Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals is a carefully researched, well-balanced, and well-written book. I do, however, have to admit my bias. As a vegan who hasn’t eaten meat or any animal product knowingly for 18 years (or is it 17? Without actually counting back and checking I can never remember so let’s just say a very long time) Foer is admittedly preaching to the choir in my case. I wanted to read the book though because I wanted to know what he had to say, what his take on the matter was and how he approached the conveying of the terrible facts. I had to find out what he was saying so I could tell people to read his book or say how disappointing the book is in representing the cause. Read this book, especially if you eat animals.
Foer does not shy away from asking the big questions. Why do people eat animals? Why are some animals okay to eat and others not? For instance, what are your thoughts about eating dogs? If you cringe at the thought, why? What makes eating a dog different than eating a cow, pig, fish, chicken? All of them are animals, all of them feel pain and all of them have a sometimes surprising intelligence (did you know that fish pass on knowledge to younger generations?). Why do people who say they care about the environment and about animals continue to say it is okay to eat animals when, in the United States, about 99% of all meat comes from a factory farm (even the organic and free range varieties) where animals are kept in horrible conditions, regularly abused, pumped up with antibiotics and other drugs, and then slaughtered under conditions so inhumane that they are regularly still alive as they are being skinned or tossed into scalding vats of water.
The environmental toll of factory farming is tremendous. People who live near pig farms are constantly ill. If a person falls into a waste lagoon, they die within a few minutes. Animal waste from factory farms is not required by law to be treated like human waste is and it very often seeps into the ground and contaminates water and the surrounding area. Most, if not all the meat that comes from a factory farm is covered in fecal matter even if you can’t see it. And people who have a 24-hour stomach bug/flu are actually suffering from food poisoning.
If that isn’t threatening enough for a person’s health, there is a global disease threat because of intensive animal farming. Not only are there antibiotic resistant diseases springing up because of the drug’s use in animal farming, there is the influenza to worry about. Remember the swine flu? The virus didn’t first appear in Mexico. It first appeared in the United States on a factory pig farm. Pig flu and bird flu can and do jump species and the swine flu, if I am remembering this from the book correctly, began as a bird flu that probably jumped to a person then recombined before jumping to pigs where it recombined again and jumped back to humans. This version of the swine flu was bad, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. It will happen again with a different recombined flu virus and next time we might not be so lucky.
Of course Foer also takes us inside animal farms and slaughterhouses. There were times while I was reading that I had a hard time holding back the tears. I wanted to skip ahead, I didn’t need to read this, I didn’t need to “see.” But I forced myself to keep reading because I wanted to know and I wanted to be able to talk about it with people who eat animals because everyone needs to know.
Foer became a dedicated vegetarian because of his research for this book and his wife and young son are also vegetarian. I’d be curious to know why he didn’t go vegan. Even though I am already on Foer’s side, he did challenge me by asking how, as someone who does not eat meat, can I sit down at a table with others who do? He suggests that even if you are vegetarian/vegan that remaining silent about the facts of eating animals implicates you in their suffering even if you don’t eat them. In a way this is true. Ever since I became vegan I have been concerned about not being one of those in-your-face people. I was, and am, uncomfortable with it but I also didn’t want to make people who eat animals uncomfortable. I have thought that being an example and politely answering questions was enough. But considering the global environmental and health impact, being silent is not enough. It’s kind of like being a nonsmoker in a room with a bunch of smokers. I may not be smoking but I am breathing in the smoke secondhand. I may not eat animals but I am affected by the conditions created by those who do.
