Thank you for doing this show.

Though looking further, I will say I don’t agree that the only solution is to stop eating meat.

There is something wrong and indecent about us humans eating other creatures like us, made of flesh and blood and with whom we share this planet along with numerous common characteristics.

Abortions, death penalty,genocides( where yesterday’s victims become today’s perpetrators), wars, colonisations and slavery fit also in the same category.

There is no evolution, we humans remain barbarians of the worst kind, It’s in our DNA, it’s the” original sin”

It’s not eating meat that’s is wrong, it’s the way that the corporate agribusiness model has destroyed food in general.

We are omnivores and are designed to eat meat. We just eat way to much.

Nothing wrong with being a vegetarian if that’s your thing, just don’t preach as if you know better.

There is nothing worse than a preachy vegan.
Well yes I guess Mormons bothering me on the T.

It’s factory farming that is problem not only with meat and poultry but with everything else as well.

I have to agree with the emerging sentiment. Having grown up in Vermont, I believe there is an enormous difference b/w buying a steak from my neighbor (from cows who eat grass I walk on and can see) as opposed to a steak from a corporate farmer in Nebraska. Corporate meat farming (in CAFOs) is more like making meat, not growing it. Gross.

My husband stopped eating meat about 5 years ago–he was working on his PhD in biomedical engineering and could not sleep because he was so upset about having to do animal research (rabbits, mice, and I recently learned, dogs). He developed a more humane way of killing the animals and made sure that his lab utilized each animal so that fewer animals had to be killed. One of his fellow labmates noticed how upset he was about the animals being killed and suggested that he become a vegetarian.

Though he is now completed with his research, he is still a vegetarian because of the global impact the American love of beef has. I recently decided to no longer eat mammals and try to only purchase “humane” poultry and local fish. I just can’t look my dog in the eyes and eat meat in front of him anymore.

Just watch a few videos of animals being tortured in these factory farms and you will start asking where your food is coming from.

The torture is so bad most states where they have these hugh factory farms have laws against filming them. They don’t want the word out.

Factory farms are ruining our water supply. The waste goes into our rivers and bays and groundwater and pollutes it and kills the fish.

It has been a slow process for me. But now I am more and more choosing to not eat meat unless I know it is from free range or from local small farms.

Last night Al Gore was the guest on Larry King and, in response to a Twitter question from a viewer about why he’s not a vegetarian given the environmental impact, Gore gave a four-point response:
1)Factory farming is admittedly horrible; 2) vegetarians that point out the environmental impact of meat-eating are correct; 3) he’s cut down on his meat consumption and he feels better for doing so; but 4) he enjoys meat and has no intention of ever becoming vegetarian.
So there you have it, folks. Al Gore, one of the most intelligent men on the planet, can stand tall, holding his Nobel Prize and unabashedly say, like every omnivore carnist, “I like meat, I want meat, and nobody’s going to tell me I can’t have it. Animal suffering be damned”. Thanks, Al. You’re a stellar example for all the young people out there who think you’re The Man when it comes to saving the planet.

I have read so many articles about how smart pigs are yet we torture them their whole lives in cages so small they can’t even turn around. Imagine that.

I agree, we need to correct this evil of hate & indifference to this moral stance in our society, however, human abuses by police, courts and government has got to come first on the list, before animals.

Why is this logic so lost in our country?

Easy to swallow idea?
If people abstaned from eating food obtained from livestock one day a week the effect on the environment might be huge. It seems to me a politically do-able idea with little personal sacrifice. Can you suggest specific groups or popular environmental blogs that look at these kind of ideas?

Thanks,

Alan

Dear Tom,
Can you ask your guest if he is vegan? What are his thoughts on the dairy industry?
Thanks.

I gave up eating red meat because of the ecological and ethical implications of the huge animal farming industry, but I just can’t bring myself to give up fish and poultry! I grew up in South Carolina eating meat at every meal, and I can only make it a few days at a time as a vegetarian.

Tom & Jonathan- Thanks for the discussion!

So, OK. I agree. But I still eat meat. I can and should stop. But how do we get the rest of America on board? Your grandmother? My grandmother? Aunts and Uncles who think that being a vegitartian or vegan is not only crazy, but impossible?

The only reason domesticated animals of any variety exist on this planet is because human beings selectively bred them for functional purposes over millennia. They did work, gave us byproducts (hair, milk, eggs, manure, trained services), and were reduced to meat, leather, and bone when they were no longer useful alive.

The use of animals has become industrialized, just like almost every other economic aspect of human life. This has important benefits, along with significant social and environmental consequences.

I would love to hear the author’s commentary on vegetarianism as a rational social adaptation to an industrial world.

John Robbins, son of Baskin and Robbins, came out with an excellent book which laid out the practical costs and inhumanity of factory farming called Diet for a New America. Glad to see this is working its way up in the public consciousness.
Thank you.

I have been a vegetarian for 8 years on environmental and moral grounds, also thinking of Thoreau’s call not to participate in corrupt systems in Civil Disobedience.

