Foer brings this idea to light, explaining how humans are choosing to forget the process in which our meat is formed and connecting them to our own animality. It would not stick with me because I refused to put myself in the position of those I was inflicting harm upon. I knew that eating animals and contributing to mass murder was wrong, but the connection was not there. In and out of high school I constantly jumped between a vegetarian diet and omnivorous diet. This question of identity, and how being vegetarian was a way for him to feel closer to himself- but not actually committing to the cause-was something I struggled with a lot in my early years of activism. I felt particularly connected to this part of his story, and I think it is an underrated part of his book that goes overlooked by a lot of readers. He even goes on to share that he would use the label as a way to get closer to other activist women. He continues to talk about his struggles with identity growing up- constantly switching between a vegetarian diet and omnivorous diet “in an effort to claim some identity in a world full of people whose identities seemed to come effortlessly”.

The first chapter of the novel discusses the way he grew up with food- feeling particularly puzzled by the idea of eating animals after his babysitter told him she “didn’t want to hurt anything” after he asked why she wasn’t eating chicken with them during dinner. The idea of this book, and the three year long journalistic research that went into it, was thought of by Foer after he pondered of what his unborn child’s diet would be like. The book is Foer’s examination of factory farming the suffering of sentient beings, morality of humans and their willingness to do nothing, and the impact behind the culture of food. This quote, from Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, is my favorite remark from his detailed story and personal account of everything that is wrong with today’s modern way of producing and eating meat.

Jonathan foer eating animals