One of my coworkers, a vegetarian, is also reading this book and we had a conversation recently about how to talk with people who eat animals about their choices. Since Foer concludes his book talking about Thanksgiving and since Thanksgiving is next week, we asked, what would happen if we sat down to a dinner that had a big turkey in the middle of the table and we started talking about the horrible life of sickness and suffering that turkey had. I don’t think we’d win any converts. In fact I think there would be a lot of resentment and anger at the dinner table. I don’t know what Foer does in his personal life with the people he knows, but writing the book was one way he says he could not be that silent vegetarian. Well, I’m not going to write a book. This post is one way to not be silent but I doubt you would keep coming back if all I ever blogged about was how horrible eating animals is. I will have to find some other way and stop worrying about making my animal eating friends uncomfortable.
I’ve gone on and it’s time to close. But I will leave you with this “food for thought:”
If we are at all serious about ending factory farming, then the absolute least we can do is stop sending checks to the absolute worst abusers. For some, the decision to eschew factory-farmed products will be easy. For others, the decision will be a hard one. To those for whom it sounds like a hard decision (I would have counted myself in this group), the ultimate question is whether it is worth the inconvenience. We know, at least, that this decision will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve public health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in world history. What we don’t know, though, may be just as important. How would making such a decision change us?
It’s definitely difficult to talk about vegetarianism with meat-eaters. Heck, just mentioning that you’re vegan seems to offend them. But then it’s hard for any of us to hear that we may be causing harm. And the animal product marketers have done a stellar job of brainwashing people into thinking they (and their children) will wither and die in a matter of minutes if they don’t eat meat and dairy at every meal. It’s maddening considering that the medical evidence is spectacularly in favour of a vegan diet. It’s more certain than global warming, the roundness of the earth, and the hotness of George Clooney put together. 😉
It’s hard to say what will motivate people to change. Some things that really stick with me are stories of how intelligent and personable “farm” animals can be if they are raised in a healthy environment. I also like hearing about vegan athletes. They are not exactly 98 pound weaklings! I’ve even heard of vegan bodybuilders. I think it’s only a matter of time before it becomes the norm. There are just too many reasons to eat vegan.
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Sylvia, I can understand that it is difficult to talk about veganism with some meat-eaters, but you might have greater success if you don’t paint us all with the same brush. I have friends who are vegetarian and vegan and I am not a bit offended by their choice. I’m sorry if other meat-eaters have treated you disrespectfully, but I really think you’re making some unfair assumptions here.
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Teresa …. ditto!
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You’re right, I have known some, OK, one meat-eater who did not get defensive when I explained why I was vegan. He became a vegetarian. 😀 But I should have qualified my statement with “the vast majority of” because that has certainly been my experience.
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I don’t know, I don’t like JSF. He reminds me of that Christian Baldwin brother. He’s ingratiating, and his attitude–from what I’ve read in interviews–makes me want to eat a huge steak.
I think the problem people have with some vegetarians/vegans is that it’s like people are passing judgement. See: “… even if you are vegetarian/vegan that remaining silent about the facts of eating animals implicates you in their suffering even if you don’t eat them.” I don’t have a problem with vegans, and I certainly don’t care what people eat. But lifestyle choices shouldn’t be forced on anyone. The whole debate is like one religion vs. another. What you put on your plate doesn’t make you better or worse than another person. It’s a choice.
Of course, we should admit that just because something is bad, or just because you disagree, doesn’t mean it’ll change people. I know smoking cigarettes is bad for me, but it doesn’t stop me from lighting up.
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Brandon, what we eat is certainly a choice, but like all our choices it is not without consequences. It’s not like choosing between two shirts in different colours. Eating meat has very serious and far reaching impacts, from the suffering of animals and waste of resources to water pollution and diseases like cancer. At the very least people should be aware of what their choice means. If they are OK with the consequences of their actions, fair enough, but if they are not even aware of them then they are not making an informed choice, they are just following someone else’s choice. I think that when people know the facts they will change their lifestyle, just like most people now choose not to smoke. It takes a while but people will eventually do the right thing without being forced.
