The meat industry is illuminated

Jonathan Safran Foer on his book ‘Eating Animals’ 26

Eating Animals book coverIf you’re a meat eater, don’t read Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book Eating Animals. Unless, that is, you are a meat eater curious about the health of your body, the planet, or the animals you consume.

The acclaimed author of Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Foer, has been an on-again, off-again vegetarian since age nine when his herbivore babysitter explained to him why she wasn’t eating chicken.

Years later, as a first-time father-to-be, Foer set out on a three year journey to learn where the meat that we eat comes from. The result is Eating Animals.

But Foer isn’t the only one doing the talking. An animal activist and factory farmer have monologues, along with a vegan who builds slaughterhouses and a vegetarian rancher, among others. Then he weaves their stories into his own philosophical ponderings about the morality of supporting an industry that has produced some sickening statistics of late.

But wherever you fall on this issue—staunch meatetarian, longtime vegan, or back and forth vegetarian like Foer himself—you won’t look at the meat industry in the same way again—and you might even find yourself advocating for changes.

Foer talked with Grist about his book, why environmentalists haven’t done enough to address meat, and his Thanksgiving dinner.

—————

Q. Some people might look at your book and think, it’s just some vegetarian trying to tell me to not eat meat or preach to me. How would you describe your book to someone skeptical about reading it?

Jonathan Safran FoerJonathan Safran FoerPhoto: Gianluca GentiliniA. There are things in it that people really want to know. I, of course, understand the impulse not to want to look, because I had that impulse many times a day with all kinds of issues. If something comes on the TV about starving kids and I think, “oh god I don’t want to look because I’m not doing what I maybe should be doing.” You know all of the reasons why we can’t face certain things. I’ve heard from a lot of people who’ve read the book who frankly don’t care that much about animals, but for whom the human health stuff was just really shocking. I’ve talked to a fair number of parents who said I don’t want to feed my kids this stuff. Unfortunately, conversations about meat have historically not really been conversations but arguments. You know my book. I have strong opinions and I share them but I don’t think of my book as an argument. I think of it as a kind of story that I’m telling—about my life, the decisions I’ve made, why having a kid changed my mind about some of these things—but also a conversation. Many many people have their own voice in the book—farmers, activists, nutritionists—and I wanted it to capture what a complicated and also what a first-person oriented topic meat is.

Q. You make a powerful moral argument against eating meat. With so many other moral injustices and inequalities in the industrial food system, why did you focus solely on meat?

A. A number of reasons. One, it would take many, many books to write about the entire food system in a way that it deserves, comprehensively. I had to leave so much out just in my conversation of meat in the interest of having a book that could be useful, readable. So yes, there are many injustices in the world. This is a special one. In the food system, [meat] is unique because the food is sentient where carrots aren’t and corn isn’t. [Meat] also happens to be the worst part of the food system when we talk about the environment and the worst part when we talk about human health. It deserves special attention.

Q. Did you see a lack of conversation about the meat industry, especially when we talk about the food system? Did you see a lack of information there for people?

A. Definitely. I think every book is written because the author wants to read it, whether it’s a novel or nonfiction. And as somebody who has thought about this issue for a long time, there was a certain kind of thing I wanted to read. And it didn’t exist. Omnivore’s Dilemma sort of approaches some of this but doesn’t get into it. And the same could be said of Fast Food Nation. And then there are books that are, of course, very directly about meat but they tend to be more rigidly philosophical rather than, as I said before, a conversation or a story. If such a thing had existed, man oh man, I would have been so happy not to work on this. I really like writing novels. This felt important.

Q. Food has such a strong sentimental value. You talk about your grandma’s chicken and carrot dish in the book. Do you think this is the reason people and our society in general tend to ignore discussion about where meat comes from?

A. There are many, many reasons. One, it’s just unpleasant to think about and talk about. Two, yes these emotional, psychological personal history reasons. Three, it tastes good and it smells good and most people want to continue to do things that feel good to them. But four, there are many forces that suppress a good conversation about this. It’s impossible to go to the kinds of farms that produce 99 percent of the meat in America. There’s labeling, very manipulative labeling, that discourages us from having a conversation because it makes us feel that things are more okay than they actually are. But I think it’s a conversation that people are not only willing to have, but want to have. We don’t want to eat foods that aren’t good for us. We don’t want to eat foods where environmental destruction is built into the business model. We don’t want to eat foods that require animal suffering, require insane kinds of modifications to animals’ bodies. These are not liberal or conservative values. Nobody wants this.

