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Eating Animals |  | Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book
List Price: $25.99
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Seller: afbookstore
Rating:  188 reviews
Sales Rank: 1540
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 5.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 0316069906
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.303
EAN: 9780316069908
ASIN: 0316069906
Publication Date: November 2, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 188
 Best Book on the Food Industry and Foer's Most Important October 19, 2009
ThinkAboutFood (California)
236 out of 265 found this review helpful
The buzz about this book was so incredible I had to get my hands on an advanced copy. The book is like nothing else ever written on the food industry. It reads like a novel, is funny, incredibly well documented, and lets factory farmers and animal activists speak in their own words. I've read a lot of books on the food industry and this is by far the best. It makes other writers, even Michael Pollan, look a bit timid. Foer never preaches. He shares his own beliefs and asks us to live by our own standards, not his. Foer reveals a lot of personal information here and, since this is his first nonfiction book, it its especially interesting for readers of his previous books to see some of the fact behind his fiction. The material about his grandmother and how she survived the holocaust is really powerful. The stuff about his dog George (Foer makes a mock case for eating dogs) is hilarious. His storytelling is so compelling that you hardly realize how much information he's conveying (there are 60 pages of notes documenting his sources, but the text itself is uncluttered by footnotes). Another unique thing about this book is that Foer actually sneaks into a factory farm in the middle of the night... Eating Animals is a serious book that could change the way you live. But what's most impressive about it is that it is also fun to read, which is exactly what we need on a hot button topic like the contemporary food industry.
changing my ways October 20, 2009
Glenn Gutterman (Westfield, NJ United States)
156 out of 178 found this review helpful
I wholeheartedly recommend this book. I identified with Foer as a person who really tries to eat ethically, but whose weaknesses often get the best of him. I've had strong intuitions that there is something wrong with Meat today, but, like Foer reports of his own journey, those intuitions have not been strong enough for me to really change what I eat. The woman in my life, by contrast, has been a vegetarian for over a decade and never wavers. Of the many changes I've made to accommodate our relationship, giving up meat was never one of them. I've generally let the smell of bacon silence any discomfort I had with meat. That is, until reading Eating Animals. Foer's personal narrative spoke to me more than any of the many exposes on factory farming slyly sent my way. At the same time, Eating Animals left me far more informed than I was before ... It's the standard cliché, but I really couldn't put the book down. In place of the didactic or moralistic, Foer welcomes the reader into his life and his story. Foer is his own main character, and his own self-examination inspires the same. You won't be the same after reading it.
Profound October 29, 2009
Jane Russell
83 out of 95 found this review helpful
I appreciate the honest look at the meat production industry presented in this book. Most of all I like the style with which Foer communicates his findings. The author reveals a lot of personal information but he also asks the readers to live by their own standards, not his. All that makes it for an easy and even enjoyable reading of a lifestyle book which nonetheless reads like a novel.
Eating Animals is a very inspiring and informative book. I wholeheartedly encourage everybody to consider reading it. Even -- or maybe, especially if -- you are not a vegetarian. It definitely changed the way I view the world. It might do the same to you. And if not, you will at least enjoy reading a book that not only educates but also entertains. And one more thing that I can promise each and every reader -- THIS BOOK WILL REALLY MAKE YOU THINK AND FORCE YOU TO MAKE PROFOUND CHOICES WHICH WILL AFFECT THE WAY YOU LIVE THE REMAINING PART OF YOUR LIFE.
I noticed that some reviewers mention "The Omnivore's Dilemma" as a companion to this book. In my opinion it would be reading the same just by another author. To get a broader view at nutrition and how it affects our health, our longevity, and the world around us I suggest reading "Can we Lve 150 Years" instead.
