On average, Americans eat the equivalent of 21,000 animals in a lifetime and nearly one third of the land surface of the planet is dedicated to livestock. Such statistics alone make it entirely logical to conclude that what’s wrong with the system is connected to what’s wrong with our world. But reason alone does not change hearts and minds so Jonathan Safran Foer’s latest book is very welcome.
I should say that in my case he was preaching to the already converted. I am proud to say that I have been a vegetarian for 35 years; proud and, after reading the result of Foer’s thoroughgoing research , very relieved.
While I did not need to read it to convince me that eating meat is wrong on ethical, environmental and health grounds, I’m glad I did because it adds a lot of factual (and stomach churning) weight to what I feel in my heart to be the correct way to live.
My own dislike of meat stretches back to when I was around ten. I remember watching my dad twist the neck of a chicken and then being repulsed at the thought of eating the same bird for dinner the following evening. I also recall retching over the stench of a rabbit being gutted in the kitchen sink. Continue reading