I’ve been experiencing an existential crisis lately, though, wondering if my personal choices make a difference. Are they enough to stop or change the illogical and wildly detrimental system of factory farming?

I don’t proselytize about my lifestyle, because I think that leading by example is more effective. Other than that though, what can reasonably be done to change things on a larger scale?

This is an excellent show and I look forward to reading the book.
I am a single mother and I use food stamps to purchase most of our food for each month. I go through painstaking effort each week at creating menus and budgeting our food purchases. Three to four meals each week do not include meat which makes our grocery bill significantly cheaper. As a result, when I do purchase meat I am able to purchase humanely (and mostly locally) produced milk, cheese, and meat. It really is an issue of quality over quantity.
It is possible to eat healthily and humanely on a budget, people just need to take more time and greater interest in the food that they eat.

For the past few years we have begun buying our meat from local farmers who responsibly raise there animals, I also raise and butcher my own chickens. I see this trend growing in our local area with our farmers markets and today while listening to this show I’m rendering my own lard =)

I’ve not been able to listen to the show, but I am wondering if anyone has brought up the health benefits of eating meats from animals raised on their proper diet? Especially organ meat. (Fat is not automatically bad for you.)

The author has identified the big problem of eating meat without conscience. He tells us about the love in his grandmother’s soup. This is a book that I really want to devour.

I tried being a strict vegetarian for some time. Since I have a genetic intolerance for wheat and some other glutenous grains, this didn’t work out very well. Everything quick, cheap and single-serving size is loaded with wheat flour. I chose to selectively consume animals again in order to survive.

What I can see as a major obstacle to getting folks educated about what they’re jamming into their mouths is the fact that we Americans don’t eat together at Grandma’s table anymore. We are mainly on our own, very often, even after years of feeding our families with care and love.

It’s very difficult to eat consciously when one no longer cooks or shares meals with others. This trend works very well for the corporate food giants and factory farmers (Tyson comes to mind) because it divides and ultimately conquers a captive market.

Looking back, nostalgically, at the traditional human history with food, I must stifle a tear. Kind of looks like we’ve gradually devolved into a sort of hit-and-run, grab-a-leg, gotta-run hoard of mindless animal killers.
Ew. I’ve lost my appetite, completely.

I found it telling when President Clinton, from an agriculture state, changed the way we speak about raising animals for food.

Instead of talking about raising chickens, he talked about “growing” chickens, as though they grow like peas and carrots.

You have thoroughly ruined my enjoyment of my chorizo burrito this morning, but thank you for opening my eyes. I’m with you on this, but most of us who care still need a reminder now and then.

Thanks.

I became a vegan after a calcium scan of my heart. My score was unusually high – lots of artery blockage. So I needed to change how I ate. I read several books, including “The China Study.”

This is one of the best thing I’ve done for myself in my 64 years of life! I feel better – healthy wise. And, I feel better as a human being.

Once I began this new life, I began to learn so much about how the animals are raised – the cruelty, the hormones, the antibiotics and the impact on the environment.

I purchase as much food locally as possible — at our farmer’s market and I canned all summer (I was a vegetarian for a few months before becoming vegan.)

My family keeps chickens in our back yard for eggs. When we first got them, I expected that we would also use them for meat occasionally. I wanted my family to be more aware of where our food is coming from. What I found is that I am too squeamish to butcher the animal. My friends feel the same way.

It seems a sad side effect of our current system is that we’ve all been so insulated from the basics of growing healthy meat that most of us don’t feel capable of doing it.

The problem that is not being addressed is one of scale. I agree with the author that it would be best to eat from small local organic farms, but if food is not mass produced, we cannot feed the population. Even with modern farming technology (mass production of crops and meats), there are world-wide food shortages. If large scale farms were suddenly removed from the equation, the price of meat and grains would skyrocket, causing world-wide inequity and starvation.

That’s the thing. I called this one woman who supplies meat to a restaurant I was going to and questioned her. She was very defensive. I wasn’t convinced at all that the animal had a good life. She admitted that they were rarely out of the barn yet she was considered a organic supplier.

Dear Tom,

Could you ask your guest if he feels there is a connection between eating meat and masculinity in American society?

Thanks.

Breton less and less family farms. The corporations of America took care of that. As usual, corporations only care about profits. They don’t care that they torture or pollute. They just care that you the consumer don’t know about it.

Jonathan Safran Foer’s EATING ANIMALS,
along with Michael Pollan’s THE OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA,
should be required reading.
It is so sad to hear people whine about having to think
about not eating meat.
If everyone had to kill, gut, dress, and prepare the meat
they eat, there would be many more vegetarians.
We are such gluttens in this country.
Animal cruelty is shameful, animals are not our slaves.

I love eating meat and I rarely eat vegetables. I haven’t been seriously sick for 15 years, beside cold or headache but that’s about it.

What is the big deal of eating meat. Jesus Christ and the 12 apostles at bread,lamb and drunk wine during the last supper.

