Eating Animals (original 2009; edition 2010)

recommended for: everybody 16+; anyone who’s in a position to decide for themselves what to consume

I was torn how to rate this book. It isn’t perfect (I noted many flaws in its comprehensiveness) but it’s amazing enough, so 5 stars it is.

I’ve read so many books such as this but none for a while, and it’s because reading about how humans use animals is so devastating for me. It’s not just the books’ contents, it’s knowing that, at most, only 1% of Americans feel as I do, that my feelings and beliefs are shared by so few (The latest statistics I have are that 3% of Americans are truly vegetarian and 1% are vegan. vegetarian = never any meat, poultry, fish, vegan adds never any dairy, eggs, honey, leather, wool, silk, beeswax, or, as much as is feasible, any product of animal origin) Also disturbing for me is that I know that others will read this book and won’t absorb what it offers but will dissociate, that even more people won’t have the courage or the interest to read it at all. (Oh, I kind of told a lie: The information in here is incredibly disturbing, whether or not you’ve known it. I don’t want to discourage readers from reading this book though, so I’ll say it’s upsetting but hope that people will want to make an informed consent about what they do. I’m hoping that’s the case because I want many, many people to read this book.)

I highly respect Foer. He is thoughtful and philosophical and, maybe most importantly, non-judgmental and empathetic, and he’s very funny and that helps with taking in the disturbing facts. I appreciated how he incorporates his Jewish background into the book, and enjoyed the family stories that he tells. I’m truly puzzled why he doesn’t have better communication with his dog/why he can’t interpret better his dog’s communications, but given that he started off not even liking dogs I guess he’s made great progress in dog-human relationships.

He provides little snippets of information that are so interesting. For instance: Americans choose to eat less than .25% of the known edible food on the planet. I always know I’ll learn a little with every book I read and I learned a lot, especially about some individual animals/cases.

The letter on page 84 is hilarious, if the reader is already aware that the last thing any factory farmer wants is for the public to see their operations. I laughed and laughed at this letter and I’m so grateful it was there because so much of the book’s contents caused me much emotional pain. (When I needed cheering up while reading the book I kept going back and rereading that letter.)

I’m glad he touched on the connection between animal agriculture and the existence of influenza illnesses in humans. It’s one of my perennial rants, and with H1N1 in the news (and scaring me) it’s very topical.

This book – well, it will depend on what the reader brings to it and who the reader is. For me, it’s so obviously a cogent argument for veganism, but it’s like my last stint as a juror. At the end of the case, as the twelve of us were about to go into deliberations, I said to myself, it’s obvious how we should vote, but our first vote when we got into the jury deliberation room was 6 to 6, not so obvious in the same way to everybody, and the deliberations ended up being very stressful. People feel different ways and believe different things. Foer respects that and that’s one reason why I think this book can strike a chord in anyone who reads it.

This book is very well researched, and Foer spent three years in some hands on type research. The book proper including acknowledgements went through page 270, the notes went from pages 271-331 and the index is on pages 333-341, but it reads more like the memoir it partly is; it does not read like a textbook. The writing is engaging and not at all dry.

Well, it’s good to read a book that isn’t preaching to the choir (ethical vegans) because I think more readers will be open to what this author offers. I don’t see how anyone can read this book and not be changed, whether or not they make changes.

Foer has a “beef” with Michael Pollan, as do I, but I have a bit of a “beef” with Foer: it’s his book (and there are many other books out there and they’re all doing a lot of good in my opinion) but I wish he hadn’t provided so much time to give their points of view to the 4 more humane animal farmers and the vegan who was designing a slaughterhouse. It boggles my mind even more, that those who’ve really known these individual animals could kill them, especially when one is vegetarian and one other says he knows it isn’t necessary for humans to eat meat. I have such mixed feelings, but I’m afraid their rationalizations will give permission for readers to act with the status quo. However, only 1% vegan and 3% vegetarian of the American population, the actions these individuals take can make a difference. Never will 100% of Americans go 100% vegan so reducing suffering and having less of a negative impact on the environment - well how can I argue wholeheartedly?, but I felt very uncomfortable reading these parts, although certainly not as uncomfortable reading the factory farming and slaughter parts of the book.

I’ve heard some vegans complain that Foer doesn’t go far enough and the book doesn’t promote veganism, but this book is getting more mainstream attention than most books of its type, and some people say that they are eliminating or reducing the animal products they consume because of this book. So Foer, along with a bunch of others who are my heroes, are putting more and more information out there. It makes a difference. This book will make a difference. Hopefully, many will read this book and then continue and read some of the other many books and other resources out there as well. I’m very happy that this book is getting the attention and readership that it is.

I found it very interesting reading this book in early November because Foer talks about American Thanksgiving in the book.

So, now I feel incredibly sad and very angry (I know anger is a distancing emotion and I don’t want to others to withdraw from me, but I have a lot of compassion for myself right now and I have a reason to feel that way and that’s how I feel) and I definitely need some lighter reading materials, pronto.(Edit: Re the compassion for myself, blah blah: I'm not a new age type person at all and I don't remember ever saying anything like this with regard to myself, but I was very distraught after reading this book.)

Please go read other reviews of this book. Don’t let my distress dissuade you from reading this important book. I can guarantee that if you get even remotely as emotionally involved as I did while reading this book, you’re either already vegan or you’ll be grateful for the information.

