Seven Books on Eating Less Meat

To help pass the time, we compiled a list of just some of our favorite reads on meat reduction – a topic that is not only incredibly relevant for preventing future pandemics but also helping animals!

Meat reduction has the potential to end some of the cruelest factory farming practices, such as extreme confinement, the overuse of antibiotics, and brutal mutilations. By readjusting your diet, you’ll help phase out factory farming and help the industry shift towards higher welfare practices that are more sustainable and kinder to animals. As some of the authors demonstrate you can also help improve your own health and wellbeing.

1. How Veganism Can Save Us

Revealing hard truths, animal rights activist Emma Hakansson teaches us the devastating impact animal agriculture is having on our environment, waterways, as well as our personal wellbeing and mental health. How Veganism Can Save Us will arm you with the truth and set you on a path towards a more sustainable future.

2. We Are The Weather

Written by best-selling author Jonathan Safran Foer, We are the Weather dives into one single action people can do to tackle climate change: eat fewer animal products. By examining our relationship with ourselves and the power of collective action, Foer offers a strong argument to eating less meat – starting with breakfast. 

3. The Reducetarian Solution

The term “Reducetarian” refers to the practice of eating less animal products. Written by Brian Kateman, The Reducetarian Solution includes more than 70 essays from influential thinkers on how cutting 10% or more of meat from one’s diet can have a positive impact on animals, people and the planet. 

4. How Not To Die

In How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease, an internationally-renowned nutrition expert, Dr. Michael Gregor examines the top 15 causes of premature deaths in the United States and how nutrition can help prevent disease. Taking a plant-based approach to eating (but also letting humans be humans), How Not To Die is a great book to help you diversify your eating habits.

5. The Jungle

Take a ride through history by reading Upton Sinclair’s international best-seller, The Jungle. Published in 1906, it exposed the health violations and unsanitary practices of the American meatpacking industry. A grueling look into how profit preceded over public health, the novel was praised for moving Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act. 

6. Eating Animals

Coined by the Los Angeles Times as a “must-read” for anyone who cares about building a more humane and healthy world, Eating Animals (also written by Jonathan Safran Foer) takes a look into the origins of eating animals and what it means to eat animals in an industrialized world.

In 2018, the book was also created into a documentary film co-narrated by Foer and actress Natalie Portman. Check out the trailer here.

7. Meathooked: The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million-Year Obsession with Meat 

Marta Zaraska, a science journalist, takes an investigative look into mankind’s love for meat and our committed relationship to it. A book for both carnivores and vegans, Meathooked takes into consideration evolution, culture and what meat-eating will look like in the future.

Not into physical books? No problem! You can check out e-book versions or audiobooks on your favorite reading and listening devices. 

Photo by Alexandra Fuller on Unsplash

You can check out e-book versions or audiobooks on your favourite reading and listening devices.