The gentleman sounds very reasoned and intelligent, unfortunately he is sounds completely naive. He was arguing for not eating factory farmed meat on moral grounds and then shifted his rationale to saving the planet by taking 5 million cars off the road by skipping one meat meal a week. Which is it? Save the planet by eating less meat while punishing factory farms or agree humans kill animals to eat but we should treat them humanely?

I am 100% behind treating animals humanely but we kill plants and animals so we can live. Harsh reality of life.

I do not know what criteria are applied to the designation “free-range”. If none exist, then they absolutely should be developed. Having said that, I UNDERSTAND the term to mean what it says. On the small farm I visit occasionally, the chickens range freely, depending for their food in summer primarily on what they get from the ground – insects, small grasses, seeds, etc. Does this qualify?
I believe the derogatory references to “free range” and even more to “grass fed”, which is I believe qualified in law, are unhelpful, suggesting as they do that the same cruelty applies to free-ranged, grass-fed and traditionally raised, cruelty-intensive animals.

Michael Pollan addresses these issues more cogently.

Hey Putney.

after reading The Omnivore’s Dilemna I totally stopped eating fast foods…we now raise our own beef-one cow at a time and I buy my eggs and chickens from a local farmer-you said that small farmers cannot meet the needs of the world-so if you could wave a magic wand-how would things change?

It’s easy for us to tsk-tsk about the moral blind spots of previous generations. I believe that people in the future will be incredulous that we tolerate the cruelty inherent in factory farming.

Thanks for this great discussion! I am a vegetarian and a health counselor, but do not recommend veganism or vegetarianism across the board. I think the most important message to all types of -vores, is to watch the realness of your food. Knowing where is comes from, wanting to put that history into your body, and eating foods as close to the way nature produced them as possible.

The flip side of the stomach-turning guilt we get when realizing the disturbing side of factory foods, is the deep satisfaction of eating a meal made from ingredients you know are good for you, the producers and the planet.

Great show, Tom. I plan to listen to it in full later by podcast. In response to your question, yes, factory farming is a moral crime, and we who ignore it do so much like ordinary Germans ignored the Holocaust that was going on around them, and that they abetted when they failed to resist. I eat meat because I think we humans are omnivores, but I am closer and closer to eliminating all factory-farmed meat from my diet because I want to sleep at night.

Thanks for the book. I think we should all strive to be micro-carnivores.

Thank you for this show.
My 15 year old daughter and husband were both vegetarians
and I was not. Then my family went to see the movie Food Inc. and I stopped eating meat and chicken. My 13 year old became a vegan after seeing the movie.
The movie shows the truth about factory farming and everyone should see it, become aware and then make their choice.

I wonder what Jonathan thinks about the movie?

What is the logic end to factory farms? When ever we push any system to the extreme (which is more than the case with factory farms) there is almost always, eventually, a catestrophic crashing end. e.g. If you Red line your engine long enough, your cars internal systems will eventually break and come to a crashing halt. Is there a foreseable catestrophic end to the factory farms?

Maybe if people could see what the alternative to not stopping factory farms was we would get more people to ask where there food comes from.

I call myself a “meat minimalist.” I haven’t read Foer’s book, but I have read Schlosser’s and Pollan’s which began my trek on this road. I abhor what I have learned about factory farming and am unwilling to participate in purchasing the end product. As much a possible, I buy local, humanely produced/grown food, e.g. our Thanksgiving turkey will come from a local grower who has told us these birds lead happy lives and rule the roost. Occasionally, I eat meat, but I only do so when I would offend a host and/or would lose the cultural experience by abstaining.

I need a reminder like this every once in awhile to avoid buying/consuming meat and to remind me how the animals end up on the Styrofoam.

I love the comments here that clearly haven’t been listening to the show.

I’ve been a strict vegetarian for almost 10 years now, since I first found out about the factory farming practice. Since then it’s gotten worse, not better. The food isn’t just repugnant in origin, it’s dangerous and it’s costing me a fortune even though I don’t eat it. The corporate/government crime partnership that feeds this industry protects it against investigation, by insulating it from the damage it causes to our health and (I shudder to say the word as I loathe environmentalism) our “environment”, and most of all that steals from us directly through tax subsidies.

The people running big ag aren’t getting rich by running a good productive business, they’re getting rich at gunpoint by robbing you while destroying your property. They’re turning farmers into serfs and you into another piece of livestock. They are criminal scum, pure and simple, and they belong alongside all other robbers, rapists and murderers.

I look forward to the day where I can bite into a big juicy steak again without worrying whether it’ll make me sick, where it came from, and who stole from me to make it. Until then, I guess I have to keep fighting.

I don’t know how Mr. Foer’s writing style reads, but he SOUNDS sanctimonious, self-righteous and preachy. I am concerned that listeners who might otherwise gain useful, practical information may be turned off by his preachiness.

It’s completely disappointing to me that Jonathan Foer has so timidly circumscribed his criticisms and narrowed his definition of what’s ethical or cruel. In the “farming” of animals, factory, organic or local, almost all males are killed at birth, almost all females live in slavery and are killed in the prime of their life, just when they pass their peak production, and in the dairy industry, almost all calves are sold for veal.

