Not as Nature Intended

Reading about Rich Hardy's endeavours as an activist against animal agriculture, fur farms, circuses and more is a hugely moving experience.  This is a hugely important read for anyone who is not already vegan and cruelty-free, but for those that are, this is probably likely to be more upsetting than educating.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Unbound for my copy of this book. Although at times it was very hard to read some of the harrowing, deeply disturbing stories of truly appalling animal cruelty and abuse, I'm glad to have had the opportunity to read this important book. I've been vegetarian for 29 years, vegan most days, and hope this book will persuade more people to give up eating meat. Rich Hardy is a very brave and compassionate man who has done incredible, vital work. Everyone should read this book.

4 stars
Not as Nature Intended
Rich Hardy 
This is a fascinating look at the unknown and unseen horrors that happen across the world in the meat/animal trade. Hardy has masterfully written a book recounting his 20+ years of trying to make a change in the way animals are treated when they have only been born for a specific purpose. He also takes a look and tries to document and change how an animal is used once their life in a circus or other industry is complete. This book is well written but difficult to read in parts due to the graphic nature of some of the stories.  I would recommend this book to anyone of middle school age and higher.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley. The views given are my own.

Not As Nature Intended is a hard-hitting collection of ten essays by Rich Hardy, each recounting his undercover experiences to document factory farm animal cruelty across the globe. From chickens to quail, rabbits to reindeer, England to Australia, what each of the accounts has in common is Hardy's continued witnessing of a stunning lack of compassion towards the animals that farmers so often claim they 'really do care about. Honest!'

I frequently felt nauseated by the scenes Hardy describes. Dead animals or birds decomposing amongst the living, buckets full of empty antibiotic containers used to ward off epidemic diseases, animals left in obvious pain and distress with infected injuries, clouds of black flies everywhere. How can anyone remain convinced that this is how food should be produced? I was amazed too to discover that it's not just cheap pie fillings and pet foods that result from such unsanitary conditions. While I still ate meat, I had bought into the marketing inventions of free range meaning outdoor pastures and organic indicating animals fed food that was healthy for them. Hardy's peeping camera shows these concepts to be painfully untrue.

Not As Nature Intended felt like a different style of animal welfare book for me. Hardy is often obviously very upset by what he encounters, but this isn't an angry book. I never felt hectored or preached at, but at the same time this isn't by any stretch an cosy tale of the Old MacDonald's farm that so many consumers like to pretend is still the norm. I hope this collection is widely read and manages to find an audience beyond those of us who are already vegan because I believe it would be instrumental in making a lot more people really care about the provenance of their food.

Hardy's brave activism has already had results in chipping away at the secrecy of this massive industry, and his closing message has an uplifting tone. When people en masse become aware of individual acts of cruelty they generally will swiftly act to stop it. Not As Nature Intended opens the doors of cages, barns and slaughterhouses across the world. Now everyone needs to step up and look inside.