Q. When I first considered becoming a vegetarian, I kind of freaked out and thought, “This is going to change my life by not eating meat! I’m going to have to make a lot of changes.” How can someone who is considering becoming a vegetarian overcome that hurdle?

A. I would say don’t think about it as becoming a vegetarian. Think about it as a process of eating less meat. And maybe the process will end with eating no meat. But if Americans lose one serving of meat a week from their diet it would be like taking about 5 million cars off the road. That’s a really impressive statistic that I think might motivate a lot of people who feel they can’t become vegetarians to remove one serving of meat. So, we need to move away from this kind of dichotomous, absolutist language and towards something that just reflects where people are in this country. Once people start caring they care about more, not less.

Q. You’re very honest about your struggle to stick to a vegetarian diet. Was that your purpose, with talking about that in the book, going back and forth in your struggle?

A. It was just the truth. And that truth can be really helpful because again a lot of people get turned off by the prospect of some sort of an absolute end they think they’re not going to be capable of achieving. If the conversation were just more flexible. Of course certain things are wrong. They’re just wrong, wrong, wrong. There’s no way around it. But the goals that most people who care about this issue have are reducing animal suffering and having a food system that is respectful of the environment. If those are really our goals, then we should have an approach that better reflects that.

Q. You focus a lot on personal choice when it comes to eating meat—the moral dilemma between choosing to eat meat and to not eat meat. What about government policy? If the government regulated the meat industry more strictly, wouldn’t change happen more quickly? Is personal choice enough and where does activism come into play?

A. Well, it’s all part of a picture. The government is going to lag behind everybody else because they have to endorse American industry and 99 percent of American industry is factory farming. There have been some very successful referendums around the country. Like, California’s Prop 2 is the most famous one and also the threats of referendums which have encouraged certain states like Michigan to make changes on its own. So those are really effective and we’re going to see a lot more of them.

Q. One of the reasons you wrote this book was to become an informed parent. The food industry in general, not just Big Meat, spends a lot of money on advertisements aimed at children. How do you protect your son from influential food advertising, especially from the meat industry?

A. Well, it’s a non issue so far. But, we’ll have conversations, not just pretend that there isn’t an issue. We’ll talk about it. He might reach different conclusions. He might want to try certain things. Of course he will, if he’s at all like every other kid who has ever lived. We also need to get this crap out of schools. Definitely we need to get posters from lobbying organizations, profit driven lobbying organizations out of schools, whose incentive is not to make our kids healthier. But, we also need to reform the school lunch program. It shouldn’t be depository for all the meats, the factory farmed products, that America isn’t buying. And we spend five times as much on factory farmed products than we do fruits and vegetables in high schools.

Q. Explaining how factory farms work would be enough to give anybody nightmares. How are you going to approach that with your son?

A. Well, it only gives you a nightmare if you’re participating. To say no to it lets you sleep at night.

Q. You discussed the link between factory farms and large pandemics, Spanish influenza, swine flu. The mainstream media is always talking about swine flu. Why do you think they shy away from linking factory farms and H1N1?

A. I don’t know. You tell me. I mean, we could assume there’s some pressure from the meat lobby I guess, the pork lobby, but I don’t really know. I find it very strange.

Q. You write in your book, “someone who regularly eats factory farmed animal products cannot call themselves an environmentalist without divorcing that word from its meaning.” Do you think environmentalists have done enough to make the connection between meat production and climate change? And what more do you think could be done?

A. No, they obviously haven’t [done enough], and they know it’s the elephant in the room. They haven’t because they fear that addressing it is going to risk losing people. And I appreciate that. I don’t think that that’s stupid. I’m not one to get on Al Gore’s back for not talking about it enough because he’s doing amazing work and he serves a function in the world and it might very well be that if he got too deeply into this issue people would treat him, and the cause perhaps, less seriously. That having been said, we have to get serious. This is the number one cause of global warming—and not by a little bit but by a lot. The most recently revised estimate was that animal agriculture is responsible for 51 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, so that’s more than everything else put together. If we’re going to seriously think about this stuff we might have to risk the discomfort.

