I simply wanted to know — for myself and for my family — what meat is. Where does it come from? How is it produced? What are the economical, social and environmental effects? Are there animals that it is straightforwardly right to eat? Are there situations in which not eating animals is wrong? If this began as a personal quest, it didn’t stay that way for long…
— Jonathan Safran Foer Eating Animals
Non-fiction for a change, and one that focuses on a topic close to my heart and life. Eating vegan most of the time — with the occasional vegetarian pizza or dinner invitation —, I find the mechanisms, ideologies, and markting strategies employed by the food industry in general fascinating. Working in marketing/advertisement myself, I know that bullshit bingo (unfortunately) works. Therefor, Foer’s foray into food production and marketing felt like the perfect read. It was, in a way.
Foer’s Easy Way to Stop Eating Meat?
Foer’s book is a factual report of how animals, or rather ‘livestock,’ is treated in the US (and most certainly in a lot of other parts in this world) as well as the environmental and general effects of the people’s love for meat. Instead of including every statistic he finds and making a clear-cut case for vegetarianism or even veganism, Foer does his best to include the bigger picture. Small farms, individual producers, big corporations providing (new) jobs. This is not the Allen Carr of carnivores, this is a well researched report about what eating meat and animal products does to us and our planet, and, most importantly, to the living creatures we eat.
As a European, I can soothe my troubled mind by acknowledging that Foer is mainly describing the situation in the US and there are significant regulatory differences between the US and the EU. Which is true; EU regulations on GMOs and food additives — especially growth hormones, chemical preservatives, and chemical additives — are stricter in how they protect the consumer. In the US, the FDA only intervenes when an additive seems to be harmful to the consumers. In the EU it’s the other way round — it has to be proven that the additive is not harmful to the consumer BEFORE it is permitted for human consumption — making food safer for the EU population to eat, though various EU countries can add additional regulations on top of the EU ones. This way, the same product from the same producer can look and taste differently depending on whether you bought is in the US or an EU country (or former EU member UK).
However, this does not mean that the EU is a safe haven for Wilbur (or Charlotte, for that matter). Focusing on the situation in the US for obvious reasons, we can easily find the scenery he describes regarding poultry and battery farms in many European countries. Factory farming is an international and sure as hell European issue as well as it is a US problem. Don’t let yourself be fooled into believing Milka chocolate indeed comes from purple cows grazing lazily in the Austrian alps, or that European meat suppliers lovingly stroke their calves to death before serving them to you. That’s just marketing, and it’s as much bullshit as anywhere else.
How laziness and incompetence can save the cow
I have never eaten that much meat, mainly because I hate cooking and meat requires a certain amount of proficiency to handle it safely. Also, it took me ages to learn how to properly season my dishes; I didn’t want to waste money on ruining perfectly fine food, so I’ve mainly stuck to vegetables, rice, and pasta to fuel my body with the energy it needs. Therefore, the decision to quit eating meat after reading Eating Animals was not as much of a challenge as when I decided to quit smoking after reading Allen Carr’s Easyway (several times, to be honest. But that’s a different story). Realizing that much of what’s wrong with the system Foer describes is a (American) structural issue — the bigger the better, the Walmartization of their world — makes me sad and angry at the same time. Showing complete and utter disregard for nature, the world we live in, and the creatures this planet could support if only they were worthy of support and protection. But what is a functioning ecosystem if it doesn’t earn someone a few millions…?
But I digress. Discussing economical as well as moral aspects of animal rights will always lead to political debates, something I don’t want to include in this post for two simple reasons: a) Foer focuses on the situation in the US, and b) I know the US and the EU much better than, e.g., China, India, or Russia, and it’s easier and much more convincing to write about something you have at least some knowledge about. So while this is once again a Eurocentric position that solely deals with food production and consumption in Wester countries, it is — to a degree, in reference to Foer’s book — the world I live in. Here I am influenced by the way things work; yet I might also influence my surroundings/city on a small scale by supporting small shops, farmers’ markets, and restaurants that serve solely vegetarian or vegan food. I love thinking outside the box; however, sometimes a more regional approach will work better. So please bear with me while I try to reach a sane conclusion on why reading a book on food production and consumption has resulted in changing my diet for good.
The unbearable lightness of being totally insignificant
On a scientific, factual level, not one of us really matters. I’m the result of two people not using proper contraception — had I never been born, no one would miss me in the first place. People invented religions to overcome this flaw of existential irrelevance, to give life a deeper meaning and add hierarchical structures to dominate others (I’m an atheist for a reason…). Still, we are a random mix of genes and cells (people with medical background may explain this more sophisticated than I can) and that’s it. As an accumulation of cells and atoms I’m as insignificant as any other species. But as a human being, as a well-educated white woman from Western Europe, I’m suddenly worth a bit more.
On an idealist, personal level, every one of us matters in various ways, philosophically but also on a practical level. For example, if you choose to stop eating meat, become vegan, only eat meat from small producers (you may even know personally), start living plastic-free, give up your Nespresso for something less evil and more sustainable, or stop shopping at Primark, H&M, ZARA, Gap, and the like — there are many ways we can matter if we want to. And a book like Foer’s Eating Animals certainly is for those of us who think about their place in a consumerist society in which no one’s health — animal or human — is as important as profits.
People care about animals. I believe that. They just don’t want to know or to pay. A fourth of all chickens have stress fractures. It’s wrong. They’re packed body to body, and can’t escape their waste, and never see the sun. Their nails grow around the bars of their cages. It’s wrong. They feel their slaughters. It’s wrong, and people, know it’s wrong. They don’t have to be convinced. They just have to act differently. I’m not better than anyone, and I’m not trying to convince people to live by my standards of what’s right. I’m trying to convince them to live by their own.
— Frank Reese, last independent poultry farmer, owner of Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch, in a letter to Jonathan Safran Foer
Just think about it…often.
What you eat is a personal choice, which makes this topic difficult. In the end, a lot of omnivores react highly sensitive to the fact that our consumption of animal products is destroying (human and animal) lives and also the planet. It’s easy for all sides to adopt a self-righteous and moralizing tone when ignoring facts — factory farming is bad for the consumed as well as the consumer, eating meat fuels climate change… — leads to creating fiction.
I’ve been reading about sustainability, fair fashion, green living, and vegetarianism/veganism for quite a while now and all my interest and accumulated knowledge up to this date obviously climaxed in this post you’re reading right now. Being a researcher as well as a fabricator of glossy marketing lies, I’m here to share my horror at how we treat this world of ours. I mean well and I don’t want to imply that I have all the answers. Shit, I don’t even know every question we could ask. Still, I feel confident we can start somewhere. Let’s just take it one step at a time…