Eating Animals

From Strand Bookstore

On the brink of fatherhood, writer Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close), facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf, set about to find answers for himself. This quest ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong. Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir, and his own detective work, EATING ANIMALS explores the many stories we use to justify our eating habits - folklore and pop culture, family habits & national myth. A tour de force.

From the Publisher

The award-winning author of Everything Is Illuminated exposes common misconceptions about how animals are slaughtered and processed for food, drawing on sources from popular culture to national tradition to reveal how the meat industry misrepresents its practices.

From the Publisher

The award-winning author of Everything Is Illuminated exposes common misconceptions about how animals are slaughtered and processed for food, drawing on sources from popular culture to national tradition to reveal how the meat industry misrepresents its practices.

More about the book

Jonathan Safran Foer recounts the results of his intrepid investigation into factory farming and industrial food production, an endeavor which convinced him of the benefits of a vegetarian diet. Foer, who had been an on-again/off-again vegetarian since childhood, was motivated to solidify his stand on diet by his impending fatherhood. He identifies and investigates the numerous myths that people tell themselves to justify their consumption of meat, from concerns about nutrition to cultural interests to family compromise, and systematically addresses each one through his own experience and his enthusiastic research, which included breaking into a factory farm in the middle of the night to observe their practices. Written with the same compelling wit and vigor which made Foer's first two novels such popular and critical successes, EATING ANIMALS consistently entertains even as it enlightens readers on the extensive detriments of remaining carnivorous.