Warning - Contains Controversy : Book Review for Eating Animals.

I know I've mentioned before about reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. I was plowing through it full steam ahead while we were traveling in Europe but have been reading library books for the last month that I've been home. I picked it back up again to finish it and I have to say, it's pretty groundbreaking. 

When I first started reading the, I didn't expect my feelings on meat to change. I'm just not very interested in meat, which is why I don't eat it - I think it's a waste of the life of an animal if I don't really care for it. Plus, my mother has abstained from red meat for over 30 years, and I've always been vaguely aware that certain meats contain things in them that you might not necessarily want to put into your body. I never knew specifics. My big argument has always been "Well, how often do you think primitive humans were able to catch and eat meat?" I've been interested in eating pure, natural foods that our bodies were designed to process (plus sometimes donuts :). There's no way around it - cave men and women were NOT eating meat every day. At the same time, I don't want to discourage my family or friends from eating meat if they want to; I don't have a problem with animals dying for us to eat - it's the circle of life and I do agree that it's very natural.

~ If you don't want to hear about the meat-processing industry,  I won't be offended if you skip the rest of this post ~

Towards the second half of Eating Animals, I started to learn things about factory farming that I hadn't already known. I knew about the conditions for chickens - I think that's more common knowledge for everyone. I knew that they lived sad, abused lives in horribly crowded and brutal conditions. When I started reading about the pigs, though, is when I got upset. Pigs are smart and good-natured animals, and the conditions that they are expected to live in are even worse than those of the chickens. When they are brought together to be slaughtered, some are so frightened and distraught by the conditions and circumstances that they have heart attacks on the spot. Weak or deformed piglets (about 9-10% of the piglets that are born) are "thumped" as a brutal form of euthanasia - they are picked up by their hindquarters and bashed against the ground. Sculls cracked, eyeballs hanging loose, they are left there to die. Mercilessly. Is this kind of suffering necessary? Foer explained how the excrement and disease that these animals live in are "overlooked" and packaged and processed into the very meats that are available at our supermarkets, sometimes making us sick.

At first I wanted to quote graphic excerpts from the book on here, but then I decided I didn't want to change my readers' minds on meat or be the one to "scare" them away from it. I still think that there's nothing wrong with eating meat occasionally, especially if you know where it comes from. If/when I have children, I fully plan to serve them meat as they grow up (of course, it will be extremely carefully selected by me...and probably expensive!). Anyways, I highly, highly suggest that everyone read this book and do yourself the service of being educated... not even necessarily for the health or well-being of the animals, but for yourselves and for our nation. I'm not trying to suggest that anyone stops eating meat or change your diet, I'm just suggesting that it can't hurt to look into where you meat comes from. And if you don't want to look into it - that's fine too :)

I didn't mean for this post to be graphic or upsetting, but it's something I feel really strongly about and as much as I try to keep this blog neutral, I felt really compelled to share this information. I think that people deserve to be educated :)