Eating Animals

Most Recently Read Book:

Eating Animals

By Jonathan Safran Foer

I literally just finished this book, leafed through all the pages of documentation that supports everything it says, and opened my laptop to write this post. I have completely devoured this book in the past few days.

Yesterday, I went up to Jordan's room where Chad and Jordan were working on putting his bed together and told Chad there is no way I can let Jordan eat chicken any more (that was before I even got to the part about beef). It's interesting how people think about meat. Chad looked at me and said he didn't want to hear it, he said, "Well, that means he can't have nuggies at McDonald's...those are the worst...I know about those chickens." It made me realize I have heard the story told in Eating Animals before. I'm sure many people have heard of the inhumaneness of factory farms...and not even just that, the incomprehensible grossness of the meat we buy at the store (everyone knows there is salmonella and e. coli and now even H1N1). But somehow we tune ourselves out to what we know.

After reading this book, I have finally reached my tipping point, the point at which I can't let myself forget and won't let myself forget where meat is coming from. I'm not officially sure how that will change how I live my life...it seems like it will be a huge shift in how I do things, but I'm thinking at the same time it might not be all that hard. One thing pointed out in this book is how even just by making the decision it's going to change where I can/choose to eat. I believe we all have to make our own choices but I feel overwhelmed by the need to make a change and know I am only one person. That doesn't make it seem less important to me.

I do have to say that I was hoping this book would be a little more reader-friendly. I am an avid reader and an educated person and this book was a challenging read in a sense. At the beginning the author does outline what he means by various terms that will be found throughout the book, but most of the book involves these words and other hard words and concepts that it took me a lot of focus to read the book. It's not a bad thing, but I wish it was easier to read and to share with others instead of so much narration. That said, I did read the entire book, was consumed by the information shared, and it was perspective- and life-changing for me so it is definitely a book I recommend.