A catalyst.. November 11, 2009
A. Moon
26 out of 28 found this review helpful
This book was a catalyst where I wasn't looking for one. I just finished it, am becoming vegan, and feel 'humane' for THE first time in my life. After the first 35 pages a light bulb started lighting up...and I feared my life was about to change. I've never written a book review, but after reading what Jonathon learned in his 3 + years of researching factory farming, I had to tell others to read it. He provides serious, horrific and real information. I never knew about factory farming until I read his book and googled 'factory farming' on the web. It was all over from there. I started watching those videos on what we do to animals-the ones we don't want to see-and I could not stomach another bite of an animal again. I loved meat, ate it easily 3xday for all of my life, grew up near those green pastures in northern California where cows graze all day. Wow. Was I disconnected and fooled...
What I felt, was that he did not preach about not eating animals. He presented information that I could personally relate to and grasp. For me, Jonathon felt like a messenger...where many have failed to bring light to what humans are systematically doing to animals every moment of every day. He provided very important information about 99% of the animals I used to buy and eat for my family and friends. I had no idea that the US alone consumes 10 billion animals PER YEAR. I finally woke up. One chicken has 2 wings(that they never use)--how many chicken wings come in a basket at a restaurant-6? 12? 24? I used to throw meat away after getting full. I was throwing away a life-a wasted one who suffered in life and in death. What frightened me more about this book is why is an author bringing this info to me? Where are the ongoing news specials on this?
Jonathon's personal tone, statistical/historical data, research team, true accounts from the field, letters, etc., left me no choice than to agree with him. Of course, he is not a farm owner, hasn't worked on a farm, and can't come from a place of truly understanding 'farming'. And he doesn't shun farming, he actually helped me realize that the farming I thought ALL animals came from--humane ones--are actually a miniscule percentage of all farms. His writing is heartwarming, but gut-wrenching. His occasional wit about the insanity of factory farming made me laugh quietly, but kept me awake at night thinking & fretting.
What Eating Animals did to push me over the edge into veganism is not only about animal rights, but the terrifying component of being lied to by these factory farms and the megacorporations that support them. I used to pay extra for organic milk & cage free eggs because I believed in Horizon Farms. I thought I was making a better choice for the animals. Ultimately, the author woke me up from a deep, deep sleep. As he eloquently presents about turkeys, how can we celebrate 'thanks' and 'family' or whatever tradition you have on Thanksgiving while the main course never saw the sun, felt the earth, a breath of fresh air, had his beak seared off with a hot blade and no pain killers, lived on top of thousands of other turkey's and their excrement, thrown into trucks for transport hundreds of miles without food or water, and never had one true moment of 'love.' If having a better understanding of what love means to you, read this book.
(Update: It is now 8 months and the book continues to be a catalyst--far beyond where I ever imagined I would go in not eating animals...
A manifesto that doesn't PETA-preach. November 13, 2009
Brooke E. Smith (DeLand, Florida, USA)
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
This book is a valued addition to my library. It has a thoroughly researched look into the future of farming animals the American way while not resorting to PETA's militant entrail-tossing methods of vegetarian conversion which are so appalling. As a vegetarian, I would feel comfortable giving this book to my meat-eating friends if they were interested to learn why I chose a vegetarian path.
Foer's book has a lighthearted beginning, getting its start by a mock-argument(albeit a well-researched one)for eating dog. This passage introduces readers to evaluate at why we as a culture eat some animals and not others. Where does our sentimentality begin and our desire for meat with every vegetable end? The book aims to open thoughts and dialog as well as provide facts of the current state of meat farming in the USA.
The importance of this book isn't the potential of converting people over to vegetarianism or veganism, but it makes a compelling argument for how imperative it is ecologically and socially to get away from the factory methods of farming currently used in nearly ALL of America's meat industries. While the book largely does focus on animal suffering under the current factory model, it also highlights facts about how factory farms keep meat prices artificially deflated, and the health impacts of workers and residents.
This book is an engaging read, supported by facts, but not drowning in footnotes. It inspired some good peaceful conversations among my omnivorous family and myself as to why I have made the choices that I have.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 188
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