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I would very much like to read this book; it has been on my list since it came out last year (I think it was last year). It is wonderful to hear you write so passionately about this, Stefanie, and I’m glad you decided to do so. It is a difficult subject, both emotional and controversial. I think it is very important for people to understand exactly where the meat they eat comes from, how the animals live, and how they are killed. And not only that, but the social impacts of the meat industry, especially if a person is going to support that industry by eating meat. Also, this whole notion of our eating habits being an individual choice is somewhat bogus. What I choose to eat definitely impacts what others eat…we’re all connected by our choices, we are all a part of a system, whether we like it or not, collective choices are what construct society. There is no escaping that. So the debate is a worthy and an important one.
In all honesty, I don’t ever see the industrialized world becoming fully vegetarian or vegan, and I’m not 100% sure this is the answer, although it is a compelling solution, only because I haven’t done enough research or thought about it properly yet, but I am convinced that reducing, significantly reducing, the amount of meat we eat as a society is a necessary first step if we want to correct those horrible systemic flaws.
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I choose not to eat meat and I choose to smoke cigarettes sometimes. I don’t think we can compare ethical eating with addiction.
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This is a very tricky and emotive issue. First off, I have no problem at all with people not eating meat or indeed not eating whatever they choose because of ethical concerns and/or health benefits. I don’t eat sugar or yeast (or caffeine or alcohol) because it helps my chronic fatigue and I know this confuses and upsets a lot of people, partly because they feel judged by my actions (like I’m telling them they shouldn’t eat cakes or biscuits) or because I cause them trouble if they want to feed me. So I have sympathy for vegans and vegetarians who must have to put up with a lot of this sort of thing.
That being said, I do eat meat and fish, and don’t feel comfortable with the feeling that I am being accused of committing unethical or violent acts (not that you’re saying that, Stefanie, just that it can become the subtext). I do care very much where my food comes from and what the consequences to the environment will be, and I will always choose organic over anything else because I don’t like the thought of the terrible conditions some animals have to live in. So my main concern is in the way farming has developed, due to economic demands for cheap food.
I’m interested in the book because the debate about food is something we should all pay close attention to, but afraid it might be evangelical. For instance, the issue with bird/pig/ flu, etc. It is absolutely so that viruses can travel between humans and animals, but up until now they have done so very, very rarely. And because the incidence has been so rare, there is very little data about what happens after that. We just don’t know – but the lack of knowledge is turned into a huge threat. I agree the use of antibiotics in farming is a huge worry – again, it’s farming practices that threaten us as much as anything else. But I don’t like being told that apocalypse is round the corner when it may not be true. It’s so easy to get wound up and scared – I want some hard evidence, and to know exactly what the situation is. If JSF provides reliable data, balanced arguments, an accurate overview, then I’ll certainly listen to him.
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Actually most human infectious diseases originated in other animals, and it’s reasonable to assume that we got them by consuming those animals (e.g. HIV and Ebola from eating primate “bush meat”). It doesn’t seem like a big issue to the few of us with access to modern medicine, but for most people in the world it is a real concern. I think we all know how devastating the AIDS epidemic has been in Africa and around the world. It’s not fear-mongering, it has already happened, many times.
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P.S. Chronic fatigue syndrome (which I also have) is another disease that may have originated in animals. We don’t know for sure yet but if it is viral it is almost certainly a zoonosis.
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Sylvia, oh yes the marketers are brilliant aren’t they? If you don’t drink cow’s milk you’ll get osteoporsis. If you don’t eat meat you don’t get enough protein or iron. And they encourage people to think that farms today are like the farm my grandparents had with cows in the pasture, a few pigs in a pen and chickens scratching in the yard. I love hearing about vegan athletes too. There are getting to be more and more of them which makes me quite happy.
