Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

1044 Words3 Pages

American consumers think of voting as something to be done in a booth when election season comes around. In fact, voting happens with every swipe of a credit card in a supermarket, and with every drive-through window order. Every bite taken in the United States has repercussions that are socially, politically, economically, and morally based. How food is produced and where it comes from is so much more complicated than the picture of the pastured cow on the packaging seen when placing a vote. So what happens when parents are forced to make a vote for their children each and every meal? This is the dilemma that Jonathan Safran Foer is faced with, and what prompted his novel, Eating Animals. Perhaps one of the core issues explored is the American factory farm. Although it is said that factory farms are the best way to produce a large amount of food at an affordable price, I agree with Foer that government subsidized factory farms use taxpayer dollars to exploit animals to feed citizens meat produced in a way that is unsustainable, unhealthy, immoral, and wasteful. Foer also argues for vegetarianism and decreased meat consumption overall, however based on the facts it seems more logical to take baby steps such as encouraging people to buy locally grown or at least family farmed meat, rather than from the big dogs. This will encourage the government to reevaluate the way meat is produced. People eat animals, but they should do so responsibly for their own benefit. The need for affordable, efficiently produced meat became apparent in the 1920’s. Foer provides background information on how Arthur Perdue and John Tyson helped to build the original factory farm by combining cheap feeds, mechanical debeaking, and automated living environ... ... middle of paper ... ...ter solutions. Taking one step at a time is better than doing nothing. Food, especially meat is such a central part of human society that it cannot be ignored. Just as big minds came together in the 60’s to make a better chicken, they can come together to solve a crisis that harms every person living in this country. Jonathan Safran Foer’s book gives an important look into what goes on behind the scenes of factory farms, and offers logical solutions. However, it will take more than this, and more than just vegetarian encouragement to make any lasting changes. It will take the votes of consumers both in the supermarket and on ballots to evoke a better system. Take a look at what is on your plate next time you sit down for a meal. Did you vote well? Works Cited Safran Foer, Jonathan. Eating Animals. First eBook ed. New York: Little, Brown and, 2009. iBooks.

Show More
Related

  • More Pros Than Cons In A Meat-Free Life Analysis

    125 Words  | 1 Pages

    The argumentative article “More Pros than Cons in a Meat-Free Life” authored by Marjorie Lee Garretson was published in the student newspaper of the University of Mississippi in April 2010. In Garretson’s article, she said that a vegetarian lifestyle is the healthy life choice and how many people don’t know how the environment is affected by their eating habits. She argues how the animal factory farms mistreat the animals in an inhumane way in order to be sources of food. Although, she did not really achieve the aim she wants it for this article, she did not do a good job in trying to convince most of the readers to become vegetarian because of her writing style and the lack of information of vegetarian

    Read More

  • The Omnivore's Dilemma Sparknotes

    836 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Omnivore’s Dilemma In the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan challenges his readers to examine their food and question themselves about the things they consume. Have we ever considered where our food comes from or stopped to think about the process that goes into the food that we purchase to eat every day? Do we know whether our meat and vegetables picked out were raised in our local farms or transported from another country? Michael pollen addresses the reality of what really goes beyond the food we intake and how our lives are affected.

    Read More

  • How Do We Farm If We Must?: Analysis With Peter Singer's Down on the Factory Farm and Stanley Curtis's The Case for Intensive Farming of Food Animals

    2210 Words  | 5 Pages

    Factory farming is often a sore spot for American and other first world consciences. Even those that are ethically comfortable with consumption of animal products are often discomfited by the large-scale maltreatment of living creatures that is present in contemporary agribusiness. Writings that are similar to Peter Singer's “Down on the Factory Farm”, which depicts the multitude of unnatural horrors and abuses that billions of farm animals undergo before they are ultimately slaughtered for our use, make up the majority of the commentary on the subject. There seem to be few writers with the audacity to dispute the popular outcry that there is something morally reprehensible in our systematic exploitation of other species. Yet, as Stanley Curtis shows in “The Case for Intensive Farming of Food Animals”, a less emotionally charged examination is likely to be necessary if we have any aspirations of revising the current model into one that is not only more humane, but also sustainable for the environment and for the growing human population. Though our sympathies are immediately swayed by Singer's work, we must remain cognisant that, as Singer himself said, “We can't take our feelings as moral data, immune from rational criticism” (The Lives of Animals 89). Though Curtis's work seems at times overly cold in its utilitarian views, it provides an undoubtedly useful contrast to the call-to-arms of Singer's work. Evaluating them in tandem is likely the best approach to deriving a model that placates our moral dissatisfaction while meeting the requirements set forth by reality.

