creations," such as pretend-meats, fake bacon, tofu jerky, etc. (Pg. 133) Noting that "I still eat eggs and dairy, plenty. My favorite foods include cheese, butter, yogurt, and ice cream (with eggs not far behind)," she now only uses products from "good farmers who treat their animals respectfully." (Pg. 176) Although she does not eat fish, she observes that with modern fish farming and the state of wild fisheries, "there are no good choices" about eating fish." (Pg. 218) [More controversially, she criticizes "vegan extremists" who feel that all meat-eaters are "a charter member of the axis of evil." (Pg. 258)]
Opinionated, this also a lively and heartfelt book that will be of particular interest to those non-vegetarians who are interested in more humane ways of raising animals for food.
August 27, 2017
Los humanos necesitamos entender que no somos dueños de lo que nos rodea. En el camino, la autora se enamoró de una industria diferente y al final termina pidiéndo a la audiencia que seamos conscientes con lo que consumimos. Yo creo que nos hace falta el siguiente paso, ¿cómo se provoca la consciencia?
Leer: Defending Beef: The Case for Sustainable Meat Production (también de Nicolette Hahn Niman).
Leer: Defending Beef: The Case for Sustainable Meat Production (también de Nicolette Hahn Niman).
September 1, 2017
This book was extremely influential in my understanding of where meat comes from and the horrible condition of farmers and animals in CAFOs.
Honestly, if you're choosing between Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma (which I also loved) and this one, I think Niman's book is harder-hitting and highlights the effects of CAFOs on the environment and farmers better than his. (Although she focuses primarily on Pork.)
Honestly, if you're choosing between Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma (which I also loved) and this one, I think Niman's book is harder-hitting and highlights the effects of CAFOs on the environment and farmers better than his. (Although she focuses primarily on Pork.)
April 21, 2024
Terrific book but written in 2009. I'd love to see an update on this issue. But I suspect that Big Food and Big Ag are still buying science to sway their way and politicians who look the other way. Kudos for acknowledging that pasture grown beef is actually one of our cleanest and best for the planet meats. No manure lagoons and crazy chemical soup by-products released into the food or environment. And much more humane than caged pigs and chickens.
May 3, 2012
Part documentary on modern farming, part memoir, Niman tells what she learned on her journey through battling pollution by industrial ag companies and her relationship with the sustainable farming advocate and cattle rancher she eventually married.
My frustration with her book is that I feel like she tries to make her argument through two distinct methods: her thorough research, which really got me to rethink things; and her claims of the moral superiority of traditional farming, which made me want to throw the book across the room and never pick it up again.
This is where I need to put in the fact that I grew up on a hog farm that became increasingly confinement based, so my focus may be a little hog-centric, but Niman does a good job of detailing the history and development of industrial farming for several kinds of livestock. It also means that I came into this book with some pretty strong opinions of advocates against industrial farming methods.
When it came to hog farming I was completely swayed by her argument that environmental regulations have been manipulated by the corporate farms to either be too lax or poorly enforced, but when she tried to transition that into arguing that all hog confinement facilities are inherently bad I didn't see the same well-reasoned argument laid out. Clearly there are problems in the pork industry stemming from mismanagement and more attention to profit than animal welfare, but that doesn't mean that all confinement facilities are run that way and can't be run in a responsible way.
When she visits a hog confinement facility run by a farmer clearly concerned with the welfare of his animals, her tone gives away the fact that she has already passed judgement before inspecting the building. She keeps referring to confinement buildings as "depressing" and "dreary". When she's allowed to pick up one of the baby pigs she thinks that she's shown this pig "the sole taste of human kindness [it] will ever know." As someone who's main chores in high school involved caring for new piglets in a confinement facility, I can tell you she's flat-out wrong that farmers never show kindness to the animals in confinement buildings.
On the other hand, when she visits her husband's feedlot, the area of beef production she admits there are some problems with, she instantly assesses the animals as healthy and happy. That was the way I felt about visiting my farrowing houses. I talked to the sows as I made my rounds through the building each morning and made sure to give each piglet personal attention as I processed new litters. I was proud of my happy pigs. But just like her assumption that all confinement raised hogs are unhappy, neither one is clear evidence as to the actual condition of hogs raised in confinement buildings.