Brandon, I found JSF book quite balanced regardless of how he may come across in interviews. In the book his goal is to present the facts so people can’t say they don’t know what goes on in animal farming. Not once does he say that everyone should be vegetarian, but he does say that everyone should make a conscious choice and eat with the awareness of the consequences of those choices. I know lots of wonderful people who eat animals and make donations to environmental causes and animal rights groups and charities to end hunger but never once question how their decision to eat animals contributes to the need to have all these charities to which they send money in the first place. It isn’t about judging people, it is, as Sylvia suggests, about asking people to be aware of how their choices impact not just themselves but the entire world.
Verbivore, thanks! I agree that the solution isn’t for the industrialized world to all become vegetarian/vegan. The solution, I think, is to end factory farming. It means people who do eat animals will eat fewer of them and it also means that they will need to pay for the actual cost of the meat they do eat. It means a return to real farming, animal diversity, healthy animals, and humane and respectful treatment of them. I look forward to when you are able to read the book and hearing your take on it especially since you don’t live in the U.S.
Fiona, yes, there is a difference between eating animals and smoking. However, I do believe there is still a valid comparison at least in the U.S. where non-smokers have gotten laws passed to protect themselves from having to breath secondhand smoke. As a result there are fewer and fewer people taking up smoking here. Those who eat animals and so contribute to the continuation of factory farming are doing harm not just to themselves. We all are affected by factory farming whether we eat animals or not. Being vegan does not protect me from the secondhand consequences of factory farms.
Litlove, it is indeed a tricky issue! It is good that you think about where your food comes from and want to reduce the impact of eating animals. Organic is good but even organic farms are factory farms, at least they are in the U.S., things might be a bit different in the UK. JSF is very far from being a fear monger and prophesying gloom and doom. He has checked his facts thoroughly. Before industrial animal farming viruses jumping between people and animals was indeed rare, but with the advent of factory farming in the early part of the 20th century such things are becoming more common. There is strong evidence that the 1918 flu had bird flu origins. And the H1N1 has with certainty been traced to a factory pig farm in the U.S. JSF write from speculation and hype, in this case he calmly presents the facts and backs them up with the science.
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What does a vegan feed his or her cat or dog? They have special nutritional needs that require certain amino acids to maintain their health. True, a vegetarian diet with eggs and cheese included (both of which dogs love – not so much cats) is less of a problem. But what about the age-old problem: the dog just won’t eat the dog food (substitute cat)? Since cats and dogs are naturally carnivorous, how does one maintain the ethics of your position without violating them when it comes to feeding one’s pets? The same animals; the same growing methods, the same slaughter. I’m just asking, because the subject came up just days ago during a conversation. I do not know enough about the subject of vegetarian/veganism to speak to the health considerations; but, I buy organic milk, poultry and milk. Simple sanitation procedures, and knowing who is producing your food, go a long way in eliminating food-borne illnesses. However, we just had a recent salmonella scare associated with bagged spinach and bean sprouts. Not sure how that happened; irrigation with contaminated water perhaps? Anyway, how do you feed your pets? I am very curious.
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You describe the moral dilemma of sitting down for a meal with others who eat meat or other animal products. Do you feel a similar moral dilemma in shopping at a store that sells these products or eating in a restaurant that serves them?
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Such a touchy subject. I’m probably a person who could go 100% vegan without too much trouble (and eat vegan most of the time without trying), but I have a difficult time being 100% anything in my life. I will occasionally eat a bite of chicken and occasionally have real ice cream, for example. But I don’t purchase meat, and I most often choose vegan products. I also come from a hunting family, and my brother makes a good argument for the practice of hunting and eating wild game and fish, if you are going to eat meat. He knows exactly where his meal came from, and that animal had a good life. Still, it’s taking a life for the sake of your own life. But you could go down a long chain of thoughts with that, leading all the way to Jainism in the extreme, which is difficult to maintain. I don’t know. When people ask me if I’m vegetarian, I say that I choose most often not to eat animal products, but that I’m flexible, which is the truth. I know that if it came down to me or the chicken, the chicken would be going down. However, it’s *not* usually me or the chicken, so I choose to leave the chicken in peace (so to speak).
