Eating Animals

This week, I read the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of the non-fiction novels Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (which I highly recommend) and Everything is Illuminated. I have been a vegetarian for about two and a half years now, converted by Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (another fiction writer's venture into non-fiction food writing), the documentary Food,Inc., and Michael's Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. I have actually consciously avoided reading futher vegetarian/animal rights/factory farming books, because I'd rather learn new things than just read for confirmation bias. However, a friend recommended this one, so I gave it a go.

First of all, Jonathan Safran Foer is a fabulous writer. He begins this book with the story of his grandmother, who spent many years of her life starving and was therefore obsessively concerned with the nutrition of her family. Far from being simply an exercise in feeling morally superior, this book provided me with lots of new information and things to think about (notably, Natalie Portman credits this book with turning her from a 20-year vegetarian to a vegan activist). In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan does a great job investigating sources of food, and in documenting problems in the cattle industry; however, the cattle industry is just the tip of the iceberg. Foer discusses commercial fishing, and the industry standard practices for the raising and slaughter of chicken, turkey, and pigs. Interestingly he challenged Pollan on some points- perhaps most notably when an heirloom turkey farmer declares his distaste for Joel Salatin's chicken farm, upheld as an ideal of farming in both The Omnivore's Dilemma and Food, Inc. 

There is so much material worth discussing in this book, perhaps I will dedicate later blog posts to it. However, to keep this post reasonable, I will just end by recommending that everyone read this book. No, it is not always pleasant- parts of it felt like a modern-day version of The Jungle. Many people are reticent to learn more about the meat industry, because everyone knows that what they find will be ugly and then they'll feel compelled to change their behavior.

But why don't we want to know what we're buying? We spend our money on it, we use it as a source of energy, by eating it we allow it to become a part of ourselves. So why wouldn't we want to know what we're allowing to be such a big part of our lives? Consumers have the most power to change the meat industry in America. Laws can be made, and loopholes will be found. But if people refuse to buy a product that does not meet their standard for humaneness, or environmental protection, companies have no choice but to change their practices.

See an Index of Information on Poultry from Eating Animals here