Eating Animals

OK, this is the last food book I will read for a while. "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer is a highly popular book. I have been on the waiting list at the library for months and months and it finally came in for me. I liked it in part because it references other books I have read such as "The Omnivore's Dilemma," "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, and Temple Grandin's books. I read Temple's book because of her autism. Jonathan Safran Foer and Michael Pollock, of the Omnivore's Dilemma talk about her without mentioning her autism. She is the expert on slaughterhouses and one of the few brave enough to talk about what she sees going on at these places. If you are a person who enjoys buying your meat at the local grocery store and want to continue doing that, it's best you not read this book. This author is unusual. He uses words in different ways. Look at the book cover for example. The letters of eating are in feathers. Animals is in fur. Jonathan is in vines. Safran is in leaves. Foer looks to be covered with roots. He is cryptically telling you that he has decided to be a vegetarian. I've read his other two books called "Everything is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close." Both are great novels and it's fairly evident that the author is coming from an unusual perspective. It's no different with this book. Several times I turned the page to see an unusual typeface or drawing and thought, "What the heck?" If I looked at it long enough, I could see the connection. I learned a lot in the book. Can't say I really enjoyed parts of it. He had a section about dogs, for example. He asks the question why we don't eat dogs. Dogs are tasty and nutritious and plentiful. If we don't eat dogs because they're so smart, why do we eat pigs who are actually smarter than dogs? If we don't eat dogs because of our culture, why did the Lewis and Clark expedition eat dogs, even when fresh salmon was available? I DON'T KNOW why we don't eat dogs and it's not something I want to spend a lot of time thinking about. I am already a vegetarian. I'm not a vegetarian because of animal rights or any deep philosophical morality. I have a personal preference not to chew muscle. I do think Foer has a point though when he says our culture has gotten too far removed from our food sources. We ought to pay more attention where our calories come from and how they got to our table.