The moralizing tone continues as she visits more farms associated with her husband's sustainable farming brand and farms considering joining Niman Ranch. Everything is wonderful and rosy here. The one dead calf she talks about is a wonderful story of getting the dead calf's mother to foster another calf who's mother is sick. Whereas when she visits an industrialized dairy farm, the one dead calf there is grimly documented as evidence of what a terrible place this is.
Her smug, condescending tone pissed me off so much because this book has so much promise. She's clearly done her research and she makes a lot of good points, but the attitude she took during the tours of hog facilities, that she automatically knew more than the folks who were raising these animals for a living, made me want to disregard all the well laid out research that had preceded. When she brushed off the eager industrial farmers as poor misguided souls, I wanted to ask what she would realistically do in their shoes.
To be fair, one of the final chapters goes into more detail about the manipulations of agribusiness giving family farmers little choice but to fall in line with the industrial methods they espouse, but it still feels like she doesn't see these farmers as individuals unless they're running traditional, pasture-based operations. While she does a great job of pointing out the rigged system created by agribusiness that has forced most family farmers into adopting at least some industrialization, she can't help lumping all non-pasture farming into the same inherently evil bunch, which gets back to the whole reason why I want to discount everything she says, despite the fact that her research is pretty solid.
Normally I like non-fiction with a little personality, but from Niman I would much rather read a book of just her research than a book interspersed with her personal stories of all the morally superior decisions she's made during her life.
I realize I'm focusing on what I hate in this review, when really it was more of a 50/50 split for me. The research and history of how current farming practices got to the place they are today really was enlightening. While I don't agree with all the arguments she makes, I will agree with her on the importance of learning more about where your food comes from and putting more pressure on governments to protect family farmers who have the welfare of their community and livestock in the forefront over corporate agribusiness, which appears to care solely about profit, to the detriment of rural communities' social and environmental welfare.
My frustration with her book is that I feel like she tries to make her argument through two distinct methods: her thorough research, which really got me to rethink things; and her claims of the moral superiority of traditional farming, which made me want to throw the book across the room and never pick it up again.
This is where I need to put in the fact that I grew up on a hog farm that became increasingly confinement based, so my focus may be a little hog-centric, but Niman does a good job of detailing the history and development of industrial farming for several kinds of livestock. It also means that I came into this book with some pretty strong opinions of advocates against industrial farming methods.
When it came to hog farming I was completely swayed by her argument that environmental regulations have been manipulated by the corporate farms to either be too lax or poorly enforced, but when she tried to transition that into arguing that all hog confinement facilities are inherently bad I didn't see the same well-reasoned argument laid out. Clearly there are problems in the pork industry stemming from mismanagement and more attention to profit than animal welfare, but that doesn't mean that all confinement facilities are run that way and can't be run in a responsible way.
When she visits a hog confinement facility run by a farmer clearly concerned with the welfare of his animals, her tone gives away the fact that she has already passed judgement before inspecting the building. She keeps referring to confinement buildings as "depressing" and "dreary". When she's allowed to pick up one of the baby pigs she thinks that she's shown this pig "the sole taste of human kindness [it] will ever know." As someone who's main chores in high school involved caring for new piglets in a confinement facility, I can tell you she's flat-out wrong that farmers never show kindness to the animals in confinement buildings.
On the other hand, when she visits her husband's feedlot, the area of beef production she admits there are some problems with, she instantly assesses the animals as healthy and happy. That was the way I felt about visiting my farrowing houses. I talked to the sows as I made my rounds through the building each morning and made sure to give each piglet personal attention as I processed new litters. I was proud of my happy pigs. But just like her assumption that all confinement raised hogs are unhappy, neither one is clear evidence as to the actual condition of hogs raised in confinement buildings.
The moralizing tone continues as she visits more farms associated with her husband's sustainable farming brand and farms considering joining Niman Ranch. Everything is wonderful and rosy here. The one dead calf she talks about is a wonderful story of getting the dead calf's mother to foster another calf who's mother is sick. Whereas when she visits an industrialized dairy farm, the one dead calf there is grimly documented as evidence of what a terrible place this is.
