'Eating Animals,' by Jonathan Safran Foer

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/08/RVCQ1AABAN.DTL

 

 

 

'Eating Animals,' by Jonathan Safran Foer

Geoff Nicholson, Special to The Chronicle

 

Sunday, November 8, 2009

 

 

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Eating Animals

By Jonathan Safran Foer

(Little, Brown; 352 pages; $25.99)

In World War II, Jonathan Safran Foer's Jewish grandmother crossed Europe,

barefoot and starving, one step ahead of the Nazis. A Russian farmer took pity

on her and offered her a piece of pork. She wouldn't eat it even to save her

life, her reasoning being, " If nothing matters, there's nothing to save. "

 

With stories like this told around the dinner table, it's hardly surprising that

Foer has some deep and complex feelings about the role of food in culture and

family. Once a wishy-washy vegetarian, now a fully committed one, he dates the

origins of this book, and his concern with the morality of eating meat, to the

birth of his son.

 

He spent three years immersed in " animal agriculture, " visiting farms, talking

to activists, farmers, scientists and in one case a vegan builder of

slaughterhouses, all the time asking, " What are the economic, social and

environmental effects of eating animals? "

 

Much of the book describes and condemns factory farms, which Foer tells us

produce all but 1 percent of American meat. It won't come as news that terrible

things happen in these places, but Foer reports that things are worse than most

of us ever imagined.

 

For example, he describes how slaughtered chickens, some of them diseased,

" leaking yellow pus, stained by green feces " are dropped together into a massive

tank of refrigerated water. The liquid in these tanks is known as " fecal soup. "

Once in the tank, the chickens soak up the liquid, getting heavier and therefore

adding to their value (or at least price). Many of us have balked at paying

extra for chickens plumped up with water: The fact is we're paying extra for

fecal soup.

 

I wish this were the worst, most revolting fact that Foer reveals. It isn't, by

any means. Much of the book is a catalog of the horrors factory farmed animals

endure, and also of the casual sadism of many who work in the industry.

 

On grounds of basic decency this would be objectionable enough, but the process

harms humans as well as animals. Factory farms create pollution, are partly

responsible for global warming and play a huge role in the spread of mutant

pathogens, as well as multiple diseases including swine flu. This, Foer

suggests, is a very high price to pay for cheap meat.

 

In his novels, notably " Everything Is Illuminated, " Foer is a witty and ironic

writer, and " Eating Animals " contains a few nice literary touches. He describes

modern fishing methods that scoop up vast quantities of unwanted fish, which are

then discarded. He writes, " Imagine being served a plate of sushi. But this

plate also holds all of the animals that were killed for your serving of sushi.

The plate might have to be five feet across. "

 

Before long, however, the sheer horror of his subject makes wit and irony

unsustainable. There are extensive passages in this book that some people are

not going to be able to stomach.

 

Set against factory farming are " ethical farmers " such as Nicolette and Bill

Niman of Bolinas (once but no longer owners of Niman Ranch) and Frank Reese of

Good Shepherd Poultry. These are certainly the " good guys " when it comes to

raising meat, and many of us see this as a way forward. But for Foer it isn't

enough.

 

His book is ultimately a work of moral philosophy. Having made us long for

humane farming methods, he then concludes that ethically there's no such thing.

Even the most humane farmers still castrate, brand or remove the tails of

animals. All farmers are ultimately involved in killing. If I understand Foer

correctly, he believes all that is immoral, and considers vegetarianism the only

ethical option. Since we don't have to kill animals to survive, then we simply

shouldn't.

 

Clearly the majority of us aren't going to agree with him on this, and he

doesn't expect us to. However, the fact that he makes me wonder whether I'm

being, at best, a hypocrite every time I eat a piece of beef suggests he's

completely successful in at least one ambition. He writes, " We need a way that

brings meat to the center of public discussion in the same way it is often at

the center of our plates. " After reading this book, it's hard to disagree.

 

 

Geoff Nicholson, whose most recent book is " The Lost Art of Walking, " is working

on a book about the wilder shores of gastronomy, provisionally titled

" Psycho-Gourmet. " E-mail him at books.

 

This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

 

 

 

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