All of this is inherently cruel, not to mention wasteful. Since Foer has taken so much obvious time and trouble to bring the issue before the public, it’s a shame that he evades the hard moral truths in the end. What he is advocating is merely that we trade the Auschwitz of animal life for Thereisenstadt. And as a vegan and a Jew, I have no problem making that comparison.

I don’t find him sanctimonious or preachy–and I was looking for it. I think he makes small changes sound doable and low stress, and these these increments can have a huge impact on our health, economy and environment. I think he made the act-against-factory-farms tent seem bigger and more welcoming.

what a Elitist,

a waste of a hour

Thank you J. S. Foer for researching and writing on this topic. As a parent, I wonder about how food my children consume are affecting their bodies now and how it will affect them into the future. For instance, it has been observed that puberty seems to be hitting children at an earlier age, and I wonder if the food they eat has anything to do with this development. Higher incidences of diabetes and obesity among children raise these same questions. Our bodies adapt, but not everyone will adapt successfully. It seems that with everything else that is going on in the world right now, I am glad that Foer’s book helps put food production/agriculture on the table alongside other local and global concerns like climate change, political wars, financial woes & greed. It is an issue that touches all aspects of our lives. All of these issues we currently face are warning signals – flashing yellow and red lights – asking us to pause and contemplate on the notion of Stewardship: Will the decisions we make today lead to a world that is better place than we found it?

Excellent show. As a meat eater who has lived in Central America where small portions of meat first frustrated me and as someone who married a vegetarian, long ago realized survival with less meat is no problem. I still crave more than my wife, but now raise my own chickens on our property and will keep doing so to support my habit, though it does cost more for me than the supermarket. This show has inspired me to truly cut back on meat at restaurants etc for the multiple reasons. Good job.

Thanks to Tom and especially to Jonathan. I ‘ve had ‘Eating Animals’ on order at my library for a bit and look forward to reading it. This conversation is lifting the lid off a reality many are uncomfortable with as soon as the turn their attention there and this focus is such a relief of resonance to be hearing and needing to discuss – not just as a nagging dialogue in one’s own head but out loud.

Good job!

What is the big deal of eating meat. Jesus Christ and the 12 apostles ate bread,lamb and drunk wine during the last supper.

This is funny, were do you think lamb came from? It was grazing on a hill somewhere near Jerusalem. There where no factory farms in the 1st century.

What Jonathan Safran Foer speaks to is only one part of how our whole country is out of whack. From agribusiness to wall street it’s all about the bottom line and not the quality of life or more importantly what is the common good.

It’s all related, big pharma, the insurance corporations, the industrial military complex and the way we raise livestock and food. Our lives have been taken over by the corporate interest and they call the shots.

By the way apples are an interesting produce when one looks at factory farming. We only have maybe a dozen different types of apples in the stores. In the 19th century there were hundreds of different types of apples grown. Of course most of them were used for hard cider which was the breakfast drink of the day.

I hope the cattle farmer from Oklahoma (?) raising cattle looks at what Global Warming, which will mean OVER 50 days of temperatures OVER 90° F each year by 2050 and over 120 such days by 2100. It will probably mean NO GRASS for his cattle and certainly diminished grass by as soon as 2030.

I am looking at trying Bill Kurtis’s Tall Grass beef, but I fear for its future, given the short-sightedness being displayed by most of the midwestern Senators and Representatives on Global Warming.

Putney Swope’s Lady, what gives with the name?

Thank you, Jonathan, for speaking out on an extremely important subject in such an eloquent and compelling way.

“There will be no justice as long as man can destroy those weaker than he is.”
I.B. Singer

For those interested in pursuing a vegetarian diet but not knowing where to start, look up Hallelujah Acres in Shelby North Carolina. Rev. Malkmus there went raw vegan in 1976, cured himself of cancer, and has been spreading health ever since. Meat is deadly to us and is causing my generation of 50-60 year olds to die along with those of the previous generation of 80-90 year olds.

Thanks for a very interesting show, and I think Foer’s book will reach a lot of people and do a lot of good. I especially liked his point that it’s not about being clean, it’s about being less dirty. No one is perfect, and anyone who tries to make a difference, whether they eat less meat, eat local products, or eat vegetarian or vegan, *will* make some difference.

I was hoping to get through, or at least that another caller would get through, to make a very basic point. The assumption behind the book, the show, and the majority of the comments here is that it is off the table/never happen/impossible for someone to give up meat. I have been a (non-preachy!) vegan for two years, and it hasn’t been difficult at all. Of the vegans I know, many are low-income (a vegan diet does *not* have to be more expensive than an omnivorous one), many have families, and most are helping the world in lots of other ways too.

Granted that there are cultural and economic reasons why a small minority of people will ever be vegetarian or vegan in this country, it shouldn’t be assumed that it is just impossible for an individual to make that choice. Sorry for the long post, and thanks again!