Her smug, condescending tone pissed me off so much because this book has so much promise. She's clearly done her research and she makes a lot of good points, but the attitude she took during the tours of hog facilities, that she automatically knew more than the folks who were raising these animals for a living, made me want to disregard all the well laid out research that had preceded. When she brushed off the eager industrial farmers as poor misguided souls, I wanted to ask what she would realistically do in their shoes.
To be fair, one of the final chapters goes into more detail about the manipulations of agribusiness giving family farmers little choice but to fall in line with the industrial methods they espouse, but it still feels like she doesn't see these farmers as individuals unless they're running traditional, pasture-based operations. While she does a great job of pointing out the rigged system created by agribusiness that has forced most family farmers into adopting at least some industrialization, she can't help lumping all non-pasture farming into the same inherently evil bunch, which gets back to the whole reason why I want to discount everything she says, despite the fact that her research is pretty solid.
Normally I like non-fiction with a little personality, but from Niman I would much rather read a book of just her research than a book interspersed with her personal stories of all the morally superior decisions she's made during her life.
I realize I'm focusing on what I hate in this review, when really it was more of a 50/50 split for me. The research and history of how current farming practices got to the place they are today really was enlightening. While I don't agree with all the arguments she makes, I will agree with her on the importance of learning more about where your food comes from and putting more pressure on governments to protect family farmers who have the welfare of their community and livestock in the forefront over corporate agribusiness, which appears to care solely about profit, to the detriment of rural communities' social and environmental welfare.
July 15, 2018
What do you do if your dream home in a lush green rural area starts to get surrounded by hog farms? You sell before it gets too stinky. This book would be a great introduction to all those who are unaware about the dangers of CAFOs.
November 8, 2009
This book is part memoir, part history and partly just informative. It belongs to the same family as the current popular food reformers in the Michael Pollan camp, but it's distinctly separate as well.
The story begins with Niman's first experiences with industrial hog farming as Robert Kennedy Jr.'s lead attorney for his environmental action group, Waterkeepers. Legal drama interspersed with tales of environmental degradation and human interest stories made the whole thing pretty compelling, although Niman is neither a great poet nor journalist. I doubt the whole Law and Order meets donning muck boots and wading through poisonous pig shit thing is exciting to everyone.
I also liked the aside in the middle of this saga, a short but detailed history of twentieth century industrialized farming in the United States. There's not much new information, if you've already done some reading on the subject, but there's some good nuggets, and I really liked how historical facts are given the same credence as the subjective change in the lives of farm families and their animals throughout the experience of farm modernization.
After Niman leaves Waterkeepers due to a conflict with a manager, the book gets a little slow. Niman's bias against local food movements and toward the way her new husband runs his cattle ranch is off-putting. I think she would benefit from recognizing that she has the same message as people who advocate for local food... that it's not always about how far it's traveled, it's precisely that local food allows one to know their source and to support their local communities and ecosystems.
The reason I gave this book 4 stars instead of 2 stars is the chapter called Answering Obstacles to Reform. Niman succinctly offers answers to the questions continually fretted by agribusiness, answers that never seem to be fully addressed by any one person in the contemporary local/organic/workers' rights contingency. Is industrial farming necessary for the nutritional needs of the world, in any way, shape or form? Or for that matter, do technologies like genetic modification or breeding for maximum production really increase human quality of life? Numerous studies and the author's own well reasoned and intuitive qualitative observations decidedly point to no.
The book tends to drift towards an animal rights angle on the whole issue, which is kind of a no no in the moderate press, as Niman is all too aware. For her, this resolves itself into a defense of traditional farming, which I really appreciated. Those who see all farming as a form of animal slavery and torture get very little sympathy from her.
One major criticism I have is that the book was clearly written over a span of about 8 years (2000-2008) and the dated information in most of the book makes it feel like you're reading something that was written before the explosion of media concerning the same subject matter. A book published in 2009 should not leave you wondering what has transpired since 2002 concerning the broad range of interesting topics it covered.
