"Eating Animals", Jonathan Safran Foer--Full Review

This book made me want to become a vegetarian. At least, until I discovered that we buy the majority of our food from the only non-factory farm in the area. But still. It was pretty shocking. Anyway, review:

A version of this review first appeared in the Langley high school newspaper The Saxon Scope.

You wouldn’t eat something infected with a dozen different diseases, that’s been fed more antibiotics than a typical AIDS victim and is genetically engineered to die when left alone, right? Well then, put down your hamburgers. Cast off your chicken and turkey. Eschew your delicious pork. For that, along with pain and suffering, is what you’re eating.

So asserts Jonathan Safran Foer in his new book “Eating Animals”, which, strangely enough, is not a an attempt to convert the reader to vegetarianism. Rather, it is a brilliant cross between Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” and Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. “Eating Animals” is part memoir, part philosophy, and part exposé. In an engaging, conversational manner, Foer touches on the concept of “suffering” (what is it, exactly? Do animals feel it?), the cruelty of factory farms, and the cultural importance of meat at the dinner table.

Backed by a bibliography bigger than a college student’s thesis paper (60 pages, with added commentary) this book is the product of three years of extensive research. Unfortunately, it’s not perfect.

The extensive bibliography makes it possible to fact-check the author, showing that there are a couple times where the author presents a conclusion of his as fact. This doesn’t happen often, but in a book that otherwise so clearly differentiates and combines fact and opinion, it feels a touch dishonest. Connected to this is the fact that, although the author does not explicitly attempt to convert the reader to vegetarianism, this is a book about extreme injustice. As such, a self-righteous, moralistic tone occasionally permeates the writing. This isn’t bad by itself (Foer never really devolves into “preachy”) but it is jarring to read when you’re analyzing a factual argument the author made and he suddenly switches to telling an emotional anecdote.

These are annoying flaws, but they do not dilute the shocking overall message of the book: Upwards of 90% of the time you put meat into your mouth, you are enabling the inhumane torture of animals.