Q. Are you going to eat tofurky for Thanksgiving dinner this year? [Note: This interview took place the week before Thanksgiving.]

A. No. I don’t really get into the whole tofurky business. We’re going to just have really the kinds of food that everybody has—just no turkey. We’ll have stuffing and green beans and sweet potatoes and yams and all of that stuff. I guarantee everyone will go home full. I’m really looking forward to it actually this year.

Related Stories

Advertisement
Advertisement

  1. oracle2world Posted 3:29 pm
    01 Dec 2009

    If we are not supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?

    Permalink

    1. CyberBrook's avatar

      CyberBrook Posted 3:09 pm
      04 Dec 2009

      That's basically what Palin's ghostwriter said and, like her, it's neither funny nor impressive.

      Permalink

  2. ebbykins Posted 3:41 pm
    01 Dec 2009

    We are made of meat too... are you going to eat me?

    Permalink

    1. oracle2world Posted 6:25 am
      02 Dec 2009

      I'll offer you up as a tidbit for a shark or polar bear.

      Permalink

      1. ebbykins Posted 10:05 am
        04 Dec 2009

        Oh yes, because they so naturally want to eat humans. :P Maybe they'd take me as your bait because we've killed off all their food resources with global warming and over fishing and they became desperate. :)

        Permalink

  3. Joel W Posted 2:06 am
    02 Dec 2009

    It's the industrialization of animal husbandry that's sick. Personally, I think if you want to eat meat you should treat it as a luxury or raise the animal yourself. It's healthier for you, the planet and the animal.

    http://www.greenexplorer.ovi.com/getinspired/europe/united-kingdom/urban-farms/

    Permalink

  4. ljc4918 Posted 2:31 pm
    02 Dec 2009

    If you are going to eat meat, simply just give the animal the rights of any living being. Don't subject it to torture and confinement. Allow it to live its life as it desires, feed it the food it evolved to eat, not the food that makes it fat quickly. Support your local farmers in doing so. Although it may seem to be impossible to humanely slaughter an animal, it is much more ethical to allow it to live a good life before slaughter. As a vegetarian, the thing that disgusts me the most about our eating habits is the SOURCE of our meat, not meat itself. All of the monstrous corporations who control the majority of meat processing subject the animals AND WORKERS to horrendous conditions. If you decide to eat meat, just use your dollars to reject the terrible policies of the corporate meat industry.

    Permalink

    1. wynne Posted 10:50 am
      04 Dec 2009

      Wonderfully said.

      Permalink

  5. 10in10Diet.com's avatar

    10in10Diet.com Posted 10:21 pm
    02 Dec 2009

    I'm glad this book is out there. I like what he says about eating LESS meat. It's too bad most people's preconceptions about what a meatless meal tastes like stop them before they even try. It can be easy, really cheap, and full of varied flavors.

    Lynn Shwadchuck
    http://www.10in10diet.com/
    Diet for a small footprint and a small grocery bill.

    Permalink

  6. Alison in Portland Posted 8:17 am
    03 Dec 2009

    I'm glad the author wrote this book. I hope people, whether green types, right-wingers or apolitical altogether, can see the sense in eating less meat. I agree with Lynn, above, that most people underestimate how delicious meat-free meals can be, and much money they can save. I made this tasty meat-free meal for $1.56/person (and my guests raved about it happily than the time we served them wild salmon): http://www.diamondcutlife.org/my-cheapest-tastiest-healthiest-dinner-menu/

    Permalink

  7. MJW Posted 8:19 am
    03 Dec 2009

    The other elephant in the room is population control. Everyone talks about protecting the environment, but they don't talk about limiting their families to just one child or even choosing not to have children. People are responsible for the mess that we've created.

    Permalink

    1. oracle2world Posted 6:02 pm
      03 Dec 2009

      No species limits its progeny. But if folks really really think it is a good idea. Start with yourselves. Evolution will take care of the rest.

