Review: "The Face On Your Plate"

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson is a compassionate and passionate writer – one cannot help but be pulled in and touched by his lyrical works. In this book, The Face On Your Plate: the Truth About Food. Masson looks at the problems of eating animals, but concentrates his work in exposing the suffering the animals usually experience in our American system of food production.

People tend not to think about what a hamburger is, for example, or how it got from the animal to the bun, but it is something that should concern all people, especially Christians. How so? In Genesis 1:28, humans are given the responsibility to have dominion over the animals. This does not mean as some have argued, that humans can do whatever they please with animals. What the word dominion means (in this context) is that humans are to care for the animals in the same what that God does. We are God’s stewards of the creation, so we are to steward as He would and does.

Does that mean it is unethical to eat animals? There is nothing in the Bible that says it is morally wrong to eat animals. In fact, humans are given permission, after sin enters the world, to eat animals. There is good medical reason to conclude that eating animals is not healthy. And there is good evidence – as exhibited in this book – to show that animals are being abused on a large scale, for which Christians are called to intervene. And there is good Scriptural evidence that there will be no eating of animals in the Kingdom.

This is all to say, if we are to care for our bodies, and care for the animals – the Creation, we need to do a little more thinking about what is one our plate, how it got there, and what our responsibility is.