    Read More

  • Meat Eating: On Eating Animals by Namit Arora

    1089 Words  | 3 Pages

    The next time you go to sit down and enjoy a nice juicy steak, take a moment to think about how that piece of meat came from a cow and became your rib eye steak. Many people in our nation have no idea where their food comes from, what exactly is in the food they consume, and the effects it has on their health and the health of our environment. This is largely due to the industrialized, factory farming way of producing our meat and poultry. It has left our bodies sickened and our earth battered but with an elimination of animal products and an addition of a more plant based diet we can begin to restore …..

    Read More

  • Promoting Veganism to Protect Animals

    1334 Words  | 3 Pages

    Breeding sows are confined in gestation stalls, pigs have their tails cut off without anesthesia, calves are tethered by their necks in veal crates, and egg-laying hens are debeaked and kept in cages too small to spread their wings in; in a factory farm, animals are treated as commodities. This vivid imagery depicts the facts pertaining to animals. The search for solutions has focused on two paths; one reforming the system and instituting more humane standards, and the second promoting veganism so that fewer animals are bred, nurtured, and slaughtered. While few animal activists disagree with promoting veganism, some believe that campaigning for reforms, and humane labeling is counter-productive. Humane standards can either be required by law, or instituted voluntarily by farmers. Farmers who voluntarily agree to higher humane standards are either opposed to factory farming, or are trying to appeal to consumers who prefer meat from humanely raised and slaughtered animals. There is no single definition of “humane meat,” and many animal activists would say that the term is an oxymoron. Different meat producers and organizations have their own humane standards by which they abide. Humane standards might include larger cages, no cages, natural feed, less painful methods of slaughter, or prohibition of practices such as tail docking or debeaking. In some cases, campaigns target retailers or restaurants instead of the actual producers, and pressure the companies to purchase animal products only from producers who raise the animals according to certain voluntary standards. Societies individuality is split by advocates and opponents; is there a fine line between truth and falsehood, or is animal slaughter for diet always inhumane?

    Read More

  • Lamb To The Slaughter By Ronald Dahl

    471 Words  | 1 Pages

    The story “Lamb to the Slaughter” was written by Ronald Dahl. The setting of the story is in the 1950’s at the Maloney household. Patrick Maloney- a detective for their local police station- was married to her wife Mary Maloney. The couple would usually eat out on Thursdays, but when Patrick came home he felt a bit peculiar. Mary asked him what was wrong he ignored her. She asked if they should eat out and he still ignored her. Out of nowhere, Patrick told Mary to sit down. He told her that he was going to get a divorce. Mary was dismayed, astonished. She told him that he could not leave without a proper meal. She went to the freezer and obtained the leg of lamb. She brought it to the table and took the paper off of it. Discreetly, she went behind Patrick, and delivered a painstaking hit. Patrick fell

    Read More

  • Arguments Against Factory Farming: Alastair Norcross's Puppies, Pigs, and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases

    918 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...oss’ paper. Therefore, this objection is not sound because the number of naïve people are rapidly dwindling. The second objection stated that one person has no effect on the factory farming industry, so giving up meat is pointless because the industry is too large to feel the effects of someone converting to vegetarianism. I refuted this objection by saying that, yes, one person alone will not make a difference, but when more and more people become vegetarians, the industry will be forced to respond by producing less animals, therefore, preventing more animal suffering. Although these two objections were strong and valid, I believe I was able to successfully defend Norcross’ argument that factory farming is wrong and cruel.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between Ishmael 'And All Animals Are Equal'

    849 Words  | 2 Pages

    Factory farms are beneficial for producing large amounts of food and that’s it. Somewhere in the mid to late 1900’s, factory farming started to become a thing, fewer farms were as a result, but the farms that are still around have gotten larger and larger. In order for factory farms to work efficiently, animals are kept inside facilities that are over cramped and keeping the animals away from their natural habitats. Along with the animals being over worked, they are genetically bred to be food machines (Singer). The “machines” are producing more manure than ever, now the farmers must get rid of the manure, and a good majority of the time a portion of the manure ends up in places it is not supposed to resulting in pollution and adverse affects on the environment. However, Singer argues that only sentient creatures should be considered when talking about equality. Sentient creatures are individuals who can suffer. Therefore, since farm animals can suffer, we should treat them with same equality that humans get. In order to deal with the problems of factory farming and inequality towards animals; Singer believes that humans should know what farmers are doing towards the animals they are eating as well as moving their diets towards being a vegetarian. Through knowledge and a vegetarian diet, they will force the industry to change for the better and stop being the root cause for all the problems on the

    Read More

  • Jonathan Safran Foer Eating Animals Analysis

    640 Words  | 2 Pages

    Odder still, those who do choose to act in accordance to these uncontroversial values by refusing to eat animals […] are often considered marginal or even radical.” It is evident that factory farming is the best alternative and best way to get large amounts of food produced at an affordable price, I agree with the statements that Foer points out through “Eating Animals”. This statement that Foer is implementing is the fact that although most people are informed about what is occurring with produce and factory farming we still manage to let it keep occurring since we continue to buy these products. Furthermore, other people want farming to be humane yet, complain when the products coming from more humane source is more

