The Omnivore's Deception By John Sanbonmatsu — Review

Forbes

21-07-2025

A brilliantly argued dismantling of Michael Pollan and other supporters of the meat economy who lie to the public by claiming that we can have our meat and our morals, too.
Father and son grilling animal corpses over hot coals.
Now that summer is here, many people are choosing to celebrate by having an outdoor barbecue. This almost always involves cooking pieces of dead animals on a grill over hot coals. Anyone who disagrees with the featured menu items and how they came to be on the grill is viewed either as a fool or as a moral scold.
'Vegan.' In fact, few groups in society are as universally disliked as ethical vegans, vegetarians and advocates for animal rights. One study found that of all reviled groups in society, 'only drug addicts were evaluated more negatively than vegetarians.' (ref).
But some people, like philosopher and ethical vegan John Sanbonmatsu, think that exploiting and killing other beings for our own purposes is morally indefensible, and that human civilization should abolish the meat, egg, dairy, and fishing industries altogether.
Cover for The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals, and Ourselves by John ... More Sanbonmatsu (2025, New York University Press)
In his new book, The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong About Meat, Animals, and Ourselves (2025; New York University Press), Professor Sanbonmatsu pushes back – hard – against Michael Pollan, who wrote a book with a similar title, The Omnivore's Dilemma. In his brilliant rejoinder, Professor Sanbonmatsu focuses on the myths and self-deceit that we use to maintain our violent domination over other animals – particularly the bullshit myth of the 'enlightened' omnivore popularized by Michael Pollan and his ilk, such as Temple Grandin and Barbara Kingsolver, who are vocal critics of ethical vegans.
Professor Sanbonmatsu observes that the longevity and ubiquity of our killing other beings has long stood first and foremost in most peoples' minds as the greatest proof of the moral rightness of this cruel practice – 'it's natural.' Nonetheless, even if human exploitation of other animals can be shown to be 'natural,' that does not indicate this barbarous practice is morally right. In fact, the 'it's natural' justification is based on a damning error in logic that philosophers refer to as the 'naturalistic fallacy.' Because whilst it is true that humans have been killing and eating other animals for a very long time, humans have been killing and eating each other for a very long time too, but few would consider this to be a defence for killing and grilling the neighbors.
The global destruction of other animals at the hands of the meat industry is absolutely staggering: Humans kill more than 80 billion land animals and nearly 3 trillion marine animals every year, reports Professor Sanbonmatsu. Half of the planet's land surface is dedicated to agriculture, with 80% of that devoted to either rearing animals for slaughter or growing monocrops to feed them. Tragically, almost all of Earth's animals are captives, observes Professor Sanbonmatsu, with just a teensy 4% of all mammals (excluding humans) living freely in nature whilst their captive brethren are confined, awaiting slaughter. Seventy percent of all birds on Earth are our prisoners too, living out their flightless lives in brief, abject misery, thanks to the poultry industry.
Professor Sanbonmatsu discusses the well-known cognitive dissonance where most people think that hurting animals is wrong, but strangely, they are not bothered by killing and eating the very same animals. This paradoxical moral blindness makes meat-eaters view vegans and veganism as threats to their moral self-image and to the core of their group identity. Such human narcissism (as Freud referred to it) also leads to open contempt for vegans and vegetarians because people see themselves as superior to other animals. Such global, systemic abuses underlie and normalize the frequent recrimination that anyone or anything that is different from their oppressors is 'an animal.' In short, to be born a non-human animal in today's world is to be viewed as being unworthy of life. And yet, '[o]mnivorism is not a license to kill; it's an invitation to improve our moral character, to act in accordance with our better natures,' Professor Sanbonmatsu asserts.
Amongst the many arguments that Professor Sanbonmatsu makes is a discussion of Aristotle's bizarre ideas that social inequality and hierarchy are aspects of nature, 'embedded in a Great Chain of Being'. Thus, according to Aristotle, it was natural for men to dominate and to victimize women (Aristotle viewed women as 'incomplete' men), for masters to dominate and victimize slaves, for stronger city-states to destroy or enslave weaker ones, and for humans to dominate and victimize other animals. Despite Aristotle's permission to abuse and kill other animals, it has been shown, repeatedly and in numerous different ways, that raising and eating other animals is devastating for the environment and a waste of natural resources, is dangerous to human health, provides an inferior source of nutrition, is a leading cause of food insecurity for our fellow humans, and is unspeakably abusive and cruel to the other animals trapped within this system.
One argument made by Professor Sanbonmatsu that especially resonated with me is that by waging war on other animals, by hunting them down and killing them or rearing them for the dinner table, is a continuation of the war on women, on formerly enslaved peoples and on peoples with different skin colors or ethnicities. Professor Sanbonmatsu also agrees with my personal assessment that the problem with raising and killing animals for food isn't just bad for the animals nor for the environment, but this practice actually damages our very souls.
This is not only the best book I've read this year but it's the best book I've ever read about the morality of ethical veganism and of animal rights. It is so compelling, so coherent, and so crammed full of relevant information that even I, as a widely-read vegan and zoologist, learned so much. It eloquently presents a well-researched, thorough, nuanced and powerful argument for ending the near-universal human habit of exploiting animals for food and for entertainment.
Highly recommended for university students, especially those enrolled in philosophy and environmental studies courses, and for anyone who wants to better understand what it means to be an ethical vegan. I've added this book to my annual must re-read list.
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