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1-Page Summary of Eating Animals

Overview

Eating Animals (2009) is a non-fiction book about the ethics of eating meat and how factory farms treat animals. The author, Jonathan Safran Foer, became vegetarian after his son was born because he didn’t want to eat meat anymore. He explains that factory farming is not good for the environment or for the animals that are being raised there.

Modern meat production in the United States is a major contributor to environmental destruction. The majority of livestock are raised and slaughtered in terrible conditions that maximize suffering for animals, workers, and consumers. These farms have negative effects on people who work there as well as those who consume their products.

When people think of farms, they may picture pigs and cows roaming in fields until they are gathered for slaughter. Few such farms exist anymore because farmers began using methods that increased the amount of meat produced per farm space. Farmers started raising thousands of chickens and turkeys in cramped, enclosed buildings rather than letting them roam freely. Scientists manipulated chicken genetics to make modern chickens grow faster so they could be slaughtered at a younger age. Factory-farmed turkeys have been bred so that almost all of them cannot reproduce sexually; instead, artificial insemination is used to get more eggs from those birds. Pigs and cows also suffer from factory farming practices like being forced to give birth in cages where they can’t turn around or move around much at all.

Factory farm animals are mistreated not only in the way they’re raised, but also during transportation to slaughterhouses. The animals are kept together with sick and injured ones, and many of them die while being transported. When they arrive at the slaughterhouse, their throats are cut or their heads ripped off while they’re still conscious. Some workers poke pigs’ genitals with electrical prods to make them move faster through the process.

In addition to animal cruelty, factory farms and slaughterhouses threaten the environment. They create lagoons that release toxic fumes into the air and pollute nearby water sources. Large-scale meat producers also contribute significantly to climate change by releasing large amounts of greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere. It’s easy for consumers to buy chicken at their local grocery store, but they should consider how much damage is done in order to get it there cheaply and easily.

Factory farming is a widespread practice that used to be reserved for the worst cases of animal cruelty. Farmers who used this method were incentivized to make sure their animals weren’t suffering from unnecessary diseases or cruel conditions, because they knew each of them personally and didn’t want to lose any. Small-scale farming still exists, but it’s becoming harder for most people to access this type of meat. Labels like “cage-free” or “pasture raised” can be misleading, giving consumers the false impression that these animals are living in humane conditions when they’re actually being tortured and killed by corporations trying to maximize profit. The only way we’ll see an end to factory farming practices is if more omnivores reject factory farmed meat and advocate for better farming conditions with their wallets.

Key Point 1: Whether a species is viewed as a source of companionship or food largely depends on the culture and society in which a given animal is raised.

In the United States, even those who eat meat might not want to eat a dog. Most Americans grow up with dogs as pets and are able to empathize with them better than they can with cows, pigs or chickens. In other countries where people have no problem eating dogs, they might avoid eating pork or beef because of their religious beliefs. The idea of whether it’s moral to eat a certain species of animal varies from one country to another based on cultural norms and values.