I also want to say thank you to Tom for another great show with an articulate guest who makes me feel more optimistic about the future of humanity.

Really grateful for the topics raised on On Point each day. Especially this one.

I think the most important message here is that every little bit counts. For all of the people that think they could never eat vegetarian, just try cutting meat out one meal a week, one meal a day. It really makes a difference.

As a vegetarian, I get a lot of incredulous questions from people every day. People shrilly tell me, “Oh I could never do that!” and then they ask me why I’m a vegetarian. I always tell them how I disagree with the industrial production of meat and how inefficient it is for us and for the environment. They always agree that it makes sense.

So what’s the big deal? Baby steps at least. Listening to this has got me taking baby steps towards veganism.

Uh, I’m persuaded. Great show. I probably won’t stop eating meat but I will make a conscious effort to buy meat/eggs from sources that are more humane. This site might be a step in the right direction:

http://www.certifiedhumane.org/

Thanks!

Bettina it’s not only the industrial production of meat, that lettuce your eating right now, unless you know it comes from a good organic farm comes from a factory farm.

Apples are the heaviest sprayed fruit.

The issue is mono-culture farming.

By the way brown rice and beans offer more protein than beef and it’s cheap!

Anyone else notice that health and environmentalism have become like a new religion? Anyway, for some evangelism of my own:

Humans evolved to eat meat. It is very difficult to get certain essential nutrients, especially vitamin B-12 without consuming animal products. Talk to your Dr about supplements if you or your children forswear meat.

Also, our modern lifestyle has made nearly everyone deficient in Vitamin D and Omega 3’s. The RDA for D only protects against the most severe form of Vit-D deficiency – rickets. Having too little, especially as a child, increases the risk of everything from autoimmune disorders to many of the common cancers later in life.

The wild game, plants and fish we evolved to eat had plenty of Omega 3 fats in them. Our industrial food system has replaced them with Omega 6 fats. The result is, again, to encourage just about every “disease of civilization”, including heart disease, certain cancers and possibly even Alzheimer’s. Omega 3’s also appear to have a significant role in brain development and the prevention of psychiatric illness. (Fish oil pills have been found to be as effective as SSRI’s and even lithium in treating mental illness.) We would not need to treat every other person with antidepressants if our society were not so completely deficient in this essential nutrient.

Very interesting show. We raise animals, chickens, a couple of buffalo, cows and horses. I am always willing to learn and give things a try. thanks!!! I instantly feel in love with your grandma from that first story about koser meat.

We also have opportunity to harvest wild game, elk, deer, moose. I am waiting to hear the show agin in full cause I missed some.

I have been living in the US now for more than two years and have lived in several European countries before that. I am Dutch by birth. One of the things that have struck me most about Americans, is their preference for quantity over quality. More is better, seems to be the adagium.
Meat eating is just one example of that. The portions per person we usually get at American restaurants could feed our family of four. Vegetarian dishes are often not on the menu. That reminds me of the many European restaurants I have visited over the years. How much their menus have changed in favor of the vegetarian cuisine! And some of those dishes are very creative and tasty.
Look at what Jamie Oliver did in England for school cafeterias and then compare it to American school cafeterias. Is that what you teach your children to eat? Look at the revolution in French cuisine, a previously conservative kitchen which was all about meat or fish, but opened up to the many vegetarian possibilities, too. Look at all the Germanic countries and the UK, where a much more varied cooking with lots of vegetarian meals has evolved. Why is that not happening here?

Then another point, as a reaction to a lady who called towards the end of the show. She said she could not afford proper food.
I have lived on the countryside and in cities of France among poor people. When they could not afford proper food, they ate less. In our household, we do the same. But we never compromise on quality.
For it is not just the amount of food people stuff themselves with, it is also what it consists of.
As for our family, yes, we do eat meat, only red meat because of the iron in it, about once or twice a week. I only buy “green” meat, from happy and healthy animals.
Have my children got health problems because of that? Nutritional deficiencies? No, they have grown up into healthy and tall girls (Dutch are amongst the healthiest and tallest people on earth).

In Holland, I once visited an ecological farm of a friend of ours. I can recommend everyone such an outing, but especially those who are on the brink of changing their meat eating patterns. When you begin to realize the importance of slaughtering an animal on the spot, avoiding the stress of the transport and thus avoiding the entering of stress hormones in the meat, when you realize the importance of worms in the soil, creating better soil, better grass, thus better food for the cattle, when you reject the habit of feeding herbivores rests of animals in its food (a common cause for epidemics), you know what is crucial for the world and this society in particular.

I do hope this small comment will have a big impact on some of you and gratefully thank those who made it possible.

Janet

I would not call myself a vegetarian, but I eat almost no meat and very little fish, and only when I really want it. Other times, the idea of putting it in my mouth (not anyone else’s, as that’s their business) pretty much disgusts me. I’m definitely in a strange limbo-state with this issue. In fact, I should just call it “completely confused.”