      Permalink

    2. Schrmin Posted 9:46 pm
      03 Dec 2009

      I whole-heartedly agree that the elephant in the room is actually unchecked human population growth, which leaves meat eating / animal agriculture as perhaps the baby elephant – humanity’s second biggest unexamined contributor to planetary ecological damage. It just can’t be argued that until humankind reduces it’s numbers (or I suppose reduces it’s resource consumption drastically to allow for 7 billion humans, soon to be 10 billion, to live sustainably on this small space rock, which unfortunately seems to be wishful thinking since the rest of the world is apparently striving to live [and eat] like Americans), we will continue to struggle with a deteriorating natural environment less and less able to sustain the ever-increasing human population. And then, sadly but unquestionably, nature will make the decision for us. So this is why these debates about overpopulation and meat eating, as emotional and unpleasant as they are to many since both issues are so fundamental to what it means to be human, must be had, and quickly while we still have a choice in the matter.

      And yes, Oracle, sarcasm aside, some of us have already made the decision not to have children for exactly this reason. You may be right that “no species limits its progeny,” but that is to their own detriment because the consequence of overpopulation is always the same…it’s one of the most basic of biological principles…and it ends with famine, starvation, mass death, and a severely degraded environment. Easter Island is the perfect example…human population growth overshoots carrying capacity, denudes the environment, and a Malthusian die-off is the result complete with starvation, cannibalism, war, societal and cultural collapse…and the island still has not recovered ecologically…it will likely take 1000s of years. And while you can joke that “evolution will take care of the rest,” which it surely will, it’s our possibly unique ability to foresee the consequences of our actions that allow us to hopefully avoid such a horrible fate…and the first steps are to recognize that the unsustainable size of the human population (along with its gluttonous appetite for animal products and other "natural resources") is the underlying cause of all environmental problems. Now where we go from here is the question…

      Permalink

  8. AngeliqueC Posted 6:03 am
    04 Dec 2009

    Unfortunately, the World Watch report stating that livestock emissions account for 51% of global greenhouse gas emissions is just poor science.

    1. The World Watch report includes GHG emissions from all pre-existing land set aside for animal agriculture (not just land which is currently being deforested) because the land could otherwise be used to do climate-friendly things like grow biofuels. But it is disingenuous to count any land as a source of GHGs simply because it isn’t currently being used to offset GHGs. If we did so, we’d have to count my bathroom floor as a source of GHGs.

    2. The World Watch report includes including livestock emissions from breathing, digestion, etc. while not including the same emissions from other sources (humans and other animals). Mathematically, this astronomically and incorrectly inflates the percent of emissions coming from livestock.

    There are other problems too; for my whole analysis see my blog post at http://fromanimaltomeat.com/2009/10/30/climate-chicanery/

    Permalink

  9. deborahlee Posted 1:16 pm
    04 Dec 2009

    The recent (11/30) New Yorker letters contain so many answers to the half-awareness of Foer's position: the horrors of soy monoculture, for one, that I suggest folks take a look at. BUT -- the really big question for me, as a physician, is the dangerous falsifying of the health effects of soy. Toxic on the environment yes, but also on your thyroid, your intestines, and for this author and his boys -- and his wife -- their hormones. I hope his answer for thanksgiving is symbolic of the other days of the year and that he resists the intense and misleading marketing of the very profitable soy industry. Don't eat soy, don't drink soy -- it's not a health food.

    Permalink

    1. 10in10Diet.com's avatar

      10in10Diet.com Posted 2:13 pm
      04 Dec 2009

      I'm happy to hear a physician say what I've intuitively acted on all along. When I talk about eating beans in my program, I specifically discourage relying on soy. My early experience trying to cook with dry soybeans in the seventies told me how indigestible they are. So, not even a bit of miso soup now and then? I've been told the lacto-bacteria in it is good. But I also noticed rice miso in the store the other day. Maybe I should have bought it.

      Lynn Shwadchuck
      http://www.10in10diet.com/
      Diet for a small footprint and a small grocery bill.

      Permalink

      1. deborahlee Posted 2:32 pm
        04 Dec 2009

        Fermented soy (Miso, tamari and tempeh) in limited amounts is, yes, you're right! good for some of the lactobacteria, and not as bad as other soy. The real killers are textured soy protein, soy milk and tofu!

