Review: Eating Animals

Recently, I read the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. I've tried several times to review it here, but anything I wrote seemed so fragmented and long-winded that I ended up abandoning the post for fear of boring you to death with my endless personal ramblings and asides. I've come to the conclusion that this is a subject best addressed in two separate but related posts: one that deals with the book itself, and another that gets into my personal opinions on food choices.

I get the feeling that anyone who would even consider reading a book called "Eating Animals" already holds certain opinions on factory farming, vegetarianism, and the larger implications of the choices we as a society make every day when we prepare or order our meals. Certainly, I am one of these people. Yes, it is true that when I picked this book up I WANTED, once again, to be told the truth about animal products and further discouraged from eating them.

Eating Animals presents a compelling, sound argument that is so full of unsettling facts and statistics it literally made me sick to my stomach at times. For example, the fact that it's nearly impossible to eat a conventional piece of chicken without consuming fecal matter is more than a little disturbing. The downright cruel, sadistic behaviour displayed by many factory farm employees toward the animals makes one want to break down and cry. (I did.) 

Reading this book, I also learned that Safran Foer is a gifted writer. I have not read either of his novels, but intend to do so very soon. I enjoyed the way the book is structured, in that the birth of the author's son inspires him to examine in detail where food comes from and what is in it so he can make an informed decision on what to feed his little one. This approach seems very genuine, and more than succeeds in holding the interest of people like me who enjoy some element of human emotion and/or vulnerability in non-fiction.

I'm really not sure what else I can say in this first segment of the two part post. I liked this book a lot, and can't think of anything too negative to say about it, other than that I might have named or marketed it differently to try and reach a broader audience. Such an important topic is allowed to be a little sneaky.