By Jonathan Safran Foer
Published by Little, Brown and Company
Published in 2009
ISBN: 0316069906
Can you handle the truth? It seems that I can't.
For a long time, I have been bothered by this vague notion that the fact that I eat meat does not entirely jive with the fact that I am not only an animal lover but one of those people who refuses to even kill a cockroach. This isn't for any religious or ideological reason. It's just that I am a huge softie. I want to adopt all stray dogs. And cats. And some of the squirrels in our local park. Of course I can't do this. I am bound by the necessary constraints of a thing called reality (and the protestations of my incredibly patient husband) which dictate that one large dog within one smallish apartment is quite enough.
Reality bites. But I had no idea exactly how hard it would bite me when I borrowed this book from the library. I mean, let's all be honest. Those of us who choose to eat meat rationally know, somewhere in a dark corner of our minds, that an animal had to die for us to be tucking into the juicy steak/ bucket of deep fried wings/ meat pie in front of us. Obvious stuff. Even further back, we probably acknowledge that given the world population and the existence of places called 'meat works' that this process is not likely to be very gentle or even totally humane. But for me, this acknowledgement was pushed way way back behind lots of disused boxes and debris to the darkest annex of my mind called Denial. Cognitive dissonance - the process of two totally opposing views living side by side in one person's headspace. Something has to give.
So why on earth did I decide to read this book? Or at least, attempt to read it because I should be very honest with you all right now: I could not finish this book. I guess it was because I wanted to face the truth. To test my meat eating. To see if I could handle the facts of where our meat comes from.
Test result: Abject failure.
Real life result: I can no longer eat chicken that has been processed through a meat works.
The big problem is that the people I live with are avid carnivores and I need to be able to continue to at least cook with chicken. My proposed compromise on this issue is that I am going to attempt to change the source of the chicken meat. Living, as I do, in a country where I don't speak very much of the language, certainly not enough to engage in any meaningful debate about the whys and wherefores of the origin of any meat with any shop vendor, this is not going to be easy. However, my plan is to try to get my meat from the traditional markets. They have live chickens at the market and they will kill them for you on the spot. Although this may not sound like much of a compromise to some people out there, trust me if you had read the description that I had of how chickens are slaughtered on masse, you might change your mind.
You see, in all honesty, I still want to eat meat. I enjoy it (don't judge!) But now I want to eat meat in a way that causes the least amount of suffering to the animals that end up on my plate. So a quick, individualized kill at the market seems to me, at this stage, to be a better death than one at the processing plant. And I should be woman enough to look my future chicken soup in the eye before I eat it right? We shall see how I really feel about this when I scrape together the courage to actually do this in a few days.
Although I do feel bad that I wasn't able to finish the whole book, but I think that as far as what it's aim was: to make its reader seriously consider their relationship with the food they eat, it succeeded. I'd like to think that Mr. Foer will forgive me for not making it to the last page in light of the adjustments I am making in what and how I eat.
This isn't one of those books that you can recommend or not. It's something that I feel probably every single person should read, at the very least so that they an make some informed decisions about what they put in their mouths every day. It is a hard read, but Jonathan Safran Foer is an excellent writer who makes the topic engaging, thought provoking and best of all, not preachy or guilt inducing. I couldn't handle the whole truth but I don't regret that I have been exposed to it.
I picked this one up at a charity shop a couple of weeks ago. I've been putting it off because I'm much like you--I enjoy my meat, and I'm afraid that it will turn me off to eating it. I should just go for it though because it would be best for me to at least make informed choices.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I'll finish it either. I'll try, but I imagine that it will be tough.
Kristi - I'd be keen to know how you got on! It's so hard to read because it's telling you what you may have always suspected but didn't want to have confirmed. Hope you can get further than I did :) Let me know!
DeleteI am not a vegetarian, but I rarely eat meat and never cook it. And when I say "rarely," I mean every few months.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it's not an ideological thing, though that certainly bothers me. I just got to where I would cook chicken and be unable to eat it because the smell made me so ill. A couple summers ago, I had a whole bag of chicken breasts that I forgot to freeze, so I had to cook them all. That did me in. I brought them all to my neighbor and have touched chicken only rarely since then.
I hadn't eaten pork by then for nearly 6 years because of a 60 minutes special on it.
As my name implies, I'm picky in all things, so I blame it on that. But when I saw the pink chicken that looked like ice cream photo making its rounds across Facebook a couple of months ago, I was done. No. Thank. You. I really like Foer, but this book may hit a little too close to home.
Great review of this book though.
Picky - Thanks for the comment! I know a couple of people who don't eat meat just because they don't like it, so I can fully understand that. There's a whole range of interesting reasons why people modify their diet which fascinates me and I always love hearing about it from different folks, so thanks. Glad you enjoyed the review :)
DeleteI can understand your reaction. I have this book but haven't read it yet, although I think I know how I would feel. It would be a very small leap for me to give up meat... except that I too have the carnivore husband who loves chicken. So now I only buy chicken from an independent local butcher. The cost is double but the taste is 10 times better, no tough, stringy meat and I feel a little better knowing my food had a somewhat happy life.
ReplyDeleteLeslie - I have managed to find an alternative meat source at the local traditional markets which is really good and like you I feel better knowing that these chickens at least had the chance to run around outside and scratch and peck like normal chickens would.
DeleteI haven't read the book either and quite honestly do not know if I will. On occasion I do briefly wonder about the meat process, especially in the many foreign countries I have traveled in. In the end, my hunger generally supersedes everything else.
ReplyDeleteNow I am wondering if there is a proclivity for the opposite sex to be, shall I say, more mindful of important things like this? We men tend to gobble without regard for the behind the scenes information.
Yes, I have decided for now not to read this book, but rather perhaps at another time, i.e., when I return to the states.
Thanks for an honest, insightful blog.
Hi Jeremy - Thanks for your comment and for following this blog! This book looks only at meat processing in the United States and that alone was pretty horrific for me. I think the worst thing is the en masse, mechanised slaughter for me. I researched a some into Taiwan's meat processing works in Taiwan and, interestingly, they were pretty transparent about it and it was, unsuprisingly, the same deal as in America and probably many other countries across the rest of the world.
DeleteI would definitely recommend only reading this book when you're in a place where you feel like you can actually do something about changing your meat sources if you wanted to. Otherwise the feelings of helplessness are not fun! I'd be interested to know what you think of this book once you do read it :)
Respect your food? Sure.
ReplyDeleteHave a too much of a relationship with it? No thanks, not how the nature works.
Alyssa - I agree that respect is the key issue. Forming a relationship with something that is set to be a food source would surely just create problems.
DeleteI completely understand. I'm the kind of person who can watch action scenes in a movie without blinking (too much anyway), but kill a dog or cat in the movie and I burst into tears . . . When my sister turned vegetarian I tried to as well because I didn't want to have to think of animals dying, but although I've eaten less meat, I haven't succeeded in becoming a vegetarian. I'm hoping to read Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and understand more about the food process and Pollan's reaction to his findings and how he tried to change his eating habits as well.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! ^_^
Bakuchiku - Thanks for the lovely comment! Ah yes - hurt people in movies and I'm not too worried. Hurt animals, however... well. That's a different story. An interesting point someone who is a vegetarian made in an article I read recently was that his hope was not that everyone would be come a vegetarian per se but that those who chose to eat meat would do so in the best way possible. That is, choosing where meat comes from as best they can. I thought that was the best guiding principle I could hope for since I am, unfortunately, very much a meat eater.
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