Book review: Jonathan Safran-Foer’s “Eating Animals”
Eating animals: have you done it today? In the last week or month?
And when you do, what are you eating?
Jonathan Safran Foer addresses this question in “Eating Animals,” his third book, released in November. For him the issue is personal: after having flirted with vegetarianism his whole life, Foer decides to examine the effects of the food he eats as he prepares to raise his son.
Because eating is part of his story, says Foer, and it should be part of yours, too.
Foer’s story starts with keeping kosher, which he defines not ritually but rather as humane eating, “a way of thinking that made me proud to be Jewish as a child, and that continues to make me proud.”
Hearkening to his Jewish roots, Foer references his grandmother, who told him that “if nothing matters, there’s nothing to save,” referring to her refusal to eat pig as she was escaping the Holocaust. Foer applies that same ethical standard to eating factory-farmed meat now, and notes that to most people, food is more than just sustenance: “it nourishes and it helps you remember.”
And so Foer spends much of the book discussing the inhumane and environmentally detrimental effects of factory farms, telling his story as he moves through his research. He attacks factory farms from several angles, ranging from the growth hormones injected into the animals to the waste that the animals produce; all in all, he says, they create “monstrous creatures.” He also notes that there is no difference between organic, free-range, cage-free, and natural: either way, “their design destines them for pain.”
Most of the information in this bookinvolves facts and concepts that many vegetarians and vegans already know. Foer’s style, however, is what separates his narrative from a textbook’s. He employs his ironic sense of humor present in his previous books, Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, pointing out, “Isn’t it strange how upset people get about a few dozen baseball players taking growth hormones, when we’re doing what we’re doing to our food animals and feeding them to our children?”
Foer also aims a larger critique at our societal institutions, criticizing the US government’s attitude toward vegetarianism. The National School Lunch Program, for example, spends over half a billion dollars on dairy, beef, egg and poultry for children’s lunches, even though Foer says that there is data that suggest that those food groups should have a small presence in students’ diets. And fruits and vegetables, promoted as sources of necessary nutrients, receive a mere $161 million every year.
After conducting his research, Foer warns his readers about the dangers of America’s obsession with meat, predicting that “the earth will eventually shake off factory farming like a dog shakes off fleas; the only question is whether we will get shaken off along with it.”
For all of his research, Foer directs his book at the everyday eater, discussing meals—and values—with which most readers can identify. But while he discusses limiting one’s meat intake and buying meat from family farms, Foer ends up advocating vegetarianism, considering that “less than 1% of the animals killed for meat in America comes from family farms.”
Ultimately, Foer presents such shocking facts that readers may want to eat less meat after reading the book. But whether or not he convinces his audience to embrace vegetarianism, Foer succeeds in showing readers that whatever we eat will become a part of the stories we will tell.
Kelly Seeger is a sophomore at Franklin & Marshall College pursuing a possible double-major in Arabic and Government. She is addicted to bargain shopping and loves being creative with cooking recipes.
