Author of two of the most admired books of the past decade, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, for his third book, Jonathan Safran Foer chose to focus on longtime personal questions about his diet. A devout vegetarian, and occasional vegan, Foer was inspired to write Eating Animals after thinking of what he would tell his two young children about his dietary choices.
Americans love their animals. 46 million families in the United States own at least one dog, and 38 million keep cats. 13 million maintain freshwater aquariums, containing more than a 170 million fish. Collectively, these animals cost Americans some 40 billion dollars annually.
However, Americans also love to eat animals. Each year, they consume about 35 million cows, more than a 115 million pigs, and 9 billion birds. Most of these creatures have been raised under conditions that are, as most Americans should know, barbaric. Broiler chickens typically spend their lives in windowless sheds, packed in with up to thirty thousand other birds and generations of accumulated waste. The ammonia fumes thrown off by their rotting excrement can lead to breast blisters, leg sores, and respiratory disease. Bred to produce the maximum amount of meat in the minimum amount of time, they often become so top-heavy that they can’t support their own weight. At slaughtering time, they are shackled by their feet, hung from a conveyor belt, and dipped into an electrified bath known as “the stunner.”
Pretty horrifying. Yet we (including me) continue to eat bacon with breakfast each day.
Why is it that Americans are so taken with the animals they keep as pets, yet completely indifferent towards the animals they eat?
That is the question Foer sets out to answer.
For much of Eating Animals, it appears that Foer is arguing vegetarianism as the only moral option. But then, in the middle of the book, Foer becomes friendly with a farmer named Frank Reese, who raises what are known as “heritage” turkeys. “I have placed my wager on a vegetarian diet and I have enough respect for people like Frank, who have bet on a more humane animal agriculture, to support their kind of farming,” Foer states.
I am not a vegetarian. I have tried it in the past, but have always failed (much to my dismay.) I know how the animals we eat are slaughtered, yet I continue to eat them. I have read so much on vegetarianism, and agree with most of the arguments made for eliminating meat from your diet, but I still cannot bring myself to make the transition. Maybe it's just a way of avoiding those awkward questions from family. I am sure there is nothing more uncomfortable than trying to explain to your entire family on Thanksgiving day why you're not eating the turkey your Aunt slaved over all day in the kitchen. Maybe it's just a way to avoid becoming a "hassle." No one wants to be that dreaded dinner party guest who follows every course introduction with a snippy "oh, I don't eat that. It's meat."
I suppose in hindsight this all seems silly, but I think Foer does a good job of addressing it by suggesting that we are defined not by what we do, but by what we are willing to do without. A concept I'm still trying to grasp.
Regardless of your "position" on vegetarianism, I highly suggest you get your hands on a copy of Eating Animals. Foer does a fantastic job of presenting a pragmatic view of vegetarianism, and even if it doesn't completely change your dietary habits, it will make you think twice before eating beef with every meal.
Americans love their animals. 46 million families in the United States own at least one dog, and 38 million keep cats. 13 million maintain freshwater aquariums, containing more than a 170 million fish. Collectively, these animals cost Americans some 40 billion dollars annually.
However, Americans also love to eat animals. Each year, they consume about 35 million cows, more than a 115 million pigs, and 9 billion birds. Most of these creatures have been raised under conditions that are, as most Americans should know, barbaric. Broiler chickens typically spend their lives in windowless sheds, packed in with up to thirty thousand other birds and generations of accumulated waste. The ammonia fumes thrown off by their rotting excrement can lead to breast blisters, leg sores, and respiratory disease. Bred to produce the maximum amount of meat in the minimum amount of time, they often become so top-heavy that they can’t support their own weight. At slaughtering time, they are shackled by their feet, hung from a conveyor belt, and dipped into an electrified bath known as “the stunner.”
Pretty horrifying. Yet we (including me) continue to eat bacon with breakfast each day.
Why is it that Americans are so taken with the animals they keep as pets, yet completely indifferent towards the animals they eat?
That is the question Foer sets out to answer.
For much of Eating Animals, it appears that Foer is arguing vegetarianism as the only moral option. But then, in the middle of the book, Foer becomes friendly with a farmer named Frank Reese, who raises what are known as “heritage” turkeys. “I have placed my wager on a vegetarian diet and I have enough respect for people like Frank, who have bet on a more humane animal agriculture, to support their kind of farming,” Foer states.
I am not a vegetarian. I have tried it in the past, but have always failed (much to my dismay.) I know how the animals we eat are slaughtered, yet I continue to eat them. I have read so much on vegetarianism, and agree with most of the arguments made for eliminating meat from your diet, but I still cannot bring myself to make the transition. Maybe it's just a way of avoiding those awkward questions from family. I am sure there is nothing more uncomfortable than trying to explain to your entire family on Thanksgiving day why you're not eating the turkey your Aunt slaved over all day in the kitchen. Maybe it's just a way to avoid becoming a "hassle." No one wants to be that dreaded dinner party guest who follows every course introduction with a snippy "oh, I don't eat that. It's meat."
I suppose in hindsight this all seems silly, but I think Foer does a good job of addressing it by suggesting that we are defined not by what we do, but by what we are willing to do without. A concept I'm still trying to grasp.
Regardless of your "position" on vegetarianism, I highly suggest you get your hands on a copy of Eating Animals. Foer does a fantastic job of presenting a pragmatic view of vegetarianism, and even if it doesn't completely change your dietary habits, it will make you think twice before eating beef with every meal.
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