    Read More

  • food inc

    1218 Words  | 3 Pages

    The documentary “Food Inc.” has open my eyes to supply and demand. After watching the film, I have become more conscious about the foods I buy and eat. It has always brought to my attention that the food I eat on a daily basis may affect my health in the future but I never imaged that, vegetables, poultry and livestock where among these dangerous foods. The movie demonstrates that through mass media these corporations have painted an allusion, that the foods they are producing are wholesome. The products that are advertised in the supermarket, on television and in newspapers are displayed as healthy through a spinning of pastoral fantasy, by plastering images of lush farms, when actually, the food I eat may have bacteria which can kill me. The companies that are producing and selling these goods are extremely powerful, for that reason they have been able to develop a mental curtain to how the food makes its journey to the stores. They are so powerful indeed that they have managed obtain seats and have ties to government positions. Before I watched this film I thought so many people in this country where obese or have diabetes because they indulged in over eating when in fact studies show that it can be contributed to the massive amount of corn byproducts being pumped into everything we eat including animals that would not normally consume them. I also came to realization that consumers have a choice we vote, for the foods, companies produce, by the purchases we make “supply and demand”. By choosing not to eat processed food, fast food or food that came from the farms shown in the movie they can choose to eat healthy. Thus forcing the compan...

    Read More

  • Vegetarianism Vs Vegetarianism

    1448 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to “Meat the Truth”, a 2007 documentary directed by Karen Soeters, the film exposes the consequences of meat and dairy. It influences people about increasing the consumption of a plant-based diet and decreasing the intake of meat. Marianne Thieme, the narrator of the documentary and a Dutch politician who is a Member of the Party for the Animals in the Dutch Parliament, states, “Eating meat is the number one most environmentally destructive behavior, not cars, planes and power plants”. A consumer can make a great impact by changing their diet and restricting the consumption of meat. The transition to a plant-based diet is strongly informed by the film. Consumers have fallen into the advertising and marketing of meat to trigger minds the satisfaction of meat. Statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization prove that from 1950 to 2000, the population of the world went from 2.6 to 6 billion and from this meat production increased five times as great. It is possible it can keep doubling this amount every fifty years if there isn’t a change that occurs. From the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, they state, “The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that roughly 80 percent of ammonia emissions in the U.S. come from animal waste.” Raising animals to

    Read More

  • Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer

    946 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, the author talks about, not only vegetarianism, but reveals to us what actually occurs in the factory farming system. The issue circulating in this book is whether to eat meat or not to eat meat. Foer, however, never tries to convert his reader to become vegetarians but rather to inform them with information so they can respond with better judgment. Eating meat has been a thing that majority of us engage in without question. Which is why among other reasons Foer feels compelled to share his findings about where our meat come from. Throughout the book, he gives vivid accounts of the dreadful conditions factory farmed animals endure on a daily basis. For this reason Foer urges us to take a stand against factory farming, and if we must eat meat then we must adapt humane agricultural methods for meat production.

    Read More

  • Our Food Has Feelings Too

    536 Words  | 2 Pages

    Farms that breed and raise animals for meat and other such things aren’t at all what we picture. Green meadows where the animals graze in peace for the few short years of their lives have been replaced by “fresh produce factories”. Animals not being treated with any respect or humanity, instead seen only as profitable meat products.

    Read More

  • The Actual Cost of Food

    2539 Words  | 6 Pages

    Food is something each and every person is faced with making decisions about on a recurring basis. From the meat and dairy products to the packages of pseudo-food being consumed on unprecedented levels even the tasteless colorless vegetables being thrust at consumers every time they enter a grocery store there are many choices to be made. Not everyone approaches the question of what to eat in the same way. Most people will think about what sounds good, what seems the easiest, or for many what is the cheapest. The everyday decisions made about food and what to eat have an enormous impact. The influence the agricultural market has on everyday life is much greater than many people realize, including the vast effect on local economies, public health, and the environment both locally and globally. Conscious and purposeful eating becomes vitally important when addressing these pressing concerns. When the question becomes why to consume instead of what to consume many changes can be made to promote positive change.

    Read More

  • Meat Consumption: The Ethical Issue Of Eating Meat

    1149 Words  | 3 Pages

    The issue of meat consumption has been a controversial topic on whether to allow the practice or discontinue it, non-meat eaters argue it’s unethical because it is abusive to animals. On the other hand, meat consumers argue that eating meat is ethical as long as meat eaters are conscious of how their meat is collected and the treatment of livestock is fair. The consumption of meat is an act that an individual decides whether to partake in or not. Therefore, the option of eating meat should not be completely taken away, but it should be limited. Eating meat ties in with vegetarian and vegan diets, in the sense that both have to follow guidelines to create an ethical approach to eating any grown foods. The consumption of food is ethical when

    Read More

More about Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

Open Document