Eating Animals

Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer.  Little Brown & Co, 2009.

Bold, convincing, and carefully fact-checked, yet not absolutist. I’m hopeful this book will earn a wide readership due to the author’s reputation. (His novels have earned him inclusion in a nationwide short list of  best writers under 40, and one of the novels, Everything Is Illuminated, was made into a major movie.)  If only all meat-eaters would be willing to look at how cruelly U.S. food animals are treated, perhaps more would change their diets. Especially when vegetarian food is so healthful and delicious.

Even a long-time vegan like me learned some new facts; e.g. if you found yourself trapped in a factory farm chicken shed without a gas mask, or fell into one of the giant waste lagoons at a pig confinement facility, you’d die within a few minutes. Foer also points out that a conscientious omnivore–one who will eat meat, but not from a factory farm–is much more trouble socially to a host than a vegetarian. A host would know what vegetarian food is, and could easily offer vegetarian food to a guest, but would have a major research project trying to provide a guest with meat that was humanely raised, since there is so little of it.   Please read and share with friends.