Overall, I do not have an ethical problem with meat eating. If I were in the jungle, an animal would eat me, and, like others have said here, that’s life. I do, however, have an overwhelming ethical issue with poor treatment of food animals. I can’t think of anything more ungrateful than treating something that FEEDS AND SUSTAINS you with disrespect. It saddens me that many (not all) humans think that it is their right to take over and take it all without being thankful.

I don’t get that JOKE! Where do you think lamb came from? That’s why I said “what is the big deal of eating Meat when Jesus Christ and 12 Apostles ate LAMB on the last supper.

Insurance corporation and military industrial complex. what do they got to do with Meat?!
ohh I know the “Men who stares at goats”

Is it possible that this paradigm shift of the way we consume meat came from a place not of greed but of a blacklash against the spartan diet of the depression? My father was raised by people hit hard during the depression and the effects are obvious. In the late eighties my mother made a meal celebrating the fresh and bountiful produce of the late summer and this meal happened to have no meat in it. My father was a little irritated and said “I work hard and make a good living for this family. We can afford to have meat every night.” He saw meat as a status symbol, a sign that he was providing for his family. He sees it less this way now, but it has taken 20 years to get there.

“‘I’ve been experiencing an existential crisis lately, though, wondering if my personal choices make a difference. Are they enough to stop or change the illogical and wildly detrimental system of factory farming?’” -Annie Schild

Annie,
I can relate to how you feel…”‘Be the change you want to see in the world.”-Mahatma Ghandi…I do a lot, I feel, in having good habits toward my proper support/non-support of agriculture in my food acquisition and consumption. I am fortunate, though, in that I live in an area where the small, organic farmer is celebrated and there are choices around me which make my decisions easy. I eat vegetables either grown by me or friends; I get eggs and chickens from a local organic, free-range farmer who has less than one hundred chickens on his farm at any time; I get yogurt and cheeses made by another friend who has only eight goats at her place. I buy only meat from local, organic, free-range farmers or from friends who are hunters, and I have a very close relationship with the land and with the people from whom I get my food. Although, I am not currently vegetarian, I only eat meat about four or five times a month. My consumption promotes very little waste (little need to recycle human-made products, regular composting practices, and no dollars spent to support factory farming/meat-packing industry). I suppose we all could do more, but we can at least all do what we can, just a little. The act itself has some effect. I see it in the way I, and my friends, have influenced our local community.

I think that what Jonathan Safran Foer is proposing is not at all radical or removed from what the average consumer can capably find doable in his/her daily life. I think factory farming/agribusiness can be reined in a bit if people change their views just a little and practice different habits of consumption just a little. I agree with him about there being a whole spectrum of choices other than eating meat that comes from factory farms or becoming vegetarian/vegan. It is heartening to hear this topic discussed more and more in media and around community gatherings, etc.

Janet,
Great comment!

[...] read the book, so I don’t know if I agree with everything he says, but I heard a great conversation with Foer today on NPR’s On Point. And while his ideas may not be brand new, I think he brings a [...]

Brown rice and beans versus a juicy t-bone medium rare.
Fire up the grill.

Insurance corporation and military industrial complex. what do they got to do with Meat?!

Well I spell it out for you, the meat you eat is raised the way it because of corporate decisions made many years ago to change the way beef, pork, and chicken is raised. The feed lot model is a corporate agribusiness idea that was developed for the fast food industry. The rest of our lives is also controlled by corporate interest, such as health care, which is directly related to food.

Have you seen the stats on type 2 diabetes lately?
Do you not see the connections between the huge increase of cheap crappy meat and processed food and the health care cost in this country?

Heart disease is still the #1 killer followed by stroke and then cancer. Diabetes is catching up fast however.

Jeff, I have to ask do have high blood pressure and cholesterol levels?

I eat meat, but I mostly eat a staple of rice and beans and other grains and vegetables. Meat is a treat and i try to find the best I can. Of course this is almost impossible as 99% is from factory feed lots.

By the way brown rice and beans is a complete protein.

By the way Jeff I can make a burger that is made from rice, beans and some other secret ingredients and I bet you would be hard pressed to say ti did not taste as good as any hamburger. Personally unless you get your hamburger meat from a butcher who grinds it for I would stay away from it. If you knew how hamburger meat is made you would not eat it. If you eat the frozen stuff your playing with fire and it’s only a matter of time before you or one of your family members get E.coli.

So Tom – are you going to eat less meat?

To Putney Swope

You write that we are “designed to eat meat” and “don’t preach as if you know better.” Just because we can eat meat it does not follow that we were intended to, nor that we should. Why would anyone need to be a vegetarian in order to offer anytime and anywhere ways of thinking that differ from yours or mine?

Today for you, me and all of us the freedom to choose needs to stop dominating the responsibility to reason out our choices both as individuals and as a part of a society. This discussion challenges us to examine our choices and seems to ask whether we can care enough about ourselves, each other and a future that will certainly come after us – can we do better?

Phil Andolina

I was raised vegetarian (macrobiotic) and am now 39 years old. My daughter is 17. She is a bright beautiful and healthy second generation vegetarian. We have never eaten meat, chicken or fish in our lives.