The story begins with Niman's first experiences with industrial hog farming as Robert Kennedy Jr.'s lead attorney for his environmental action group, Waterkeepers. Legal drama interspersed with tales of environmental degradation and human interest stories made the whole thing pretty compelling, although Niman is neither a great poet nor journalist. I doubt the whole Law and Order meets donning muck boots and wading through poisonous pig shit thing is exciting to everyone.
I also liked the aside in the middle of this saga, a short but detailed history of twentieth century industrialized farming in the United States. There's not much new information, if you've already done some reading on the subject, but there's some good nuggets, and I really liked how historical facts are given the same credence as the subjective change in the lives of farm families and their animals throughout the experience of farm modernization.
After Niman leaves Waterkeepers due to a conflict with a manager, the book gets a little slow. Niman's bias against local food movements and toward the way her new husband runs his cattle ranch is off-putting. I think she would benefit from recognizing that she has the same message as people who advocate for local food... that it's not always about how far it's traveled, it's precisely that local food allows one to know their source and to support their local communities and ecosystems.
The reason I gave this book 4 stars instead of 2 stars is the chapter called Answering Obstacles to Reform. Niman succinctly offers answers to the questions continually fretted by agribusiness, answers that never seem to be fully addressed by any one person in the contemporary local/organic/workers' rights contingency. Is industrial farming necessary for the nutritional needs of the world, in any way, shape or form? Or for that matter, do technologies like genetic modification or breeding for maximum production really increase human quality of life? Numerous studies and the author's own well reasoned and intuitive qualitative observations decidedly point to no.
The book tends to drift towards an animal rights angle on the whole issue, which is kind of a no no in the moderate press, as Niman is all too aware. For her, this resolves itself into a defense of traditional farming, which I really appreciated. Those who see all farming as a form of animal slavery and torture get very little sympathy from her.
One major criticism I have is that the book was clearly written over a span of about 8 years (2000-2008) and the dated information in most of the book makes it feel like you're reading something that was written before the explosion of media concerning the same subject matter. A book published in 2009 should not leave you wondering what has transpired since 2002 concerning the broad range of interesting topics it covered.
August 6, 2015
Wow, did this book ever get off track! We spend the first half with Nicolette as she works for Waterkeeper, learns about hog factory farm pollution, and files lawsuits demanding that industrial ag mend its ways. Then -- kaboom! -- she quits that job, the lawsuits are left dangling, and we head off to learn about her new life as a rancher's wife and hear her musings on beef, dairy, fish, food shopping, and religion. Perhaps she had a book contract before she quit Waterkeeper and had to do something to fill out the page count. Regardless, it was a major thematic shift.
Was the information useful and thought-provoking? Yes, although I've heard much of it before. I was looking forward to the specific angle this book seemed to address: legal challenges against factory farming. I was sorely disappointed not to follow the Waterkeeper work to any sort of conclusion. On page 87, Nicolette says, "I felt we were finally on our way to making some real, lasting change." Did it happen? Well, you won't find out in the rest of these 278 pages.
My other complaints were the editing, occasional gaps in facts, and the oversharing of personal information. There were many comma problems, both missing and unnecessary, and a whole lot of missing hyphens. Sadly, the credibility of your argument is diminished by problematic writing. The same with "I guess" as a source of your information: "My guess is that fish feel especially happy when ..." (p.220) is not a valid scientific argument. Neither is "I've seen no specific account of this savings, but my guess is that it's substantial" (p.243). And Nicolette has a tendency to tell you more about herself than is necessary. Her too-tight lawyer suit and her cold beer after a day of press conferences particularly stood out to me.
In summary, it was an interesting read, but it could have been so much better with tighter editing and a commitment to following one story line to its conclusion. Two and a half stars.
Was the information useful and thought-provoking? Yes, although I've heard much of it before. I was looking forward to the specific angle this book seemed to address: legal challenges against factory farming. I was sorely disappointed not to follow the Waterkeeper work to any sort of conclusion. On page 87, Nicolette says, "I felt we were finally on our way to making some real, lasting change." Did it happen? Well, you won't find out in the rest of these 278 pages.
