Eating Animals – Jonathan Safran Foer

2008, 352 pages
Jonathan Safran Foer played with the idea of becoming a vegetarian ever since his babysitter told him where his chicken came from when he was a child. Though he tried many times, it never worked out. He, and later he and his wife, were vegetarians, unless they felt like eating meat.
When they were expecting their first child, he felt this is a time for some important decisions in his life, and he started exploring the whole notion of eating animals, a process that resulted in this book.
He explores the subject on many levels. On a personal one, he speaks about the role of food in his life and his family, especially his Holocaust survival grandmother, for whom food and body weight play a big role in her life. He also muses about the family traditions involving food, the turkey in thanks giving, the gefilte fish in the Jewish holidays, and whether it is possible to keep these traditions without traditional food.
On another level, he researches what happens inside the livestock industry. How are animals kept, handled and slaughtered. He visits few kinds of farms, some are factory farms (where his visits are not really welcomed, or even official), some try to do things more or less differently, with some more considerations to the animal’s welfare and health (and, of course, the health of the humans consuming it). He interviews many people in the industry, animal right activists, farmers and more, and delivers their point of view. He quotes from researches, surveys and reports about the livestock industry. He also goes back to the history of industrial farming, and the genetic changes to the farm animals over the past few decades.
He also touches more aspects of consuming livestock products, like the health risks and the damage to the environment by polluting and contributing to the greenhouse gases and global warming.
He declares at the beginning that this is not a book that preaches about the necessity to become vegetarians (though he says that it is interesting that most people – also omnivores – assumed that a book about eating animals is necessarily a book that supports vegetarianism). Because of that I didn’t think the book will include some hard to read descriptions about what happens to animals in farms and slaughterhouses. I was wrong. The book included some very hard to read descriptions, some of them haunted me for days and prevented me from sleeping. The book also managed to surprise me, though I consider myself a vegetarian who is aware of what is going on in the livestock industry.
Foer is true to his declaration at the beginning of the book, and he does not call for a vegetarian diet for everyone. He accepts and respects other point of views he brings to the book. His main target is the factory farms, where most horrors, concerning both animals fare, animal and human health, worker abuse (and consequently animal abuse by them) and pollution occur.
The book is a little disorganized, with its many aspects and subjects. However I felt it is very strong and moving. I found myself changed because of the book, stricter with my vegetarian diet, and refusing to support the factory farm, even by not eating their products directly. I think everyone should read this book, both vegetarian and omnivores, because the choice should be informed. No one can say he didn’t know, now that all the aspects of the livestock industry are well known and documented.