Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer: A vegan's review

 

Jonathan Safran Foer is a gifted writer and story teller. His multigenerational family and his Jewish background both figure prominently in this book, giving it an unusual appeal, considering the subject matter. 

Eating Animals is a powerful and meticulously researched book about factory farming, that is actually highly readable—a page-turner, in fact. And though so much of what he has to share is heartbreaking, there are also plenty of stories about his family and his experience in writing the book that will make you smile and even laugh.

This is not another Omnivore’s Dilemma by any means. Eating Animals is a much more honest analysis of factory farming and it is also more honest about the solutions. (In fact, it’s fair to say that this book makes Michael Pollan look rather ridiculous with his boar hunting, Slow Food movement, and absolute refusal to consider vegetarianism.)

Yes, Foer is supportive of those farmers who are trying to treat animals more humanely. This is, in part, because he’s not an animal rights activist. But it’s also because he understands our moral obligation to the 27 million animals who are slaughtered every day in the United States while a mere 1 percent of the population chooses ethical veganism. But unlike Pollan, Foer is very clear about the fact that “humanely-produced” animal food isn’t a readily available solution. “We shouldn’t kid ourselves about the number of ethical eating options available to most of us,” he says. “Any ethical-meat advocate who is serious is going to be eating a lot of vegetarian meals.”

While Foer is moved and impressed by the few (very, very few) farmers who are trying to give animals a decent life, he remains resolutely vegetarian. There is his discomfort with the whole idea of raising animals just to kill them, of course. His bigger concern, though, is that truly humane treatment of animals on even the very best farms is not guaranteed, or even at all likely. The farmers admit it, too, particularly in regard to slaughter.

In exploring this issue, the book does a great job of balancing different perspectives--including non-vegetarian ones--about what it means to eat ethically. Even when I didn’t agree with those he interviewed, I felt it was important to hear what they had to say.

The biggest weakness of the book is that it fails to adequately convey the miserable lives of dairy cows and their calves and therefore doesn’t make a strong enough case against dairy consumption. On the other hand, Foer doesn’t shy away from including the not-so-warm-and-fuzzy in his circle of compassion. This is a great book to share with your “pesco-veg” friends since it makes an emphatic case against eating fish. There are environmental reasons for this (trawling for shrimp is described as “the marine equivalent of clear-cutting rain forest”) as well as the fact that fish are social and sentient creatures. They “build complex nests, form monogamous relationships, hunt cooperatively with other species, and use tools.” And the ways in which they are killed—both on fish farms and in the wild—are horrific. “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.”

Foer is neither a vegan nor an animal rights activist. Not only does it not matter for this particular book, but it’s probably helpful regarding his ability to reach the audience for whom he writes. Those who criticize the book because it falls short of the “Go vegan” message, and who won’t recommend it, are missing an opportunity to make a difference for animals. It's not a perfect book, but it is still persuasive and powerful. 

Because, whether or not Eating Animals conveys exactly the message that we would like to hear, anyone who is following reviews and discussions about it can see that it is having an impact on readers. The author’s relatively passive approach—not only does he not tell anyone that they should become vegetarian, but he hardly even suggests it—should probably be viewed as an interesting (and perhaps brilliant) strategy rather than a weakness.

It’s disappointing that Foer isn’t vegan, especially when he has suggested that giving up eggs is the most important dietary change a person can make from an ethical standpoint. He describes himself (not in the book, but in recent interviews) as somewhere between vegetarian and vegan, not consuming dairy and eggs in visible forms, but still occasionally eating them as ingredients in foods. It seems unlikely that Foer has reached the end of his own ethical dietary journey, though.

While Foer insists in the book that it is just about his journey and decisions, he has admitted in interviews that, of course, there is an agenda here. He wants his readers to look at their own choices and what they mean.

“Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else? If contributing to the suffering of billions of animals that live miserable lives and (quite often) die in horrific ways isn’t motivating, what would be? If being the number one contributor to the most serious threat facing the planet (global warming) isn’t enough, what is? And if you are tempted to put off these questions of conscience, to say not now, then when?”