The Forest Case

My review is of Omnivore's Dilemma the Personal: The Forest. I really liked the fact that he went back to basics. He had learned to gather from his mother, he was learning to hunt from scratch. I was surprised he had never shot a gun before, from what I read his father liked to hunt. He was using the hunting and gathering as a experiment. He states that he doesn't think society could go back to a time that we only hunted and gathered, there is far too many humans and not enough animals to be hunted.

He learns from locals how to hunt wild pig; he gathers mushrooms, greens for a salad from his own garden, even bakes bread from wild yeast he gathered. While in the process of making this meal he contemplates if he should become a vegetarian. He wonders if animals should be allowed to live like humans do. But he concludes that the hunting of animals will ultimately help the species survive. We as hunters are important in their population control. He believes that an animal should be treated humanely before they are slaughtered. He concludes that if we were aware of where our source of food came from, what it was, how it traveled to get to us, and how much it truly cost that we would see that we "eat by the grace of nature not industry."

My favorite quote from the book is by his friend Angelo Garro an Sicilian, "You know food in Sicily doesn't come from the Safeway. It comes from the garden, it comes from nature." If reading this book taught me anything I need to be more aware of where my meat comes from and how are the animals treated before they are killed.