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I think this is a great answer.
For me it is about getting started eating less meat. My wife is a doctor, and sees a lot of women where the obsession with what they eat or don’t eat is damaging them. But eating less meat seems a great way to start.
I am trying to find a poster for my kitchen about good foods other than meat to eat.
I love this post generally: an unexamined life is not worth living…
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I strongly relate to the difficulty of discussing thorny issues like this with people who may not already agree. I’m a lifelong vegetarian (love dairy but we’re lucky in that we can buy non-homogenized milk and dairy products from a local organic dairy I have visited personally, so feel more comfortable about how the cows are treated and who/what I’m supporting with my money). It’s definitely difficult to have constructive conversations about that with meat-lovers, and sometimes also difficult to have conversations with vegans about why I still eat dairy.
But what I find REALLY difficult is talking about my objections to the institution of marriage, especially in this atmosphere where all us liberals are supposed to be fighting for equal marriage rights for gay & lesbian folks. Which I support; I don’t think we should discriminate against anyone based on sexual orientation. But on the other hand the history of marriage makes me nauseated, and I’m not sure why this is the hill we’ve decided to die on as far as queer rights. But on the third hand I know plenty of fantastic people with lovely egalitarian marriages, and I’m not looking to judge them; I just don’t want to be married myself. But on the fourth hand I do believe the marriage-industrial complex in this country is still dangling a diamond ring and a poofy white dress in front of women like buying into thousands of years of subjugation is the only thing that will prove our validity as human beings, which I believe needs to change. Gah.
Anyway, not to change the subject from vegetarianism/veganism; just wanted to chime in with empathy about holding conversations about awkward but important issues. 😛
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Emily, I just had to comment on your comment about marriage because I’ve often said that civil marriage and church marriage should be treated as two completely separate things. And whenever I’ve said it, people look at me as if I’ve grown an extra head! Oddly enough, the only person who hasn’t looked at me like a lunatic was a priest. Who would have thought?
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Make that three of us! Religious marriage is outside my thinking jurisdiction, but civil marriage makes me tremendously uncomfortable.
(I am married, to be honest. It felt like such an unreasonable thing to do as to be thrilling, and well, there was the minor issue of being able to stay in the same country as my now-husband without being forced to work for a company I had more and more issues with. That probably did play a role in my decision, although secondary. I feel terribly disloyal to my husband, who believes in marriage, every time I say this, but we’ve had the discussion before.)
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The merits of a vegan vs. a non-vegan diet notwithstanding, I found it ironic that Sylvia would express how difficult it is to “talk about vegetarianism with meat-eaters” given her comments that meat-eaters are “causing harm” and “ought to do the right thing without being forced.” Maybe I’m just misunderstanding her zeal for the subject, but I’m curious to know what kind of discussion she could want to have given her implied suggestion that vegans have the market on food morality cornered and non-vegans don’t. Wouldn’t that be a little like talking religion or women’s rights with the Taliban?
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I think there’s a misconception out there that one cannot have a civilized conversation while expressing moral or ethical views. The two are not mutually exclusive, though it does require that people not be overly sensitive. I understand that people can be hurt when someone is judging something they do or believe in, but there is really no other way to discuss these things. We must have a thicker skin and not take these things as personal insults.
There is really no way around judgment. We live our lives based on our judgments about what we think is right. Our behaviour alone expresses what our values are, but it’s much better to verbalize them because it is so easy to misunderstand behaviour. To do that we have to say what we think is right and wrong, and we should be free to do that. Even the Taliban should be allowed to have an opinion, but I think most of us would agree that imposing their views by violence is wrong. Whoops, there’s a judgment! See, there is no getting away from it. We can either be offended (like the Taliban, and chop people’s heads off) or just listen and exchange our views in a calm manner.
