Eid at Joe's
I finished reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer this afternoon. It was worthwhile reading, but given my niece's remarks about it and the publicity it received, I expected it to be better than it was. Maybe I've put in enough years of being interested in food politics that Foer had almost nothing new to present to me. The only bit of information that I found really useful--and unknown to me until I read Eating Animals--is that a mere one percent of meat in the U.S. is not produced in factory farms. Omnivores who get defensive about their meat consumption always, predictably, bring up the argument that the anti-meat crusaders are narrowly focused on factory farming, ignoring how much better open-range farming is. Apparently we don't show enough awe and reverence for that one-percent exception to the rule.
One of the most bizarre things about the book was Foer's mention--more than once--of his lingering longings for meat. It was bizarre for me, anyway. I can't relate at all. Foer interviewed laborers from meat-packing plants, read their accounts by other researchers, and saw some of the gruesome footage that has been made public. He visited a meat processing facility himself (albeit one of the better ones). For me it took much less to develop my aversion to meat.
Helping my father raise pigs (and one random calf) in an open-range environment was all it took for me. Our farm was the kind Foer would probably label humane--in fact, it was more humane than some of the ones he visited and considered far superior to factory farms. We didn't remove our pigs' tails. We gave them a few acres to roam, with plenty of space between the place they slept and the place they urinated and defecated. We only gave them antibiotics when it was necessary. They could roll around in water and mud during the summer to cool off.
But the experience still turned me off to the idea of eating pigs. The experience left me with two strong feelings: pigs are really disgusting when you have to give them any kind of veterinary care, and pigs reveal themselves to be very smart animals when you're wasting some time with them. Those two feelings were enough to make me lose any interest in eating them. Admittedly, it wasn't immediate. But had I just decided, from the start, that I didn't have to eat pigs--that no one could make me eat them and that there were plenty of other things I could eat instead--I think I would have adopted a pigless diet almost immediately. I can't speak of any longings for pig meat--just the slow realization that there was no reason for me to keep eating it.
After that, I gave up other animal foods to the point of becoming a lacto-ovo-vegetarian. (After reading Foer's book, I'm thinking of just being a lacto-vegetarian, but I don't know if I'll go through with it.)
Anyway, while I was reading it (and this is just a random, unconnected, parting thought), it occurred to me how ironic it is that some parents will be so protective of their children when it comes to their use of the Internet (lest they get lured somewhere by a pedophile) or the friends they're allowed to hang out with, but they could care less that they're giving their kids meat that is very likely tainted with fecal matter, from an animal that was likely given so many antibiotics that it was carrying a resistant infection when it was slaughtered. (Foodborne illnesses cause a couple of thousand deaths per year and over a hundred times that many hospitalizations.) And they'll risk destroying the environment their kids will inherit by buying this factory-farmed garbage for them to eat. (I realize that not all parents can afford to have much consumer choice in what they feed their kids, but I have to wonder about those parents who can afford to buy better food.)
One of the most bizarre things about the book was Foer's mention--more than once--of his lingering longings for meat. It was bizarre for me, anyway. I can't relate at all. Foer interviewed laborers from meat-packing plants, read their accounts by other researchers, and saw some of the gruesome footage that has been made public. He visited a meat processing facility himself (albeit one of the better ones). For me it took much less to develop my aversion to meat.
Helping my father raise pigs (and one random calf) in an open-range environment was all it took for me. Our farm was the kind Foer would probably label humane--in fact, it was more humane than some of the ones he visited and considered far superior to factory farms. We didn't remove our pigs' tails. We gave them a few acres to roam, with plenty of space between the place they slept and the place they urinated and defecated. We only gave them antibiotics when it was necessary. They could roll around in water and mud during the summer to cool off.
But the experience still turned me off to the idea of eating pigs. The experience left me with two strong feelings: pigs are really disgusting when you have to give them any kind of veterinary care, and pigs reveal themselves to be very smart animals when you're wasting some time with them. Those two feelings were enough to make me lose any interest in eating them. Admittedly, it wasn't immediate. But had I just decided, from the start, that I didn't have to eat pigs--that no one could make me eat them and that there were plenty of other things I could eat instead--I think I would have adopted a pigless diet almost immediately. I can't speak of any longings for pig meat--just the slow realization that there was no reason for me to keep eating it.
After that, I gave up other animal foods to the point of becoming a lacto-ovo-vegetarian. (After reading Foer's book, I'm thinking of just being a lacto-vegetarian, but I don't know if I'll go through with it.)
Anyway, while I was reading it (and this is just a random, unconnected, parting thought), it occurred to me how ironic it is that some parents will be so protective of their children when it comes to their use of the Internet (lest they get lured somewhere by a pedophile) or the friends they're allowed to hang out with, but they could care less that they're giving their kids meat that is very likely tainted with fecal matter, from an animal that was likely given so many antibiotics that it was carrying a resistant infection when it was slaughtered. (Foodborne illnesses cause a couple of thousand deaths per year and over a hundred times that many hospitalizations.) And they'll risk destroying the environment their kids will inherit by buying this factory-farmed garbage for them to eat. (I realize that not all parents can afford to have much consumer choice in what they feed their kids, but I have to wonder about those parents who can afford to buy better food.)