VT Review: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

11/03/09

After years of dabbling with vegetarianism, well-known author Jonathan Safran Foer and his wife seriously committed to it when expecting their first child, realizing that their wavering food habits were confusing and contradictory. 

Foer’s newest non-fiction work Eating Animals vividly narrates his journey investigating the food we eat. His tale extends beyond your expected pro-vegetarian handbook. He humorously and compellingly describes his childhood associations with food and his first realization about where meat comes from. He walks you through the evolution of large-scale farming and its disturbing impact on the environment, America’s health, and small family farmers.

While the book includes plenty of facts and figures, it’s above all a story about people and about food’s role in upholding central traditions that bind families and culture. Foer forms close relationships with family farmers, factory farm workers, and slaughterhouse hands to develop a clear picture of the entire industry. The heart-wrenching realities surely ignite or reinforce a passion for vegetarianism. Moreover, he uncovers a dismal truth: family farms are almost extinct, and factory farms continue to oust honest businesses off the market.

Foer understands that numbers fall short when trying to promote change. He concludes: “Being human, being humane, is more than an exercise of reason. Responding to the factory farm calls for a capacity to care that dwells beyond information, and beyond the oppositions of desire and reason, fact and myth, and even human and animal.”

To purchase the book, click here.

—Anna Monette Roberts, Editorial Intern

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