Monday, November 30, 2009
"Eating Animals": a Hungry Memphis Review
Posted by Susan Ellis on Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:07 PM
By Jonathan Safran Foer
Little, Brown, 267 pp., $25.99
If ignorance is bliss, then making eye contact with a pig seconds before it’s slaughtered is another thing altogether. The guy having the swine face-time is novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, who, after the birth of his son, was driven to explore what “eating animals” really means.
Those animals of the title of this vegetarian treatise are humans, and, to his credit, Foer gives voice to all sides — the animal activist, the factory farmer, and those who strive to raise animals for meat as humanely as possible.
So is everything illuminated? Foer presents the cold, hard facts about what it means to eat meat (mostly animal cruelty), but this particular light has been shone before (see Schlosser, Pollan, Sinclair, etc.).
What is new here is Foer also examines what it means not to eat meat. He notes, correctly, that some omnivores feel defensive in the company of vegetarians, as if a complicit judgment is being passed. In addition, Foer laments the death of the family dinners he knew as a child and those weekly sushi dinners he had to give up with friends. That he’s found happy alternatives to these rituals makes the reader wonder why he makes it an issue in the first place. It’s breaking bread, after all, not breaking meat.
Comments (24)
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What about all the germs and bacteria we kill every time we walk, use a computer, touch everything? To be consistent with this alleged ethical dilemma, this is the conclusion. Given an evolutionary faith that most atheists hold to; why is it absolutely immoral to kill animals? 'One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.' Romans 14:2
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Excellent Bible verse, CHG. If God had not sent Jesus to cancel the Old Testament dietary restrictions, Memphis wouldn't have BBQ and catfish. Without pork or fish without scales, we wouldn't have a culinary scene at all. Praise the Lord and pass the ribs.
"one man's faith allows him to eat everything" except, apparently in the case of chg, crow.
CHG trolling about in a world of absolutes. Wishing oral wasn't a misuse of a bodily orifice and fearing hell every time his speedometer reads 71.
Jeff, it has nothing to do with dietary laws at all. Paul was stating that all meats can be eaten, irrespective of meats used by non-Christian religions. Some of the Roman Christians were being superstitious in this regards.
I think Mark Twain got it right: "Faith is believing in something you know ain't true."
I'm aware of that, CHG. I was just making a general statement about Jesus and the Memphis culinary scene. There would be no barbecue festival, no church picnic fish fries. We would live in a gastronomic wasteland of boiled mutton, bland turnip greens, and cheeseless cheeseburgers. And there's be no savior in New Orleans either, as you couldn't get a shrimp po-boy.
I like the fried oyster and I like the debris. The shrimp Po-Boy never worked for me. And the cold cut versions don't move me at all. Oh, and the soft shell crab po-boy from Mother's: Also excellent.
None of which you could eat, Chris, if not for Jesus. So down on your knees and give thanks to the Lord, for that soft-shell crab po-boy was good enough for Jhvh!
I have it on good authority that Jesus was creole and noshed regularly at Sal Saia's in Kenner. Of course, his name in this case is pronounced Hay-zoose.
If we assume that humans are all animals, then why not also protest lions that devour the gazelle, sharks that kill and eat sea-lions, and birds that eat insects, ad infinitum? Interestingly, this writer only has a 'beef' with humans for eating animals.
was that pun intended? as the Great One (no, not Jesus--Jackie G.) would say: Haaaarty-har-har.....btw, sharks eat people too, hmmmmmm
Eat what you like, I just think it's odd that anyone would have a problem with being at the top of the food chain.
Even though we as humans are at the top of the food chain, our ranks are notoriously filled with bottom feeders.
"If we assume we are all animals": Classic stuff that. For if we are all beasts then we are no better than beasts and must, by nature, be beastly.
The best argument I've read against eating meat is "The Family That Couldn't Sleep."
Gets into Mad Cow Disease and other horrible stuff. There's a spoiler in there that I won't get into, but it's definitely "beastly."
Humans have been eating meat since the start of time.... and yes you all are 100% genetically derived & engineered from Meat Eaters! I'll quote Anthony bourdain "Vegetarians...They’re Just F%ckin’ Rude"
If we were made to be vegetarians we would have 4 stomachs and all our teeth (or toof's in the memphis language) would be molars.
I was a vegetarian for 6 years for ethical reasons, but began again eating meat a few years ago due to a) getting horribly sick from protein and vitamin deficiencies and b) an educated realization of the necessity for a full food-chain in nature....yes, the cows would all out-evolve us and be running the place within a decade if we all stopped eating meat.
But what I like about this book, and ones similar, is the focus on the fact that yes, we are animals of intelligence who enjoy and maybe should be eating meat regularly, but because of that intellect and capacity for empathy we should be eating meat more "respectfully." The animals we devour do experience and feel, so I believe in our highly-evolved (*snicker*) state we should be able to humanely house and kill these creatures for consumption. Not caring about where the meat comes from says you don't care about those animals that are literally nourishing your life. Being at the top of the food chain should be appreciated, not abused.
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