        Permalink

    2. CyberBrook's avatar

      CyberBrook Posted 3:15 pm
      04 Dec 2009

      I think soy is very healthy, but the problem with soy is that is very often genetically engineered and that nearly all of the crop is fed to animals being raised for meat.

      Organic soy is healthy, delicious, and has minimal environmental impact compared to meat. there's no reason why it shouldn't be part of a diversified plant-based diet.

      Permalink

      1. deborahlee Posted 3:20 pm
        04 Dec 2009

        Beg to disagree!! Even organic soy is highly allergenic, difficult to digest, likely to ferment and promote candidal overgrowth, toxic to the thyroid and interferes (its phytic acids interfere:) with the absorption of calcium and iron. And on the good side, it's....??? And if you've seen studies on GMO effects, organics are not safe from wind-pollination by GMO crops anywhere remotely nearby. (there's more: interferes with cysteine absorption, promotes Homocysteine accumulation ... see Kayla Daniels work on the Weston A. Price Foundation website before you choose to eat soy. (I'm still doing penance for promoting its use and feeding my daughter soy before I learned more about it!))

        Permalink

      2. CyberBrook's avatar

        CyberBrook Posted 3:25 pm
        04 Dec 2009

        You've undermined your argument by citing weston price junk science propaganda. I'd be interested to know which industry funds them.

        Permalink

  10. 10in10Diet.com's avatar

    10in10Diet.com Posted 2:36 pm
    04 Dec 2009

    Right, good. TVP tastes like dog food. And soy milk, well, I just remember the young mothers whose babies couldn't tolerate cow's milk and then they also reacted to soy. If it's in the nursing mother's milk, she can still eat other things, but once you're relying on formula...

    Permalink

    1. 10in10Diet.com's avatar

      10in10Diet.com Posted 3:52 pm
      04 Dec 2009

      Somebody help me. I don't understand 'permalink' vs 'Reply'. My posts aren't showing up in the spot I intend.

      Anyway, just because someone quotes Weston A. Price doesn't make it wrong. I'm well aware that they're an arm of industrial meat agribiz, totally lobbyists, but that doesn't make every piece of info false.

      So, Doctor, are you posting here as a meat promoter? At least you're not a hothead.

      Permalink

      1. deborahlee Posted 4:08 pm
        04 Dec 2009

        Hi there -- yes I'm a local, grass-fed, sustainable and humane meat promoter but NOT agribiz -- Weston Price is all about local and sustainable agriculture and fights to resist the corporate interests that have perverted our food choices. I think you're confusing Weston A. Price (http://www.westonaprice.org check it out) with someone else!! They successfully lobbied for trans fat labeling to appear on food and they are currently trying to get soy out of prisoners' diets and to oppose the national animal identification system. No lobbying on behalf of corporate agribiz!

        Permalink

      2. deborahlee Posted 4:26 pm
        04 Dec 2009

        from the website: The main sources of support for the Weston A. Price Foundation are the dues and contributions of its members. The Foundation receives no funding from any government agency or food processing corporation. Although many of our members are farmers, the Foundation has no ties with the meat or dairy industry, nor with any organization promoting these industries. The Foundation promotes the production of food by independent farmers and artisans, and not by industry.

        Permalink

  11. CyberBrook's avatar

    CyberBrook Posted 3:17 pm
    04 Dec 2009


    For much more info on meat, vegetarianism, and the environment,

    please visit

    Eco-Eating at http://www.brook.com/veg

    Permalink

    1. 10in10Diet.com's avatar

      10in10Diet.com Posted 4:04 pm
      04 Dec 2009

      Fabulous site! I had a commenter on my site who quoted Weston A Price and I spent a chunk of a day researching the foundation. It's worth doing, because I did come to the conclusion it's the equivalent of the climate change deniers who are funded by big oil. But it can seem like good info, so I wouldn't jump on people who cite them. It takes some digging to find the funders and I didn't record it.

      Permalink

Add a Comment

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

Hello, Visitor!    Why not register?

Viewed
More
Commented
More
Advertisement