My other complaints were the editing, occasional gaps in facts, and the oversharing of personal information. There were many comma problems, both missing and unnecessary, and a whole lot of missing hyphens. Sadly, the credibility of your argument is diminished by problematic writing. The same with "I guess" as a source of your information: "My guess is that fish feel especially happy when ..." (p.220) is not a valid scientific argument. Neither is "I've seen no specific account of this savings, but my guess is that it's substantial" (p.243). And Nicolette has a tendency to tell you more about herself than is necessary. Her too-tight lawyer suit and her cold beer after a day of press conferences particularly stood out to me.
In summary, it was an interesting read, but it could have been so much better with tighter editing and a commitment to following one story line to its conclusion. Two and a half stars.
February 11, 2012
Righteous Porkchop is very similar to The Face on Your Plate, which I just finished reading, but it is also an entirely different book. The similarity lies in that R.P. really does tell you the truth about food; you learn about the major types of animal foods--milk, eggs, beef, pork, chicken, and fish--as well as specifics about how the animals are housed, fed, drugged, and treated. It goes in-depth on subjects such as how "old-fashioned" traditional farms actually improve the soil in their environment, and how "modern" industrialized factory farms pollute and destroy not only the land in their immediate vicinity, but also water sources many miles away.
The difference between these two books lies in how they are presented. Righteous Porkchop is extremely well-researched and written. Some eight years in the making, the author has done her homework. She has a similar mindset to the author of The Face on Your Plate (she does not eat meat nor tolerate animal suffering), but unlike him she never demands the general population stop consuming animal products, and in fact, counts combatative militant vegans as a liability against the crusade for animal welfare.
At 278 pages (plus an additional 32 pages of references and notes) R.P. packs a tremendous amount of information into a small size, including a chapter about "Answering Obstacles to Reform" which both addresses and dismisses the fallacies that "industrialized farming is necessary to feed the world," and "there is not enough land to support the amount of traditional farming needed to replace factory farming" (both statements are used by the factory farming industry as a way to drum up support for their industry). This book is highly recommended for everyone--omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans-- and especially for people who don't care much about where there food comes from. There's a lot to be learned.
The difference between these two books lies in how they are presented. Righteous Porkchop is extremely well-researched and written. Some eight years in the making, the author has done her homework. She has a similar mindset to the author of The Face on Your Plate (she does not eat meat nor tolerate animal suffering), but unlike him she never demands the general population stop consuming animal products, and in fact, counts combatative militant vegans as a liability against the crusade for animal welfare.
At 278 pages (plus an additional 32 pages of references and notes) R.P. packs a tremendous amount of information into a small size, including a chapter about "Answering Obstacles to Reform" which both addresses and dismisses the fallacies that "industrialized farming is necessary to feed the world," and "there is not enough land to support the amount of traditional farming needed to replace factory farming" (both statements are used by the factory farming industry as a way to drum up support for their industry). This book is highly recommended for everyone--omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans-- and especially for people who don't care much about where there food comes from. There's a lot to be learned.
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February 21, 2009this is a very informative book, i have read many books on factory farming so a lot of the information was not new to me, however, it was from a fresh perspective, a vegetarian (very much not a no-meat activist) learns the ropes and marries a cattle rancher..quite the twist. i will say it was very enlightening to the cattle/beef production versus all other. definitely some good facts there. also, i learned that 80% of all seafood and fish is imported and 90% of shrimp is, almost all from china where there is major problems with drug and chemical contamination that is rampant. i never ate fish or seafood so it was not something i paid particular attention to but needless to say if i did now i would read this very very carefully and i would not be eating anything fishy very much.
i am vegan and am not one to try to change anyones mind about anything but i think it is a total lapse to not be adamant in knowing where your food comes from and how it is raised, humane treatment is paramount and not to insist on it says something. it is not enough to assume a label on eggs stating cage free at the store means it is all hunkey dorey, mass production and cage free do not go hand in hand.
enough said.
i am vegan and am not one to try to change anyones mind about anything but i think it is a total lapse to not be adamant in knowing where your food comes from and how it is raised, humane treatment is paramount and not to insist on it says something. it is not enough to assume a label on eggs stating cage free at the store means it is all hunkey dorey, mass production and cage free do not go hand in hand.
enough said.
July 21, 2009
A very interesting, fact-filled book.
