Eating Animals – Jonathan Safran Foer available at Amazon.com
This is an easy book to read. This is a hard book to read. It is easy in that it is well written, not overly dense, and well researched. It is hard in that if you have not thought about this issue or have and attempted to compartmentalize it away, some of scenes and practices depicted will not sit easy.
I love a good steak and usually like it grilled “medium moo”. Sometimes I just have to get my KFC on. And, boy howdy, do I my like bar-b-queue.
But then I think back to another life time when I was a County Sanitarian for a rural state. I did not inspect slaughter houses or meat processing plants that is a function of the federal government. I did have occasion to go into them many times for various other reasons. I also had many occasions to investigate complaints about commercial chicken or hog raising operations. Small scale operations never really bothered me, but some of the larger ones really made you think about the chain of food from the farm to the grocery store.
My personal issue is not with eating meat, but with factory farming and corporate meat processing. Foer states that 99% of all meat eaten in this country comes from these sources. It is almost a 100% surety then that it is the source of your meat. As a consumer of the product you should be aware of the impact of what you are doing, and the impact of what these “factories” are doing to you.
Foer has a definite point of view, that we should all be eating vegetarian. What surprised me about the book that he is not preachy about it. (Definition of a vegan: Does not eat animal products including eggs and dairy, and tells everyone about it) He spent 3 years researching this book. He presents animal husbandry at its best, and then he presents the factory farming side of it. It does this for beef, pork, chickens and turkeys. He touches on commercial fisheries and how they are depleting our seas. He presents his arguments in a strong manner, but never with the guilt trip that is sometimes used.
The issues explored are several. There are definite considerations around animal health and welfare. There are ethical considerations on how we treat our food animals. We should be considering the healthiness of the meat when it finally reaches our dinner table. We should be considering what excessive meat consumption is doing to our health. There are definitely environmental concerns from all this factory farming. By some estimates 40% of greenhouse gases come from our domesticated animals. Meat consumption is increasing world wide. It is not a sustainable model. Foer also explores the workers’ situation in these factory farms and large scale slaughterhouses. It is not a pretty picture.
Foer does not explicitly say so, but this is definitely an argument against allowing corporations to control our food supply. When your bottom line is quarterly profits and “it just business” with no one directly ethically/legally responsible, it is not a surprise we have ended up with the system that we have.
Whether you choose to eat meat or not, it should be an informed decision. This book is certainly a large step towards that decision. I know it will be a journey for me, but I am taking steps towards limiting or eliminating my consumption of meat. I am exploring a new paradigm of eating/nutrition.
I posted this same review on Amazon.com below is a comment posted to that review.
Very good post. I am a former US E.P.A. enforcement officer that had to do inspections of CAFOs and slaughterhouses (we were only able to enforce pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and other harmful pollutants), but now that I have left the EPA, I can say that the conditions are deplorable. Not a rip on non-American citizens, but they DO have to rely on mostly Central American employees to do the jobs for minimum wage….cutting the same “piece” 600 times per day, employing the injector “thing” they drive into the animal’s brain before another employee slits its’ throat.
Not to mention the ruining of communities by the stench (we never needed an address to find the place we were going to inspect…the smell led us there), or the huge lagoons of dead animal waste that remains somewhat unregulated with a foot of “crust” on top of the sludge, or the many, many unregulated overflows of the nasty lagoons Nationwide into local creeks and rivers.
I honestly cannot believe this great Country we live in allows this to happen.
I am not asking all people to eat vegetarian. Not at all. Cows evolved to eat grass, not corn meal (which is why they are continually shot with antibiotics so they can live on an unnatural diet). Just google “chicken raising” in the U.S. And pig farming. Just educate yourself. The meat industry has wayyy more money and influence on the U.S.D.A., but maybe, just maybe, you’ll read some books by incredibly healthy vegetarians and vegans. Yes, maybe some supplements, such as B-vitamins may be needed.
And, read Mr. Foer’s book. Like everything in life, just educate yourself and make your own decision. But, I believe anyone with compassion will find a way to base their life on a plant-based diet. Would you eat your dog or cat?? Really, if I had a cow in my back yard that was with me for years, I’d never be able to eat it.
It’s up to you. One person at a time.
Another reason to not let Big Business have final and massive control of our food chain…
Big Food – Editorial from the New York Times Opinion page