I do have a fundamental disagreement with Foer, who seems to think it's okay at some level to use and kill animals if done humanely. I don't feel that way. Maybe because I'm already vegan and knew so much of the information in this book, my favorite parts were when Foer wrote about his (holocaust) survivor grandmother. ( )

I was reluctant to pick up this book, as I had been warned that it would turn me (already an infrequent meat eater) into a vegetarian. And though this well-written book does feel a bit manipulative at times, it does present various points of view, going from vegans to cattle farmers, to compare against your own. The author is at his best when he explains the abominations of the American livestock industry, which seems to operate in a legal vacuum (and I counted myself blessed for living in the European Union, which has such a strong focus on food regulation). The weakest parts are when he comes across as a sentimental big city-dweller who thinks that a happy sow would never unwittingly crush her piglets, or that pigs, given enough room, would abstain from eating their own excrement, and the pages and pages of violent slaughterhouse porn - though instructive and instrumental in proving a point (although maybe a few times too many). ( )

“At an industrial pig breeding facility in North Carolina, videotape taken by undercover investigators showed some workers administering daily beatings, bludgeoning pregnant sows with the ranch, and ramming an iron pole a foot deep into mother pigs rectums and vaginas. These things have nothing to do with bettering the taste of the resultant meet or preparing the pigs for slaughter–they are merely perversion. In other videotaped instances at the farm, workers sawed off pigs’ legs and skin them while they were still conscious. At another facility operated by one of the largest pork producers in the United States, some employees were videotaped throwing, beating, and kicking pigs; slamming them against concrete floors and bludgeoning them with metal gate rods and hammers. At another farm, a year-long investigation found systematic abuse of tens of thousands of pigs. The investigation documented workers extinguishing cigarettes on the animals’ bodies, beating them with rakes and shovels, strangling them, and throwing them into manure pits to drown…The investigation concluded that managers condoned these abuses, but authorities have refused to prosecute. Lack of prosecution is the norm, not the exception. We are not in a period of “lax” enforcement–there simply never has been a time when companies could expect serious punitive action if they were caught abusing farmed animals."

So, I guess that takes bacon (the last pork product we were actually eating) off the family table for good. Oh yeah, and Nicholas Kristof reports in the New York Times that studies by the University of Minnesota conclude that MRSA (the “flesh-eating” disease that kills more Americans than AIDS) is carried by 25-39% of American hogs. And then there’s this:

“Temple Grandin has argued that ordinary people can become sadistic from the dehumanizing work of constant slaughter. This is a persistent problem, she reports, that management must guard against.… The combination of line speeds that have increased as much as 800% in the past hundred years [that would be since Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle] and poorly trained workers laboring under nightmarish conditions guarantees mistakes. (Slaughterhouse workers have the highest injury rate of any job–27% annually–and receive low pay to kill as many as 2,050 cattle per shift.)… Sometimes animals are not knocked out at all. At one plant, a secret video was taken by workers (not animal activists) and given to the Washington Post. The tape revealed conscious animals going down the processing line, and an incident where an electric prod was jammed into a steer’s mouth. According to the Post, “more than 20 workers signed affidavits alleging that the violent violations shown on the tape are commonplace and that supervisors are aware of them.” In one affidavit, worker explained, “I’ve seen thousands and thousands of cows go through the slaughter process alive… the cows can get 7 minutes down the line and still be alive. I’ve been in the side puller where they’re still alive. All the hide is stripped down to the neck there.” And when workers who complain are listened to at all, they often get fired."

Okay, so beef is off the table too, until we can find a source that not only raises cattle correctly, but slaughters them responsibly. And that isn’t necessarily as easy as it sounds. Even where people are trying to do good and make a difference, there’s a learning curve and there are differences of opinion about what ought to be done. For example, heritage poultry farmer Frank Reese writes a long passage, in which he says:

"Michael Pollan wrote about Polyface Farm in The Omnivore’s Dilemma like it was something great, but that farm is horrible. It’s a joke. Joel Salatin is doing industrial birds. Call him up and ask him. So he puts them on pasture. It makes no difference. Like putting a broken down Honda on the autobahn and saying it’s a Porsche. KFC chickens are almost always killed in 39 days. Their babies. That’s how rapidly their grown. Salatin’s organic free range chicken is killed in 42 days. ‘Cause it’s still the same chicken. It can’t be allowed to live any longer because it’s genetics are so screwed up. Stop and think about that: a bird that you simply can’t let live out of its adolescence. So maybe he just say he’s doing as much right as he can, but it’s too expensive to raise healthy birds. Well, I’m sorry if I can’t pat him on the back and tell him what a good guy he is. These are things, they’re animals, so we shouldn’t be talking about good enough. Either do it right or don’t do it."

This seems to be a very interesting book, that opens up (but doesn't resolve) some very troubling subjects. ( )

one of the better examinations of conscience for meat-eaters as Foer identifies his love of food which I share as well as the horrors of commercial farm methods which I also abhor - his fast-paced highly entertaining style make the facts and stories come alive ( )

On one hand, I really loved this book -- it is thoughtful, provocative, and well-written. Like Malcolm Gladwell, it can change the way you view the world. On the other hand, it's incredibly disturbing and upsetting. Although written in the quirky style of Foer's fiction, this is a well-researched work of nonfiction that critiques the factory farm industry and the impact of eating meat on our world. Part of me wants to become a vegetarian or even a vegan, yet I also enjoy eating meat and have been struggling with myself since I started reading this book. Now that I've read it, I can't un-know what I've learned. ( )