The negatives: several typos (annoying), the middle drags on a bit, and it is a slight bit of "propaganda" for Niman Ranch.
The positives definitely outweigh the negatives, however, and I found myself very into the book, especially in the beginning and end.
I'd say my favorite section (where I learned the most) turned out to be the section on seafood and farmed fish; I learned a lot about eating it, and Niman's information debunked a lot of hearsay about seafood/fish being the "ok alternative" when eating in restaurants. I'll definitely be more picky when ordering it now.
Also, living in North Carolina, I much appreciated the information on industrial pig production and how my state's politicians are swayed (bought, perhaps) by the large-scale pork producers to add, change/modify, and/or ignore laws to suit the industry's needs (i.e. $), not their constituents' needs (like clean water or safe air to breathe).
The negatives: several typos (annoying), the middle drags on a bit, and it is a slight bit of "propaganda" for Niman Ranch.
The positives definitely outweigh the negatives, however, and I found myself very into the book, especially in the beginning and end.
I'd say my favorite section (where I learned the most) turned out to be the section on seafood and farmed fish; I learned a lot about eating it, and Niman's information debunked a lot of hearsay about seafood/fish being the "ok alternative" when eating in restaurants. I'll definitely be more picky when ordering it now.
Also, living in North Carolina, I much appreciated the information on industrial pig production and how my state's politicians are swayed (bought, perhaps) by the large-scale pork producers to add, change/modify, and/or ignore laws to suit the industry's needs (i.e. $), not their constituents' needs (like clean water or safe air to breathe).
December 6, 2015
I need to start off with this book, as I have been talking about it non stop for almost 3 months now. I should begin by stating that it didn’t register when I picked this book up (I must not have read the back) at Barnes & Noble that it was authored by the wife of Bill Niman, founder of Niman Ranch. It made the book that much more wonderful though, as I lived and ran restaurants in the Hudson Valley of NY for a few years and was very familiar with the high quality of both their meat and philosophy. If you have an interest in food quality and eating well, this book is extremely educational on the subject of industrial farming and food production in the US. I know farmers and have spoken to them at length about the battle in this country to make a living at farming while maintaining humane conditions for their animals. This book gets into it. It also brought light to the reality of chickens eating chickens and what that means to the humans who consume them. I loved this book.
March 16, 2009
This author has certainly researched her topic, and she takes you along for the ride. I think her topic is incredibly interesting, however the book's documentary feeling can be a little hard to get through some spots. You know how when you are watching a documentary and suddenly you get to listen to music as you watch images fly by that in reality took weeks, maybe months to happen? Well, I wish this book were like that instead of trudging through the mundane.
On page 87 we read, "A year after launching our campaign, I felt we were finally on our way to making some real, lasting change."
That was page 87. In this book, you get the sense that the events really did take a year to happen.
When it comes down to it, I don't know if this book is haunting, informative, or inspiring. I think it might be all three.
On page 87 we read, "A year after launching our campaign, I felt we were finally on our way to making some real, lasting change."
That was page 87. In this book, you get the sense that the events really did take a year to happen.
When it comes down to it, I don't know if this book is haunting, informative, or inspiring. I think it might be all three.
February 4, 2010
The more I learn about industrial farming the less I wonder why we're all sick, fat and tired. Honestly. And now to see that we're messing with the organic standards as well just makes me look at my local farmers who actually take pride in what they do. I'll be happily handing my cash over to them.
This book was definitely full of good information, if a little slow to read. Nicole's passion for research definitely shows but at times makes for slow going. A must read for all those concerned about how our food is being "grown" instead of "raised", Mrs. Niman goes into great detail about her visits to industrial farms. Yech. This could be the book that makes the disconnect between the filth she describes in how these animals are grown and the "clean" meat you see in the supermarket disappear, I would hope.
This book was definitely full of good information, if a little slow to read. Nicole's passion for research definitely shows but at times makes for slow going. A must read for all those concerned about how our food is being "grown" instead of "raised", Mrs. Niman goes into great detail about her visits to industrial farms. Yech. This could be the book that makes the disconnect between the filth she describes in how these animals are grown and the "clean" meat you see in the supermarket disappear, I would hope.
