by Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of one of my favorite books, Everything is Illuminated. When I saw that he also wrote this book, and that it’s both a memoir of this struggle with vegetarianism and also an investigative piece, I couldn’t resist reading it.
After my dog died last year, I read The Animal Manifesto, and made the decision to finally take the leap and start eating 100% vegetarian. While I don’t feel that The Animal Manifesto was the tipping point (for me, it was more about honoring the memory of Comet), it was interesting to read but largely felt anecdotal, and more snippets to show how all sorts of animals can and do feel pain.
Eating Animals, however, has completely different take. This book focuses on the US animal farming industry, and presents facts that have really opened my eyes. I’ve always felt guilty about eating animals, and that I was doing something that was not quite right. I know that not everyone feels this way. People are carnivores, or omnivores, they’ll say. We’re supposed to eat meat. Sure, sure, but that doesn’t mean we have to. No other species raises other animals for food. No other species treats their food so inhumanely, all in the name of a “nice dinner”.
Personally, the decision to not eat animals (including fish) was in part because I feel that eating animals is wrong, but also because of the way they are raised (more like mass produced) and slaughtered, not to mention the impact that this has on the environment. The atrocities that go on in the animal farming industry are appalling, and it saddens me to think that animals have gone from being farm raised and cared for as the livelihood of the family to being products produced for profit.
Some statistics:
- Animal farm production contributes 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions, contributing more than even transportation.
- Eating vegetarian is better for the environment than switching to a hybrid car.
- Healthy farm animals receive 70% of all antibiotics in the US.
- Antibiotic resistant bacteria are on the rise, responsible for as many as 18,000 deaths in the US.
- Egg laying chickens productivity declines after they are 12 months old, and most of them are slaughtered at this time.
There are many more statistics that are equally shocking, appalling, and horrifying. As Foer concludes in Eating Animals, most people are able to live with their decision to eat meat because they simply don’t know (or ignore) the facts of the animal farming industry.
I challenge you to read it, and then tell me that you’re still comfortable eating animals.