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And just in case, to be absolutely clear, I am not likening meat eaters to the Taliban! I’m just saying that being easily offended is not helpful.
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Sylvia, I don’t want to engage you about the alleged “misconception” that you see out there or whether or not people need to have a “thicker skin” when debating so-called ethical issues in general (I actually pretty much agree with you on the latter point, but of course it’s easier for you to say that here since you’re the one passing judgement on non-vegans and not the other way around). And I do agree that everybody is entitled to express their own opinion, although I’m not sure why you thought that was necessary to bring up here. My initial question remains, though: what kind of a fruitful conversation would you expect to have with meat-eaters about vegetarianism given that these are people you’ve effectively demonized for disagreeing with you in the first place? Or why wouldn’t you expect it to be a “difficult” conversation given the moral high ground you’ve reserved all for yourself?
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Well, see, that’s what I mean. In the current climate, just criticizing a specific behaviour is interpreted as “demonizing” people. That’s the problem. People can’t take criticism, they take it as a personal insult and get defensive rather than talk about the issues. We can only have a fruitful discussion if we stick to the issues rather than get offended by perceptions (usually false) of the other person’s attitude. It should be irrelevant what the other person’s attitude is anyway. What matters are the facts. But you can’t have a debate if the other person is offended simply because you believe you’re right and they’re wrong. Why would anyone debate if they didn’t think they were right? It seems to me to be a given. Why it is so offensive to people mystifies me.
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Here’s another take on “Eating Animals”: http://www.citizenreader.com/citizen/2010/01/well-i-didnt-hate-it-as-much-as-i-hate-his-novels.html
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I won this book a few months ago and I haven’t gotten around to reading it as of yet. It sounds like a book that will have me thinking about my own eating habits.
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Stefanie thank you for such a wonderful review of this book. I started it a month or so ago but had to return it back to the library. Unfortunately I didn’t get very far into it but it definitely made me uncomfortable — in a good way! I always say I don’t eat red meat but I eat chicken. I try to eat only organic dairy and veggies but what about when I go out to a restaurant? I mean, it’s such a complex issue but I do wish more people (me included of course) would pay more attention to this. Then of course there is the issue of cost, especially when it comes to organic foods. If you are living on a minimum wage salary, have children, rent, all those kind of expenses then the cheap Happy Meal will be what parents buy. I will have to get this book again.
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I eyed this one at our College library and then passed. It appears it really gives one a lot to think about. Thanks for the great review.
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I must confess that as a meat-eater I do get frustrated when it’s implied that meat-eating equals support for factory farming. The two are not one and the same, and I’ve gotten the sense from all the reviews I’ve read of this book that Foer operates from that assumption. If I’m wrong, Stefanie, please do correct me!
For myself, almost every bit of meat that I eat (which isn’t much) comes from a small farm whose practices are well-documented. (If you’ve read The Omnivore’s Dilemma or watched Food Inc you’ll know about Polyface Farm). I know I’m very very lucky to have access to ethically raised meat and eggs, and I’m not sure how easy it would be to scale up such practices. However, I think farms like Polyface are part of the solution, and I feel that it’s important to support what they do with my money. I have no problems and take no offense at others choosing vegetarianism or veganism instead.
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I like this book for two reasons: 1) Unlike many books about the horrors of factory farming, it’s actually well written. 2) It really doesn’t proselytize. I think the latter is the result in part of the fact that Foer isn’t a long-time vegan or vegetarian who’s forgotten why he made the choice. It’s real and it’s immediate and most importantly, he asks only that people have honest conversations about food. He knows, unlike PETA (who DOES NOT stand for the majority of veg people, no matter what they or the mainstream media would like to think), that people make choices for their own unique reasons and that brow-beating isn’t an effective activist tool. Researching an writing a book because he wanted to know what he was feeding his kid? I think most people can get behind such an endeavour, at least theoretically.
