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Eating Animals

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Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$25.99~~
Buy New: $14.94
as of 11/20/2009 19:01 PST details
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New (27) Used (1) from $14.92

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Media: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4

ISBN: 0316069906
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.303
EAN: 9780316069908
ASIN: 0316069906

Publication Date: November 2, 2009 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Features:

•	ISBN13: 9780316069908
•	Condition: NEW
•	Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description

Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood-facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf-his casual questioning took on an urgency His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong. Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir and his own detective work, Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits-from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth-and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting. Marked by Foer's profound moral ferocity and unvarying generosity, as well as the vibrant style and creativity that made his previous books, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, widely loved, Eating Animals is a celebration and a reckoning, a story about the stories we've told-and the stories we now need to tell.

Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 1-5 of 39

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Some people need meat despite the issues surround it. November 21, 2009
S. Beisheim (Beacon NY)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful

First off, I didn't read the book but I've read a lot about it. I tried to give it a neutral review. I whole heartedly think factory farming is awful and wish I could avoid it all costs. However vegetarianism/veganism didn't help my health at all and I found that meat/animal protein profoundly helped me recover from various health issues.
Again, I know that factory farming is nasty and local farms are the way to go etc... I wish I could be a vegan, but when it comes to my health and well being vs the treatment of animals I choose MY health over a cow's any day.

1 out of 5 stars

Not as juicy as an inch thick sirloin burger November 19, 2009
Dmitri Ulinov (California, USA)
2 out of 24 found this review helpful

I initially bought this book thinking it was a cookbook.

Whoa! Was I wrong!!

The Ulinovs are ardent vegans, mind you, but we do like to grill a few steaks, burgers or hot dogs every other day. Otherwise, it is strictly chicken, fish or elk. So we do empathize with Foer's vegetarian sympathies.

Then again, have you ever heard a carrot scream? No?! Well, perhaps our limited human ears are not attuned to their emotional outcries! Have some sympathy. We force those little tubers into the ground and often cage them in to prevent them from being cannibalized by bunny rabbits or being stalked by celery.

One of the things that Foer doesn't address is why animals want to eat us and what we can do to stop that. I had a goat start licking my hand the other day and although I initially thought it was a sign of affection, I quickly realized that she was basting me after I got a quick nip on the fingers. Ouch! Good thing that we have the opposable digits on our hands!! And I will give up eating animals when crocodiles stop eating babies. Deal? I'm pretty sure that if I dropped dead at home, my dogs would come over and comfort me but the cat will think of me as nothing more than a big mouse and start the feast.

(By the way, I recently found out that hot dogs do not actually come from dogs. I'm not sure where they come from, but my neighbor down the highway assured me that it is not dogs after asking if I could sausage-ize his Old Yeller.)

1 out of 5 stars

Complex emotions of chickens?? November 19, 2009
Edward Keefe
2 out of 19 found this review helpful

I purchased this book for my wife, but she is still reading her last book, so I thought I would try reading this in order to open my mind to other ideas. I couldn't get past page 50....

See, the author says "This is not an argument against eating meat" when it clearly is.
The example that threw me over the edge is when he tried to have the reader try to imagine what it's like for an egg laying chicken in an exceedingly small enclosure. This was a not so subtle attempt by the author of trying to project human emotion on to an animal that does not experience that feeling. Does anyone truly think a Chicken feels lonely or claustrophobic? How about a fish... think a fish gets lonely? Now I know from my own personal experience that some animals to have these complex emotions. Coming home to my dog I know in my heart he missed me. THAT DOES NOT MEAN A CHICKEN FEELS THOSE EMOTIONS AS WELL!

Also has anyone seen what it is like for a water buffalo in Africa when a group of lions take one out? I would imagine that being eaten alive must be an unpleasant experience. If we were to use the authors logic then we should stop all predatory animals from trying to commit genocide on there prey, but hat would be ludicrous wouldn't it? We are predators, not prey, if we should be empathizing with other animals then it should be with other predators.

So considering I did not read the whole book I suppose my opinion is not as important as someone who read the whole book. It's just the act of projecting complex human emotions on some animals I found so illogical... it's like it broke my mind. I could not continue reading something from someone who held such beliefs.

1 out of 5 stars

Ok if you like fiction November 18, 2009
B. Hastings
3 out of 26 found this review helpful

This book is full of untruths. How about some true facts about animal agriculture from a third generation dairy farmer:

Agriculture's carbon footprint: Agriculture is responsible for 6% of the greenhouse gas produced in the U.S. Water vapor is the #1 greenhouse gas attributing about 65% of greenhouse gas in the U.S. Source: Illinois Ag Extension 2008

Antibiotics: Dairy cattle are never feed antibiotics. If a cow is sick and requires treatment, it is placed in the "hospital pen" and treated. During this treatment, the milk from that cow must be discarded. Every single tank load of milk produced in the U.S. is tested for antibiotics and if trace amounts are found, that entire tank of milk is dumped and never processed for human consumption. If dairymen feed antibiotics to their animals, they wouldn't be able to sell milk from their farm.

Cattle nutrition: Dairymen work with a nutritionist to formulate a balanced ration for their cattle. A common ration would include corn, soybean meal, grain, hay, cottonseed, almond hulls, citrus pulp and other ingredients depending on what part of the country you live in. Cattle always have free-choice, fresh water available.

Housing: Modern farms house animals in clean, comfortable, temperature controlled barns. Modern barns have lots of natural light, good air-flow and are bedded with fresh materials such as sand or sawdust. There is much research available about constructing barns for optimal animal comfort. The goal is providing a comfortable environment for the animals.

Manure: Animals produce manure and there are lots of rules about how this manure must be stored, handled and land-applied. Manure lagoons must be designed by professional engineers to meet specs that are put in place to insure against groundwater pollution. Manure is a great natural fertilizer and is land-applied following guidelines to make sure no runoff pollutes waterways.

Farmers and dairymen are the original environmentalists, conservationists and animal welfare advocates. We care about our land, animals and sustainability. To us, these ideas are not passing trends or the "causes of the moment". They represent the principles people in agriculture have followed to operate their businesses for generations.

If you want to learn the reality of animal agriculture, talk with a farmer or visit a farm.

5 out of 5 stars

Bye, bye, burger November 18, 2009
Jon Hunt (Old Greenwich, Ct. USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, Jonathan Safran Foer's new book, "Eating Animals", is as timely as it is necessary. Indeed, Foer spends some time describing what you might be consuming at Thanksgiving and it isn't a pretty picture. With a thoughtful, but pointed narrative, Foer sets out to explore not only the underside of factory farming (is there any other side?) but the moral choices one faces from eating food rendered from these places.

"Eating Animals" is meant to have a scary component to it, and it does, hence a call to action by those who wish to eat meat. But Foer is careful not to tread too deeply into one's own personal culinary habits and desires. He strikes a pretty fair balance between those who eat meat and the vegans of whom he is a member. The book is really a call to action...an internal action, that is...to take stock in how we, as individuals, view the process of our own calorie intake and how we might consider changing it.

There have been many recent books about the animal "industry", each approaching it from a slightly different angle. Jonathan Safran Foer hits it from straight on and the importance of his book cannot be understated. I highly recommend it for its breadth and forcefulness.

Showing reviews 1-5 of 39

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