What’s it all about?:
From the bestselling author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Everything is Illuminated:
Discover the mind-blowing, life-changing book which revolutionised the way we think about meat – coming soon as a major documentary film by Natalie Portman
Eating Animals is the single most original book about food written this century. It will change the way you think and change the way you eat. For good.
Whether you’re doing veganuary, trying to cut back on animal consumption, or a lifelong meat-eater, you need to read this book.
‘Universally compelling. Jonathan Safran Foer’s book changed me’ – Natalie Portman
‘Moving, disturbing, should be compulsory reading. A genuine masterwork. Read this book. It will change you’ Time Out
‘If you eat meat and fish, you should read this book. Even if you don’t, you should. It might bring the beginning of a change of heart about all living things’ Joanna Lumley
‘Gripping, breathtaking, original. A brilliant synthesis of argument, science and storytelling. One of the finest books ever written on the subject of eating animals’ TLS
‘Shocking, incandescent, brilliant’ The Times
‘Horrifying, eloquent, timely’ Spectator
What did I think?:
A quick side-note before I start talking about this book, I normally include the Goodreads synopsis above but I don’t normally include the quotes. With Eating Animals, I have chosen to because it was reading the quotes that pushed me to read this book earlier than I might originally have done. With Joanna Lumley suggesting “a change of heart about all living things” and Natalie Portman stating that it had changed her, I was super intrigued. Now, I’ve always been a meat-eater. I was raised as a meat-eater and although I’m a huge animal lover, as long as the food didn’t have a “face,” I was relatively okay about eating it, as long as I didn’t imagine the animal in its original form, frolicking in a field. Then a few years ago, my boyfriend turned vegetarian, purely because he had heard some awful things about the treatment of animals prior to them being killed for our meat. I was concerned at first about how our eating would change but to be honest, I haven’t noticed much of a difference. He will cook me meat when I want but generally, for ease of cooking, we both eat the same thing and I’ll perhaps eat meat, away from him on my own time. However my consumption of meat/fish has definitely gone down and I always wondered, could I do without it?
I have to admit, this book has been on my TBR for the longest time and I was a bit worried about reading it. Perhaps I’ve been putting it off as I didn’t want to be confronted with the brutal truth about where our meat comes from and thought it might finally tip me over the edge into vegetarianism. Well, now I’ve finished it and finally know the ugly truth. And it is horrendous. Some of the facts about how chickens, pigs, turkeys, cattle etc are treated in this book are truly disgusting and it has definitely made me think twice about eating meat in the future. I’ve made the decision not to go into detail about how exactly the animals are treated in this review because I really don’t want to offend or upset anyone but believe me, it’s all kinds of shocking. I think I’ve had blinkers on for so long now about this issue and have heard rumours here and there but it’s seeing it put down there in black and white with clear facts and figures and statistics provided by the author that is really eye opening and a huge game changer for me.
You’d think this might be a manual advocating vegetarianism/veganism as the only proper way to do things and that it could potentially get a bit preachy. I didn’t find this at the beginning, in fact the author plays devil’s advocate and talks about the benefits of eating dogs (of all things!). He describes the vast numbers of stray dogs that are euthanized each year and how large an ecological and economic problem getting rid of their bodies is. Of course, I don’t condone eating dogs in the slightest, they’re one of my favorite animals but it’s interesting to see him try and find an environmental case for eating animals, even if they’re few and far between. It was also fascinating to learn that animal agriculture in general provides a 40% greater contribution to global warming than all transportation in the world combined and it is actually the number one cause of climate change. That’s definitely food for thought (no pun intended!).
Overall, I’m not quite sure where to rate this book. It absolutely did what I expected it to do – it turned me off eating animals with its brutal honesty and has made me seriously consider vegetarianism as a lifestyle option. Knowing what I know now after reading this book, personally I would feel so guilty eating meat as I realize the process it *might* have gone through to get to my plate. Perhaps ignorance is really bliss but I’m glad I read Eating Animals, I feel much more educated about the farming process and so-called “free range.” It wasn’t a perfect book at all, occasionally it got slightly repetitive and I didn’t care much for the writing style or how it was structured but I can’t deny it’s a life-changing book that made me think differently about how I eat.
Would I recommend it?:
Probably! (with caution)
Star rating (out of 5):
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer was the twenty-third book on my quest to conquer Mount Everest in the Mount TBR Challenge 2018!
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