Two years ago, Eating Animals made me vegan. For a while. Foer's unaggressive narrative captured my attention at first, when the book opened questioning the necessity meat-related taboos. Foer seemed to leave me with a freedom to make my own choices, once I was provided the information in his book. As I got through the pages of this book, I became increasingly grossed out with animals products, however. This, surely, resulted from his descriptions of animal suffering, but augmented with the philosophical and economic context of it.

Foer's personal research (I think he traveled to industrial production facilities to check out food production in person) was particularly vivid. One phrase I still remember, two years after reading it: "Although one can realistically expect that at least some percentage of cows and pigs are slaughtered with speed and care, no fish gets a good death. Not a single one. You never have to wonder if the fish on your plate had to suffer. It did."

Now, two years removed from reading this life-changing book, my perception of eating animal products is still morphing. Suffering isn't the biggest question I struggle with these days, but, rather, whether or not I can reduce my contribution to the economy's demand for industrial animal production.

This book won't scream at you in an effort to "convert" you to the vegan church. I encourage any thinking individual to pick this up for a quick dip into reality. ( )

A truly disturbing read. I've gone through some vegetarian stages throughout my life and after reading this book I'd feel wrong if I didn't make another attempt to embrace a vegetarian diet. A book that should be read by everyone. ( )

I may become vegetarian having read this. Really. Perhaps the book's most powerful statement is this: "It's always possible to wake someone from sleep, but no amount of noise will wake someone who is pretending to be asleep." In other words, once we know what happens on factory farms, not changing our eating habits is nothing but feigned ignorance, a willful refusal to acknowledge the problem. ( )

Before starting to read this book I had an impression that it is going to be one of those books highly discouraging eating meat due to moral concerns. However while it touched it a bit, the book is not really against eating meat. It is against factory farming! The author shows how meat industry became degenerate by trying to optimize the process of getting meat and cutting costs. The book is trying to explain huge impact done by factory farming - from environment damage or bycatch to resistance to antibiotics.

Sometimes we involuntarily just choose to ignore things we do every day and not to raise questions (such as, why we eat meat today). Quoting the book:

To do nothing is to do something

Few more quotes I liked:

How much do I value creating socially comfortable situation, and how much do I value acting socially responsible

Factory farming's success depends on consumers' nostalgic images of food production - the fisherman reeling fish, the pig farmer knowing each of his pigs as individuals, the turkey rancher watching beaks break through eggs - because these images correspond to something we respect and trust.

Cruelty depends on an understanding of cruelty, and the ability to choose against it. Or to choose to ignore it

( )

alright alright I’ll eat less meat ( )