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Fruity Articles / monkey's book reviews ...
« on: April 18, 2017, 05:34:29 AM »
EDEN FRUITARIANISM by MANGO WODZAK (ISBN 978-1-940184-25-8)
it had been many years since i'd last read a 'new to me' book on fruitarianism, so i was eagerly looking forward to reading this one. i wanted to like it.
yet, from the beginning i found it just a bit too 'edgy' for my liking. now, i've no doubt that to most people 'edgy' will be lost in translation, and i'm a little reluctant to pin my colours too firmly to the mast here. nevertheless, i'll try to explain tactfully. having been lacto-ovo-vegetarian for 27 years now, i was a little dismayed at how easily my efforts at an ethical diet were dismissed as virtually meaningless. at the time i took this choice i was dependent on pre-prepared food. being vegan just didn't seem practical to me. i'm sure that the criticisms leveled at this diet are perfectly valid, however, it was the best that i felt i could do at the time. indeed, i've never been vegan, per se. i've always oscillated between being lacto-ovo-vegetarian and an interpretation of fruitarian, previously including nuts and seeds. if i were to hit this nail more squarely on the head, there is undoubtedly an air of moral superiority to it. perhaps that's inevitable given that the case for fruitarianism is based almost exclusively on moral arguments.
but it's not just this that i found a little disturbing. there are aspects of the vision presented of a fruitarian future that just don't ring true to me, and the underlying reason for this seems to be the almost total rejection of science in favour of what seems to me to be a somewhat wishful view of reality, no doubt based on what i would consider to be an over-reliance on faith.
now, having stated all that, i feel it worth pointing out that there are some very good aspects here too. if what you want is your horizon expanding a little, or possibly even a lot, this could indeed be for you.
but the bottom line for me is that this isn't so much, as the sub-title suggests, a book on explaining fruitarianism as it is a book that takes fruitarianism as its foundation and extrapolates that concept to what i would consider to be beyond the bounds of credibility in certain places.
it had been many years since i'd last read a 'new to me' book on fruitarianism, so i was eagerly looking forward to reading this one. i wanted to like it.
yet, from the beginning i found it just a bit too 'edgy' for my liking. now, i've no doubt that to most people 'edgy' will be lost in translation, and i'm a little reluctant to pin my colours too firmly to the mast here. nevertheless, i'll try to explain tactfully. having been lacto-ovo-vegetarian for 27 years now, i was a little dismayed at how easily my efforts at an ethical diet were dismissed as virtually meaningless. at the time i took this choice i was dependent on pre-prepared food. being vegan just didn't seem practical to me. i'm sure that the criticisms leveled at this diet are perfectly valid, however, it was the best that i felt i could do at the time. indeed, i've never been vegan, per se. i've always oscillated between being lacto-ovo-vegetarian and an interpretation of fruitarian, previously including nuts and seeds. if i were to hit this nail more squarely on the head, there is undoubtedly an air of moral superiority to it. perhaps that's inevitable given that the case for fruitarianism is based almost exclusively on moral arguments.
but it's not just this that i found a little disturbing. there are aspects of the vision presented of a fruitarian future that just don't ring true to me, and the underlying reason for this seems to be the almost total rejection of science in favour of what seems to me to be a somewhat wishful view of reality, no doubt based on what i would consider to be an over-reliance on faith.
now, having stated all that, i feel it worth pointing out that there are some very good aspects here too. if what you want is your horizon expanding a little, or possibly even a lot, this could indeed be for you.
but the bottom line for me is that this isn't so much, as the sub-title suggests, a book on explaining fruitarianism as it is a book that takes fruitarianism as its foundation and extrapolates that concept to what i would consider to be beyond the bounds of credibility in certain places.