Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows

Melanie Joy. Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: an Introduction to Carnism.
Hardcover: 204 pp. Conari Press, 2010.

"This groundbreaking work explores the psychology of carnism. Our willingness to eat animals -- and only some animals at that -- says social psychologist and professor Melanie Joy, is enabled only through blocking out what we know -- about their capacity for consciousness and their ability to feel pain; about the inhumane husbandry practiced all over the world simply to satisfy our taste for foods we don't need in our diet; and about the health risks involved in eating flesh of any kind." -- jacket flap

"We don't see meat eating as we do vegetarianism -- as a choice, based on a set of assumptions about animals, our world, and ourselves. Rather, we see is as a given, the "natural" thing to do. We eat animals without thinking about what we are doing and why because the belief system that underlies this behavior is invisible. This invisible belief system is what I call carnism." -- the author