Jonathan Safran Foer writes his newest book, Eating Animals, as a narrative of sorts. He’s very focused on story and what kind of story we tell with our food. That being said, I’ll write this post as a story.
My Story
Prior to college I had probably never heard of PETA. Maybe I had heard some redneck in my home town make fun of it but that’s about it. Fast forward to my sophomore year of college and the band The Dillinger Escape Plan. They were playing a show at Vino’s and the line was out the door. While waiting in line these cute girls walked up to my friends and I with a clipboard asking us to sign it. I have no clue what I signed but they said it was for PETA and gave us stickers with chickens on them. I snickered,
“What’s PETA?”
“People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.”
I thought, oh okay, that’s neat. Apparently I put my email address on that petition and started getting emails from these PETA folks. For whatever reason I ordered a vegetarian starter pack, watched the Meet Your Meat video and sort of dismissed it. Occasionally I would bring up the cruel treatment of our animals but it never compelled me to any action.
A year or so later a couple of my friends went vegetarian for a month, maybe it was Lent, I don’t know. One of the guys quit after a week or so and the other stuck with it. Stuck with it so much that he had a burger at the end of the month and then relinquished himself from meat altogether. This guy, Ryan, through a series of events, ended up becoming one of my best friends. We talked about all sorts of things and eventually began discussing animals. Ryan had done a lot of reading and researching so his opinions were well formed and he knows how to present his arguments. After entertaining the idea of vegetarianism for several months it all came to a head with a Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuit. Those things are delicious, sooo tasty and made me want to cry. Our campus had one in the student center and when you had the money it was the preferred breakfast item. One day I bought one and couldn’t eat it, took one bite and wanted to cry. I felt like a terrible person and at that point decided I couldn’t do it anymore. I was going vegetarian.
I was very soon presented with an option to tell a different story at the dinner table of some friends. They had made steak, it was Christmas time and were enjoying the community we had developed. Sadly, I didn’t write a different story that day. I ate the steak and continued to falter a little more but eventually came back around to give it all up.
That’s my story up until reading Eating Animals. I’ve decided now to go vegan. Foer writes a compelling narrative while interweaving pertinent facts. He states in the beginning that he’s not writing the book as a case for vegetarianism, although one could write the case. It sort of is and sort of isn’t a case for vegetarianism. Since it’s a personal journey, it is essentially his journey to vegetarianism and therefore represents a case for such a life. You also now know that I approached this book already being a vegetarian. I approached it looking for more ammunition to put in my arsenal. I wasn’t looking to be turned into a vegan but it happened. It was quite paradoxical that I became a vegetarian based on ethical grounds but continued to ignore the suffering of chickens (layers those are the egg ones) and cows used for milk. Eating Animals really explores the paradoxes of animal life when it comes to suffering. Why do we not kill and eat stray animals? Why don’t we act out our other wants/desires on animals (sex)? I appreciate and identify with the way he approaches animals. What we eat and how we eat is a big part of our culture. It tells stories and helps us identify with each other. He also leaves you with a bit of despair. Surely there are more small farms doing good things but they’re probably hard to find and aren’t very accessible to many of us. In fact, true free range animals aren’t available to most of America. The notion that what you see in the store as free range should be disregarded. The laws surrounding those labels are loosely written and therefore loosely interpreted. “Access to light or the outdoors” as many of the laws state can be interpreted as an open door at the end of a gross shit-house, oops I mean chicken house. Knowing that I don’t need animal’s flesh or their products to survive means I’m just going to avoid it altogether.
The Environment
There’s a lot of time given to the effects of factory farming on the environment. Most striking to me was the effect of fishing on the sea. The ‘bycatch’ (as it’s called) from shrimping and many other methods is basically depleting the oceans of any variety of life. Thousands of different species are being killed and carcasses being thrown back into the ocean. Even as a vegetarian I didn’t eat fish but I felt there might be some argument for it, however, not anymore. He also covers the basics: factory farming emits more pollution than any vehicle. In the communities where factory farms exist there are also a number of illnesses, ailments and health complaints amongst residents. Things like pig flu and bird flu are only aided by factory farming. Pigs have this weird characteristic that allows them to contract both human and animal diseases making their insides a breeding ground for super-viruses. Several well trained, educated scientists and others believe that we are due for a pandemic of sorts and that this pandemic will most likely be catapulted by factory farming. Overall, factory farming is bad for the environment, for you and for your family. That’s why I get so frustrated in grocery stores when I see people buying stupid crap for their families. I just want to yell at them, “YOU ARE KILLING YOUR FAMILY!” They are, and they’re doing it with ‘normal’ foods like bacon, chicken breasts, ham, turkey (which by the way have terrible immune systems and are some of the most susceptible to disease in factory farming processes), bologna, soda, enriched grains and other things.
Second to Last, Shit.
Foer uses this word a lot in the book. It clearly sticks out and not until I finished and began reflecting upon the book did it really mean something to me. (if my sister reads this she’ll hate that I’m using profanity but I think it serves a purpose here) Shit really is the perfect word to describe the conditions and treatment of most animals used for food. When I think of this word in the context of Eating Animals it stands out as an absolutely dirty word. It’s gross. It symbolizes so much with such few characters. Sure there are other words out there that might suffice but this word is in your face. You can’t really ignore it. When he writes things like, the shit doesn’t have to be washed off [before processing begins], I think it really hits home. If you’re eating factory farmed meat you can expect that not only are you eating shit, but tons of antibiotics and diseases.
Lastly: Farming by Proxy
That may not be the exact way Foer puts it but essentially that’s what it is. Every time you buy food you’re farming by proxy. If you continue to give money to factory farms that only encourages the trend (Foer states that factory farming will end, eventually, because it’s a model built only on profit and will fall because it so unsustainable, it’s just a matter of when and if it will take us with it). For the foreseeable future the best options are to consume less meat and only purchase meat from those farms who treat their animals well or be a vegetarian/vegan.
This book has made me consider more than just animals. Things like worker’s rights on vegetable farms (they’re still pretty awful in some places), where my clothes are made, how I treat people and several other things. My friend Ryan used to say (probably still does) that being a vegetarian sort of ‘kept him in check.’ I’m not sure I ever really grasped that until now, but I get it. If I’m going to care about animals that means caring about a lot of other things, especially people, because after all our food tells a story and that story helps us sustain our lives.
