Eating Animals
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4.3 • 231 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Part memoir and part investigative report, Eating Animals is the groundbreaking moral examination of vegetarianism, farming, and the food we eat every day that inspired the documentary of the same name.
Bestselling author Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his life oscillating between enthusiastic carnivore and occasional vegetarian. For years he was content to live with uncertainty about his own dietary choices but once he started a family, the moral dimensions of food became increasingly important.
Faced with the prospect of being unable to explain why we eat some animals and not others, Foer set out to explore the origins of many eating traditions and the fictions involved with creating them. Traveling to the darkest corners of our dining habits, Foer raises the unspoken question behind every fish we eat, every chicken we fry, and every burger we grill.
Part memoir and part investigative report, Eating Animals is a book that, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, places Jonathan Safran Foer "at the table with our greatest philosophers" -and a must-read for anyone who cares about building a more humane and healthy world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The latest from novelist Foer is a surprising but characteristically brilliant memoir-investigation, boasting an exhaustively-argued account of one man-child's decade-long struggle with vegetarianism. On the eve of becoming a father, Foer takes all the arguments for and against vegetarianism a neurotic step beyond and, to decide how to feed his coming baby, investigates everything from the intelligence level of our most popular meat providers-cattle, pigs, and poultry-to the specious self-justifications (his own included) for eating some meat products and not others. Foer offers a lighthearted counterpoint to his investigation in doting portraits of his loving grandmother, and her meat-and-potatoes comfort food, leaving him to wrestle with the comparative weight of food's socio-cultural significance and its economic-moral-political meaning. Without pulling any punches-factory farming is given the full expose treatment-Foer combines an array of facts, astutely-written anecdotes, and his furious, inward-spinning energy to make a personal, highly entertaining take on an increasingly visible (and book-selling) moral question; call it, perhaps, An Omnivore's Dilemma.
Customer Reviews
Good Read
Easy to read and reinforces that we should be considering our whole family when we are choosing what we eat. It affects more than our immediate health it affects farmers and the wider community.
Eating Animals is a must read!
The author approached this subject with candor, facts and from different viewpoints. I was amazed, surprised and disgusted at how greed has wreaked our environment, animals and people. My family eats meat and seems to be afraid to read this book or think about how eating meat supports factory farming. People are defensive about eating meat and say there are two sides to every story. Somehow, it has been planted in peoples brains that vegans and vegetarians do not get enough protein! I think that people eat irresponsibly and without much thought. This is one more area where they don't feel they can effect a change. I was a vegetarian and after reading this book, I gave up dairy and eat no animal products at all. People ask is it hard? No, for me it is an easy choice and not difficult to live with. I think if more people knew what was in their food and where it came from, factory farming would be gone. If my family chooses to eat meat, then the most responsible thing I can do is find a family farmer to get their food from. (I served my husband Gardein 'chicken' and he did not know the difference). If you are thinking of going meatless, look into Tal Ronnen's cookbooks.
Amazingly! You can't ignore this book!
The book is well balanced between fact, personal reflection and the horrifying look into factory farming. Don't be afraid, it won't turn you into a vegetarian, but it will make you think about eating less meat. Since 99% of all meat is factory farmed, eating less of it is a step towards a healthier you, a healthier planet and a few less suffering animals.