January 8, 2017
If you want to read a book about factory farming, I'd recommend you start with "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer, but this is an excellent choice as well. Like Eating Animals, this book touches on the animal welfare, human health, and environmental effects of factory farming. Most of the book is focused on hog lots. I'd say that Niman is slightly biased about cattle given her current occupation (cattle rancher), but still agree with what she has to say.
I never thought I'd be a hippie buying a share of a pastured pig from a local farm, but, here I am, and these two books have a lot to do with that.
I never thought I'd be a hippie buying a share of a pastured pig from a local farm, but, here I am, and these two books have a lot to do with that.
November 29, 2008
There is far too much about litigation (against big mean hog containment "farmers" which is important but has boring day-to-day details) and far too little about this porkchop mentioned in the title. If you like food books and you make it past the first third of the book, you'll probably like it, unless you really like the first third in which case you'll probably stop after the first third. I did appreciate that the author's big love story wasn't larger than life in the book and sat somewhere in the middle rather than being the climax of the book.
March 11, 2009
I'm only on p.56, but already having anxiety about the sources of the meat, dairy, and eggs we eat. Not that I am a stranger to this discourse. I've read Michael Pollan and Peter Singer. And, honestly, I'm beginning to feel as if "eating ethically" might be something only the rich have the luxury to do. That is, unless you swear off meat, dairy and eggs entirely. But then again, could I give up cable TV and spend the $96 a month on the above-mentioned foods, yes.
All of that said, Nicolette Hahn Niman is an engaging writer. The book is educational and inspiring.
All of that said, Nicolette Hahn Niman is an engaging writer. The book is educational and inspiring.
November 4, 2009
A memoir focused on the ethical treatment of animals in factory farms and the gross violations of the Clean Water Act by the pig, dairy and chicken industries. Hired by Bobbie Kennedy to head up the investigation into hog manure pollution for the Waterkeeper Alliance, the book follows her career which ultimately brings her to marry the founder of Niman ranch. This book gives more reasons to pay attention to where your food comes from and the impact factory farming has on our health and the health of the environment.
July 22, 2012
It's pretty great, and I learned a lot (though much of the information was already in my brain because of Food, Inc. and Fast Food Nation). Righteous Porkchop falls short of my 5-star, Must-Read rating because I was a little irritated by how much the author was inserting herself into the story without a clear reason for doing so. I could overlook this if it was just a waste of a few pages, but Niman lost focus in some of the chapters because her personal details got in the way. This is especially true in her discussion of the beef cattle industry.
May 25, 2009
I enjoyed what the author had to say, but her general tone throughout the book struck me as somewhat self centered in that the "right" always seemed to conveniently fall around her personal choices and views. She happens to have married a beef rancher so therefore beef must be the most humane of meat choices etc. I didn't really expect this to be as much of a memoir and was hoping for more of an information/research based book. Still enlightening though.
July 7, 2009
This book really opened my eyes to the world of ethical farming, and the atrocities that are comitted in order to bring mass produced food to our tables. Animals kept in awful conditions on these factory farms, and pollution is unchecked most times.
Its a sad, but realistic book that shows you what goes into the food, that goes into your mouth. Think twice about that McDonald's burger! I can honestly say that it helped me to become a more ethical consumer.
Its a sad, but realistic book that shows you what goes into the food, that goes into your mouth. Think twice about that McDonald's burger! I can honestly say that it helped me to become a more ethical consumer.
August 26, 2009
The beginning of this book was a little difficult for me. I stopped eating chicken for a week...which I know was not the author's intent. There are better ways to farm and raise cattle, poultry, fish, etc. and if we all educate ourselves on where our food comes from maybe we can encourage the agricultural industry to practice these better ways. It will not be easy, but it will not be impossible like some believe. It just takes a commitment.
September 1, 2009
An intriguing read that educates readers about the risks of our industrialized food supply. Ms. Niman writes from the unique perspective of a vegetarian now living on a cattle ranch. The book is an auto-biography intertwined with expose, which makes for a quick read. It doesn't stop with the expose, but goes on to discuss where to find "good" food and just how small lifestyle changes can make a difference.
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