THOSE WHO ARE RESENTFUL of the "literary wunderkind" status bestowed on Jonathan Safran Foer frequently grumble that his novels, Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, are "too precious." His new nonfiction book Eating Animals should silence critics on that countânot even Foer can make factory farming sound adorable.
Eating Animals articulates the hesitations and hypocrisies of a generation privileged enough to have a complicated relationship to food. Everyone "used to be vegetarian," myself includedâ"I was a vegetarian for 10 years," I'll say proudly, before digging into an order of chicken wings. The environmental impact of meat eating hasn't diminished; somewhere along the line, we all just realized how good it tastes.
No one who saw Food, Inc. will be shocked by Foer's conclusions here. What distinguishes Eating Animals from other anti-meat, anti-factory farming arguments is Foer's willingnessâeven as he builds a strong case for vegetarianismâto acknowledge the personal and cultural significance of meat consumption. Foer is interested in breaking down perceived barriers between vegetarians and meat eaters, many of whom share the same fundamental concerns about the environmental and ethical implications of eating meat.
MERCURY: A lot has been written about eating ethically latelyâfrom Michael Pollan to Alicia Silverstoneâs new book. What does Eating Meat add to the conversation?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER: Well, Pollanâs books donât really address meat. They do so in a very glancing way, in a recognition that itâs a big topic to talk about, but he doesnât really take it on. His books really donât get into it. Also, stylistically, my book is coming from a different place. Itâs less traditionally journalistic, more an exploration of my own thought process, which involves thinking about where I come from, and my family story.
You describe a long history of waffling between vegetarianism and meat eating. Can you identify the point in your research where you decided to become a vegetarian once and for all?
The interesting thing about my research is that it pulled me in two directions. Factory farming is just so bad in so many ways that I've yet to encounter a coherent defense of it, but on the other hand I went to some really great farms where the animals are treated better than I treat my dog. Where they're given, at least most of the time, a very quick death. I wasn't expecting to experience a farm industry that was as pervasively bad as I did, and neither was I expecting to encounter such important exceptions. So it's not as if every arrow was pointing in the same direction in my research. At the end of the day, though, these exceptions, as great as they are, prove the rule. If it were a different time, and things were different, I could imagine writing a very different book and coming to very different conclusions.
So did you have a sense when you started writing of where youâd end up?
I thought Iâd knew where Iâd end up. Itâd be disingenuous to say I didnâtâas I was starting the research, I thought [my book] was going to be a straightforward case for vegetarianism. Which it isnât. Itâs probably a case for vegetarianism, but itâs not altogether straightforward.
You have an interview with a vegan who designs slaughterhouses. Thatâs not straightforward at all.
Yeah, exactly. If you ever feel like pursuing this stuff further, or learning about a really interesting group, the group that he runs is called Farm Forward, and theyâre just really, really interesting. The stuff that they doâbringing together things that would seem to be opposed but actually arenât, and pointing out alliances where they arenât obvious.
Veganism and vegetarianism often provoke an almost immediately defensive reaction in people that eat meat. An organization like that might start to break down some of those barriers.
Itâs a problem, the way that this stuff is often talked about does make people defensive. Some if itâs inevitableâthe stakes are very high. People can have very different opinions while agreeing that it matters a lot. People donât get this aggressive and defensive about whether you drive an SUV or a Prius. People donât get that defensive about which charities, if any, you give your money to, or even who you voted for for president. Thereâs something about this issue that cuts very deeply. I think that itself is telling. Acknowledging how much it means to people would suggest that we should think about it a corresponding amount. We want to be most thoughtful about the things that matter the most.
Why does it matter so much? Because itâs such a huge part of culture and family, like you talk about in the book?
That, and also, nobody wants to think of himself or be thought of as an animal torturer or an environment destroyer. I think most people, even if they donât know the details, know the gist of factory farming. They known that if theyâre shown a movie of farms itâs gonna be a horror movie. They know that if they learn facts about it, theyâre gonna be depressing. When I told people I was writing a book about food, every single person assumed it was gonna be a case against meat. Itâs very telling. So I think when the subject comes up and people have that background knowledge, or background instinct that thereâs something bad there, itâs like a confrontation with their own values. Even given the fact that people have such different values.
So knowing all those thingsâknowing that a farm video is going to be a horror filmâwhy arenât more people vegetarians?