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Sylvia, I’m not sure why you feel “brainwashing” (your term) is more open-minded language than “effectively demonized” (my term), but that’s OK. By the way, I’m not offended by any of your arguments–so I hope all these claims of phantom “defensiveness” and people who are “easily offended” you keep harping on apply only to other people you’ve collegially criticized while sticking to the facts. In any event, thanks for an interesting discussion–it was fun while it lasted.
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I wish we had discussed vegetarianism rather than whether my vocabulary and/or attitude are acceptable, but it proves my point, unfortunately.
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I am a vegetarian and since reading this book I have been trying to go vegan. I haven’t quite succeeded, but I have cut out cheese (which I do not like anyway), eggs (same), milk and yoghurt most of the time. I find it hard to check every product I buy at the supermarket for animal products, and especially being in a country where I cannot read the ingredients half of the time, I often don’t bother (I do know how to search for vegetarian products, so I wonder why I don’t take that extra step to search for vegan). I find it hard to defend my choices of being a vegetarian and yet not being fully vegan. But I know I never could, because I know how hard I often am on people who want to eat dinner with me, who try to cook vegetarian for me and try so hard that I feel bad for saying “Um, actually, please don’t use anything animal-related” I am annoying enough with my “I’m a vegetarian and don’t eat cheese”- try finding a restaurant that doesn’t frown upon that. Anyway, not a good defense, at all, as I have said. I wish I was stronger.
I do recognise how conflicted you feel about talking about your choice to become a vegan. I do not one to be one of those vegetarians that throws details at everyone who eats meat or tries to convert them. But at times I do wonder why I do not. And ever since reading Eating Animals I feel I really should at least bring up the subject every once in a while.
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Here’s a kid’s book on vegetarian eating;
http://wedonteatanimals.com/
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I understand where you come from. I think it might be different where I live, an area where organic farming is quite important.
I personally have a problem with pesticides and the like used to grow veg; however, I keep eating veg.
I think it is wrong to eat pets (I haven’t been able to eat mutton or lamb since I was made to eat my pet sheep), but I think that you can eat animals raised for eating if they are given a good life. I understand your choice as political and respect your position. I think that indeed awareness is very important and that every little bit we do towards raising awareness counts. Each little bit we do to change things also counts. Buying at markets rather than chain supermarkets, supporting your local producers, growing your own veg, etc. And then we can also make so much more for the environment, because what it really comes down to is the respect of our planet, nature feeds us but in exchange we must pay our debt and respect it (an idea discussed by Atwood in Payback).
So, yes, I agree with you in that awareness is crucial and then little by little we can change our habits and fight against mass production that does not respect nature, not necessarily by not eating meat, but by making the right choices about it (which unfortunately can be quite expensive, but maybe that’s because we eat too much to start with?).
Derrida also wrote on that topic; it’s a bit difficult to read (it’s Derrida after all!) but interesting. If you’re interested I can go looking for the reference. It might be in The Animal Therefore I Am, but I’m not 100% sure.
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Wow, Stefanie, that seems like such a contentious subject! In France there are very few vegans, and even if vegetarians are on the rise, still the vast majority of French people wouldn’t stop eating meat (or cheese!). I’m more concerned about quality food than what food you do eat or not. Most people will agree that intensive farming has toxic consequences on the earth and probably on us consumers too, but that applies to veggies as much as meat (at least I hope we can reconcile both parts without being judgmental). In France, Brittany’s soil has been so polluted from all the pesticides and the pig industry that they have to heavily treat water before drinking it. That is a highly political problem I’m afraid, because Brittany big farmers have received a lot of subsidies from the state.
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Em wrote: “but I think that you can eat animals raised for eating if they are given a good life”
But I’m sure they don’t have a good death – I think of the terror, the pain, and I would bet some even experience a sense of betrayal. As a matter of fact, I think non-human animals are much more aware and intelligent than many humans realize.
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I am not ignoring this remark. It’s just sinking in…
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