Being Vegetarian is not so bad. The only problem is that others do not always understand and it’s easy to feel like an outsider.

I am so thankful for Jon’s book and this show!

Sarah

[...] November 14, 2009 by PeteandJensBackyardBirds Today on On Point with Tom Ashbrook there was a great story about the new book “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran. Take an hour and listen to the show. Here is the link. [...]

i am completely in support of humane treatment of animals & against factory farming– but the author misses a very IMPORTANT POINT–which reveals how much of a hypocrite he is -the reason why factory farms developed is because there are too many people on the planet & the population keeps growing! If you really wanted to save the planet & cared about animals-as you pretend Mr. Jonathan– than stop having children!!!!
Your child is already going to contribute more to global warming & the loss of farm land than your hypocritical book about factory farming.
You could be as concerned about the thousands of parentless children needing a home than to reproduce more…think about it…

last time i checked, dogs were carnivores. how do vegetarians justify owning dogs?

Factory farming is disgusting, so I eat free-range, non-GMO antibiotic-free meat.

While I admire vegetarians, I despise anyone imposing their lifestyle upon others. And in the case of vegetarians, the movement seems to have been hijacked by those who want to restrict animal protein for us serfs.

Phil I said we were omnivores. I’m not telling you what to eat. I don’t eat a lot of meat myself. I was a vegetarian for 12 years. I stopped because I wanted too. I like meat, nothing better than a good roast leg of lamb. Anthony Bourdain has a recipe for 7 hour leg of lamb that you can eat with a spoon. It’s great for that special occasion. I like food and cooking myself.
I can live on rice and beans and vegetables and this is what I eat most of the time as well as pasta and some Japanese dishes. I try to eat what is season. Right now we eat a lot of winter squash.

I’m all for buying from local farms or sources that offer this.

The program was about factory farming, which is an unsustainable model and will eventually have serious repercussions. Some of which we are seeing now with these huge out breaks of E.coli in both meat and vegetables.

ellie dogs are omnivores like bears, they need meat but they also eat vegetables and fruits.

My dog loves apples (without seeds), pears, squash, sweet potatoes, cucumbers and rice.
Basically they eat anything as they are scroungers.
However a dogs diet should include a lot grains and vegetables in short a well rounded diet. If the eat only meat the will get sick. Cats on the other hand are exclusively meat eaters with the occasional munch on grass to help them dislodge a hair ball.

If one thinks that strongly about it, don’t own a dog or cat for that matter.

When I was a child growing up in The Netherlands and I was watching American movies I was always struck at how hairy Americans are: lots of arm hair, chest hair etc. Could this be a by-product of eating so much meat? Are we slowly turning into the animals that we love to eat so much? Just ‘food’ for thought…

According to SuperFreakonomics, factory farming is actually more efficient in terms of carbon emissions than small farms.

Just stop eating meat.

The show was very interesting. I have a question. What about Kosher meats? It’s my understanding that the laws are ,in part, about treating the animals
respectfully and humanely.

Unlike plants, animals have minds and nervous systems. Animals suffer when they are slaughtered, and in the case of factory farms, throughout their lives.

I wonder if any human could eat meat if he/she ‘directly experienced’ the pain and suffering of those animals, especially during the process of slaughter.

As Mr. Foer points out, based on scientific research, it is not nutritionally necessary for humans to eat meat. Is indulging one’s sense of taste worth inflicting unnecessary suffering on animals?

I believe it is not right to raise or kill innocent animals for food ‘under any circumstances’.

“The problem that is not being addressed is one of scale. I agree with the author that it would be best to eat from small local organic farms, but if food is not mass produced, we cannot feed the population. Even with modern farming technology (mass production of crops and meats), there are world-wide food shortages. If large scale farms were suddenly removed from the equation, the price of meat and grains would skyrocket, causing world-wide inequity and starvation.”
=

So are you saying that not enough food is being produced, which leads to world-wide food shortages? Any statistics to back up your claim of insufficient food production?

One aspect that’s likely not discussed – how the women’s lib/feminist movement made “cooking food at home” a devalued activity, and how can it be reclaimed – by both men and women cooking together in the kitchen.

There’s a direct relationship between home-cooked food and its health quotient.

One critical question here… If it is already established that we don’t “need” to eat meat to be healthy – When we do so… it is for the sake of “pleasure”. What then is the difference in killing a dog, cat, squirrel, deer, monkey, dolphin, etc. for “pleasure” and killing a cow/pig/chicken for (taste)pleasure? Once one can answer that sufficiently – the choice is clear: go Vegan.

jeannie-contrary to what you mention– kosher slaughter is one of the cruelest methods of killing & causes enormous suffering to the animals–i dont really want to go into the details here– i urge you to go to peta.org and you will find the video link & more info on kosher slaughter…..

For every animal you hippies don’t eat, I’m going to eat three!

Should we all stop eating meat so that we can crowd a billion people onto this continent? So that we can have a standard of living like India? That’s the end game of so-called moralists like the guest selling a book.

