Book Review

Eating Animals by Safran Foer

This is a book of thoughtful reflections and research about our eating habits (dietary
style) and why eating animals may be an international problem. While it presents many
of the classic arguments against agribusiness, farm factories (including the industrial
fishing industry) food processing industry (restaurants), it also provides insight into
current food production in general and the many forces that are trying to change our
concepts about eating; from those of vegans to the USDA.

The author visits farm factories that he can access and sneaks into a few in the dead of
night. He also spends time with the more positive free-range family farm operators. He
provides a wealth of information that is not always pretty but certainly should be
understood and become general knowledge. He uses the air pollution-global warming
issue, the humane treatment issue, possible flu epidemic issue, environmental degradation
issue and the no reason to eat animals issue to support adopting a meat free diet. While it
is not a hard sell it is the underlying current running deep in the book since that has been
the author’s decision to become a vegetarian.

Some of the interesting facts he provides are that there are two types of chickens bred,
one for eating; broilers and one for egg production. The fish that are inadvertently caught
in massive nets but not wanted are bycatch, which frequently include endanger species
and that farm factory turkeys can barely walk due to a production process enhanced by
medications that is designed to maximize breast meat.

All in all, it is a strong overview of the many complex issues that need to be considered
in our modern world regarding food consumption. The most important thing to note is
that as more people want to eat animal rich diets the more focused food industry descends
to rapid mass production methods of meat in economically sound ways, not growing
happy 4-H cows. It is a matter of when you dine on your next filet mignon steak or
double burger do you care that the animal slaughtered for your dinning pleasure lived a
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, existence?

Foer, Safran Eating Animals, Little Brown and Co.: New York, 2009. 341 pages.

Rating: 5

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Type: Meat Industry

March 23, 2010