About the Author
Meredith Leigh has over 20 years experience in sustainability and the food system with degrees in Environmental Science and Sustainable Agriculture. Over the course of her career she has owned and managed farms, worked in the non-profit sector, owned a restaurant and butchery shop, and built upon her expertise with diverse consulting work and extensive travel.
Her books are The Ethical Meat Handbook (3rd place, MFK Fisher awards 2015; IACP Cookbook Awards Winner 2021), and Pure Charcuterie (2017). She is working on a career in fiction writing.
In 2024, she transitioned from freelance consulting and teaching to work in the nonprofit sector again. She lives with her partner and children on ancestral Cherokee land in Asheville, North Carolina.
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The Ethical Meat Handbook came about after Meredith had been farming for 12 years, and eventually scaled up, going from direct market farming to owning and managing a retail butcher shop and restaurant. Working to maintain the farm, retail business, a young family, and a job in the non-profit food sector wasn’t easy. While Meredith was gaining perspective from working in virtually all nodes of what hoped to be a community-scale supply chain, her family life suffered. Divorce caused her to lose her farm and the business, but she did not lose her passion for the movement. This is when the Ethical Meat Handbook was born (2015), and was awarded 3rd place in the MFK Fisher awards. The book represents not just Meredith’s experience, but the challenges and opportunities facing community food movements in general. The book would not be possible without the work and contributions of farmers, butchers, thought leaders, and eaters that have influenced Meredith along the way. The book Pure Charcuterie followed two years after (2017), and then in 2020, Meredith revised and updated The Ethical Meat Handbook to reflect what she had learned and been gifted from five years of travel and networking around the concept and the pursuit of ethical meat. The Ethical Meat Handbook, revised and udpated, has become a familiar addition to the shelves of many chefs, farmers, food activists, and home cooks, and in 2021, it won an IACP cookbook award.