It’s so hard to figure out what’s right because, as one commenter put it, there’s so much religion in here. I’ll bet that anti-meat is a spin-off religion from environmentalism. If, as one person pointed out, factory farming is better for the environment than humane farming, it’d be interesting to see where the environmentalists stand on this – my guess is that no proof would convince them. Frankly, I don’t know either way.

Then there was what I initially thought was a nutty comment that the author was a hypocrite because he had kids, which were the biggest source of pollution (not kids, I suppose, but humans). Then I thought about it some more and figured, yeah he’s (or she’s) right – humans are the greatest source of damage to the environment. It’s a little like the head of the Sierra club coming out in favor of immigration to the US, when he knew the US per capita was the greatest polluter. In any event, this doesn’t make the author a hypocrite – just a dad. Finally, you’ve got those who think corporations are the source of all evil (in right wing forums, they probably replace corporations with unions and the government).

I’ve come to not trust any of what appear to be extreme views, especially if they’re hawking a book. These authors have a financial interest in making a big deal out of everything their book is against. And few of them have ever had to run a business. Not much different from the financial interest of drug makers to find drug based solutions to health problems. Doesn’t make either of these groups wrong, but it does make their interpretation of data suspect. I can only remember one time where a researcher came up with conclusions that ran counter to what he wanted to see (some Harvard self-professed liberal professor who concluded diversity wasn’t necessarily good). Showed character to go where the data led him.

Hey guys get real. FOOD CHAIN! lots of Aninmals would love to dine on you, even the sickly looking vegans. And to all the silly folks talking about their pets and so forth. Come on. Dogs and cats love nothing more than to stalk and hunt beans. Cats I think prefer Pinto and Red Beans. Dogs on the other hand love to chase down Kidney and Black Beans. My cats love to toy with their field mice for while before the big crunch. Sometimes they will leave tasty bits as an offering on my door mat. Wild animals don’t get their food from cans and boxes.
People just need to eat locally grown vegetables and grass fed humanly killed meat. Get off the Wii and stop twittering about global warming and go for a walk or hike.

And As far the planet goes. We live on a globe of molten rock that’s been floating across the universe a long time with fire storms and ice ages. I think it will manage. 99% of living creatures that have lived here are now extinct! So don’t get your panties in a wad. Conserve all the TP and Water that you want, But Your just moving game pieces around on the same size board. Remember the population numbers game is against Us. Conservation will only prolong the date. The real deal is to find a way to colonize other places.(Unless of course they have plan B in mind – Soilent Green! 1973 Charlton Heston variety.)

vegetarianism is not a long term sustainable diet. impossible to get enough nutrients from fruits, vegetables, grains and nuts alone. meat and fish provide concentrated nutrition that is not obtainable elsewhere.

obviously with an overpopulated world (approaching 8 billion) we can no longer eat exclusively “free range” animals and fish. the assembly line production of animals for food is regrettably very sad. but that’s where we’re at because the good people of earth refuse to contain their population within the bounds of the planet’s ability to sustain itself in equilibrium.

six servings of meat a week is just about right. too much meat makes one too “negative” while too little meat makes one too “positive”. yes, one can be too positive, ungrounded, light-headed, airy, etc. eventually all the animal cruelty will be overcome with the development of plant-grown meat substances. genetic engineering isn’t all bad.

“…raise animals in a humane manner.” Huh?

There’s this theory believes that human were originally vegetarians until the great flood on earth, human move to higher elevation which used to be mountains, then we evolved into omnivores. Human’s blood types developed into various types, and that makes certain blood types suitable for being vegetarians, but certain blood types are not. For instance, A type can adapt easier to being vegetarians, but not O type. So in that respect, we have to adapt our habits morally and respectfully to all foods and our body. Instead of drawing only one conclusion.

Personally I don’t think eating meat is wrong, but we have to kill them very skillfully and respectfully, minimizing their pain and trauma before they die. Since human civilization evolved and the beginning of industrialization, it seems we have lost those skills and respect for our meat source. Lots of ancient cultures performs rituals when killing animals.

That’s why it became a very import issues to me to push for humane farming.

****
I agree, we need to correct this evil of hate & indifference to this moral stance in our society, however, human abuses by police, courts and government has got to come first on the list, before animals.

Why is this logic so lost in our country?

Posted by GB****

Why can’t you fight for multiples things at the same time?? If you they are all important to you, there’s no priority on the list. Besides, what you are eating everyday, isn’t that enough to be on your top of list?

The most important question one must ask is, were animals put on this earth just for our pleasure? Clearly we do not need them to survive and for those that have read “The China Study” know that we are actually killing ourselves by eating them. It makes no difference how or where they were raised.

Just because we can dominate another living species and use them for our pleasure, even if we percieve them to be inferior in some way, does not give us the right to do so. Not coincidently, that being the justificaiton for slavery for many years. Hopefully the enlightenment we eventually rose to in that regard will come upon us soon with regard to how we treat other lving beings we share this planet with.

[...] interview with Jonathan Safran [...]