For a lot of different reasons. One, I think the case for vegetarianism, or the story thatâs told, is often not effective. I think thatâs its often presented as if it were a religion or a law, as if it were designed to make people feel defensive. As opposed to something more conversational, more acknowledging of the importance of culture, of the importance of personal history, of taste, of convenience, of cravings. Things that might not have any place in a rational argument. But reason doesnât guide our eating habits, or at least not entirely. Thereâs a place where reason ends and something else takes over. I think any discussion thatâs going to be productive has to take all that other stuff into account. Also I think a lot pf people, even people who are pretty well informed about other things, really donât know the details of factory farming. I was talking to a pretty prominent environmentalist the other day, we were talking about factory farming and how itâs the number one cause of global warming, and she said, âFactory farming is really big now, isnât it? Itâs probably 20 percent, 30 percent... How big is it now, anyway?â and I said âNo, itâs 99 percent. Itâs everything that there is.â And this person who has designed her life around knowing what is good and bad for the environment didnât know this most basic of all facts about the thing that is worst for the environment, globally, locally, just about any way you look at it. So if she didnât know, if I didnât know most of this stuff before I started researching, I think its fair to assume that people who donât spend their time thinking about it donât know it.
People know itâs bad, but they donât really know how bad. They donât know everything. Thatâs the hole in most peopleâs knowledge about food, that factory farming is really everything. Peopleâs idea of whatâs bad about meat is some video they saw where some animal is running around a slaughterhouse with its neck split open. But in fact thatâs not the story of meatâthat happens, but that is the exception, that doesnât happen all the time. In a way those videos have done a service to the meat industry, because they present something that is bizarre and shocking and exceptional, as opposed to what the rule is, which is systematized misery, systematized Frankenstein genetics, systemized over-medication, systematized environmental destruction. These things that are not only accepted, but built into the business plan. Too often the bluster of âeating animals is wrongâ or âlook what happens in slaughterhousesâ actually conceals the worse truth thatâs happening on a much, much broader scale, and affects everybody at every meal.
Here in Portland there seems to be an idea that if you can participate on the ground level with slaughtering and butchering your own food, it justifies eating meat in some way.
I think itâs totally bizarre. There are a lot of things I can do myself that I shouldnât do. In the book I say something like, âProving that youâre capable of killing somebody doesnât tell you whether itâs right or wrong to kill somebody.â I think part of what people are responding to, which is a very real thing, is not wanting distance or ignorance to protect you from whatâs true. So thereâs something very noble and good about wanting to bring oneself closer to the means by which meat gets to you. But I donât think slaughtering an animal oneself has anything to do with the rightness or wrongness of it. I think most often itâs an exercise in oneâs macho-ness. Or vanity, actually. It tends to be something thatâs pointed inward, as if it were about you, and not the thing being slaughtered. Like, thatâs fantastic, youâre capable of doing it, but what about the thing that youâre doing it to?
In the book you describe your own history as an on-again, off-again vegetarian, and that sort of waffling is really, really common, I thinkâI know I certainly relate to it. Do you have any thoughts on why diet-related inconsistency is so common?
There are a lot of different models. I know plenty of people who learn a piece of information and change their lives and never change back. For me it wasnât like that, and I think for most people itâs not like that. First of all, itâs really not a small thing to change something fundamental about lifestyle, especially when that thing is so connected to so many other things. Thereâs a reason it would be much easier to switch from a charcoal BBQ to a gas BBQ on the Fourth of July, than it is to change what you put on the grill. One of them is a fact of life, the other engages all of our senses, is tied to our notion of what it means to celebrate, our notions of what it means actually to be a person, of how our parents celebrated the holiday, if we have children, how they might celebrate the holiday after us. Thereâs that, on top of which, meat is extremely convenient and for most people tastes really good and smells really good. Iâm certainly not exempt from that. I still think it often looks good and would taste good. But a lot of things would feel goodâI just donât do them. For me, it was almost like successive approximation. And I should say itâs a process thatâs still continuing. Dairy and eggs come from precisely the same process, thereâs nothing about them thatâs better, at all. My book really sort of ends with the discussion of meat, but the extension of the argument to other animal products is exactly the same in terms of the environment, and animals. Iâve been making that movement for a while, itâs kind on and offâitâs another [example] of successive approximation. So when someone says to me, âI find it hard,â or âI couldnât really do it easily,â or, âIâm inconsistent,â I just say, âMe too.â Itâs hard stuff! And I think that pretending that it isnât, as unfortunately many animal rights activists and environmentalists will do, is a mistake. Itâs also dishonest.
Do you consider yourself an activist?
I certainly didnât, before. I think this might be one of those things where regardless of how I consider myself, I am. I donât consider myself a Jewish writer, but I am one. This book obviously has an activist component. But itâs not how I think of myself. I think of myself as a novelist. Thatâs what I want to do from here on out. This is just something that really spoke to me in a way that I felt like I couldnât ignore.
So youâre returning to novels after thisâyouâre not gonna write a book about bicycles or anything like that?
Bicycles. I hadnât thought of thatâŚ.
You can have that one. Thatâs a gimme.
[laughs] No. No, just novels.
Are you working on anything currently?
Trying. I find it hardâhaving two small children doesnât make anything easy as far as I can tell, but Iâve been trying.