Eating Ethically: Religion and Science for a Better Diet

by Jonathan K. Crane

Few activities are as essential to human flourishing as eating, and fewer still are as ethically fraught. Eating well is particularly confusing. We live amid excess, faced with conflicting recommendations, contradictory scientific studies, and complex moral, medical, and environmental consequences that influence our choices. A new eating strategy is urgently needed, one grounded in ethics, informed by biology, supported by philosophy and theology, and, ultimately, personally achievable.

Eating Ethically argues persuasively for more adaptive eating practices. Drawing on religion, medicine, philosophy, cognitive science, art, ethics, and more, Jonathan K. Crane shows how distinguishing among the eater, the eaten, and the act of eating promotes a radical reorientation away from external cues and toward internal ones. This turn is vital for survival, according to classic philosophy on appetite and contemporary studies of satiety, metabolic science as well as metaphysics and religion. By intertwining ancient wisdom from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam with cutting-edge research, Crane concludes that ethical eating is a means to achieve both personal health and social cohesion. Grounded in science and tradition, Eating Ethically shows us what it truly means to eat well.

Genres: Science, Food, Philosophy, Nonfiction

264 pages, Hardcover

Published December 19, 2017

Reviews

[Alexa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would summarize the first two parts of this book as a long description of how our bodies differ from cars and other machines as well as defining what it means to be "full." It didn't start to pick up for me until part 3 (about 100 pages in), where it gets into the Biblical understandings of food. Ultimately, I found the conclusion to be the most relatable part of this book.

[Mathew Richards · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting perspective on the philosophy of eating. Worth reading once.