A Look At Eating Animals

Jonathan Safran Foer lulls you into Eating Animals with a story about his grandmother:

It was my grandmother who taught me that one tea bag makes as many cups of tea as you're serving, and that every part of the apple is edible. (3)

After the g'ma story, the gloves come off. I wanted to stop reading this book so many times and I was relieved when I came to the end.

Where to start?

With factory farming? Tuna "bycatch?"

The fact that animal agriculture is one of the main reasons for climate change?

Language is never fully trustworthy, but when it comes to eating animals, words are often used to misdirect and camouflage as they are to communicate. (45)

As Foer points out, don't believe the hype about your free-range chicken since the chicken might have had access to a small door but probably never wandered out.

If you didn't' get enough information about Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in Michael Pollan's The Omnivores's Dilemma, there's more information here. I also learned about CFE (Common Farming Exemptions):

Common Farming Exemptions make legal any method of raising farmed animals so long as it is commonly practiced within the industry. In other words, farmers -- corporations is the right word - have the power to define cruelty. If the industry adopts a practice -- hacking off unwanted appendages with no painkillers, for example, but you can let your imagination run with this -- it automatically becomes legal. (51)

I did like Foer's account of sloppy slaughter at a kosher slaughterhouse. The Jewish community did not stand by silently.

I remember seeing Foer on The Ellen Show and he said that if you want to tour a grape factory it's usually not a problem but try to gain entry to a slaughterhouse and you won't get very far. Foer wrote many letters to Tyson Foods. The author appealed to them from his status as a new father but his letters went unanswered.

I can't remember where I read it in the book but Foer says that most of us know that if we see footage from a slaughterhouse it's going to be akin to a horror movie. The author includes incidents of animal torture in the book and he recounts one instance where a worker literally rubbed brine into the wound of animal. And when workers aren't doing sadistic things to animals, they just might urinate on the production line.

Other things that you'll read about in Eating Animals:

Artificially Low Meat Prices

Branding

Broilers vs. Layers

Chickens Injected With Broth

E. Coli

Fecal Mists

Frankenstein Genetics

H1N1

Salmonella

Social Hierarchy of Pigs

Unhappy Meals

Foer covers a lot of ground and, during the course of his research, he talks with many folks in the industry, including a vegetarian farmer, PETA member, factory farmer and turkey rancher.

In the end, Eating Animals makes me not want to eat animals -- at least not ones that are factory farmed.

I started reading Koren Zailckas' memoir Fury but I think that I need to switch gears. I'm in need of something lighthearted. Suggestions???

Instant Karma

I was teasing Jessica, one of my 9 to 5 comrades, about her anger. Well, little did I know...

After work, I headed to the Wohl Center to swim. First, the security was a little beefed up. Hmmm, what was up with that? I headed back to the pool and the door to the staff office was closed. No signs, nothing and, not to be deterred, I checked the locker room door and it was open. I figured that by the time I changed into my swimming gear, a lifeguard would appear. Not. I also pinpoint the noise that I've been hearing. There is water being pumped into the pool. Not a good sign for someone who wants to be in the pool.

While I'm waiting for a sign of life, I notice how nice the pool area is because I'm seeing the light stream through for the first time since the days have gotten longer. There's one whole wall of block glass and the rest is regular glass; it's literally a glass pool house.

The lifeguard finally appeared and said the pool was semi-open. Hunh? The water was not warm enough because someone did not adjust the temperature in a timely fashion and there's a chlorine glitch too. After the unscheduled pool draining, I was not expecting any other problems so soon.

I was utterly and completely annoyed since I had trekked from the South side to the North side and I couldn't even head straight to the gym without my other set of workout stuff: MP3 player, towel, socks and tennis shoes.

I was angry because my plans felt wrecked and my schedule is such a tightrope act these days. I was beginning to feel like David Banner when he's spiraling out of control and not even Outkast was working any magic. I had a lot of energy and no outlet. It would have been so satisfying to make contact with a punching bag.

I went home and thought about working out to a dvd but I'm having converter box/dvd compatibility problems and trouble with the computer dvd-r as well. I eventually regrouped and headed to Webster Groves to work out. It was crowded at 7:30 p.m. and the three working AMT's were spoken for. Perfect. I decided to take my fury to the StairMaster and, let me tell you, they don't call it the StairMaster for nothing.