Eating Animals

Customer Reviews

• Profound  Oct 29, 2009 (41 of 44 found this helpful)

  I appreciate the honest look at the meat production industry presented in this book. Most of all I like the style with which Foer communicates his findings. The author reveals a lot of personal information but he also asks the readers to live by their own standards, not his. All that makes it for an easy and even enjoyable reading of a lifestyle book which nonetheless reads like a novel.
  
  Eating Animals is a very inspiring and informative book. I wholeheartedly encourage everybody to consider reading it. Even -- or maybe, especially if -- you are not a vegetarian. It definitely changed the way I view the world. It might do the same to you. And if not, you will at least enjoy reading a book that not only educates but also entertains. And one more thing that I can promise each and every reader -- THIS BOOK WILL REALLY MAKE YOU THINK AND FORCE YOU TO MAKE PROFOUND CHOICES WHICH WILL AFFECT THE WAY YOU LIVE THE REMAINING PART OF YOUR LIFE.
  
  I noticed that some reviewers mention "The Omnivore's Dilemma" as a companion to this book. In my opinion it would be reading the same just by another author. To get a broader view at nutrition and how it affects our health, our longevity, and the world around us I suggest reading "Can we Lve 150 Years" instead.
  

• Best Book on the Food Industry and Foer's Most Important  Oct 19, 2009 (115 of 137 found this helpful)

  The buzz about this book was so incredible I had to get my hands on an advanced copy. The book is like nothing else ever written on the food industry. It reads like a novel, is funny, incredibly well documented, and lets factory farmers and animal activists speak in their own words. I've read a lot of books on the food industry and this is by far the best. It makes other writers, even Michael Pollan, look a bit timid. Foer never preaches. He shares his own beliefs and asks us to live by our own standards, not his. Foer reveals a lot of personal information here and, since this is his first nonfiction book, it its especially interesting for readers of his previous books to see some of the fact behind his fiction. The material about his grandmother and how she survived the holocaust is really powerful. The stuff about his dog George (Foer makes a mock case for eating dogs) is hilarious. His storytelling is so compelling that you hardly realize how much information he's conveying (there are 60 pages of notes documenting his sources, but the text itself is uncluttered by footnotes). Another unique thing about this book is that Foer actually sneaks into a factory farm in the middle of the night... Eating Animals is a serious book that could change the way you live. But what's most impressive about it is that it is also fun to read, which is exactly what we need on a hot button topic like the contemporary food industry.

• changing my ways  Oct 20, 2009 (71 of 90 found this helpful)

  I wholeheartedly recommend this book. I identified with Foer as a person who really tries to eat ethically, but whose weaknesses often get the best of him. I've had strong intuitions that there is something wrong with Meat today, but, like Foer reports of his own journey, those intuitions have not been strong enough for me to really change what I eat. The woman in my life, by contrast, has been a vegetarian for over a decade and never wavers. Of the many changes I've made to accommodate our relationship, giving up meat was never one of them. I've generally let the smell of bacon silence any discomfort I had with meat. That is, until reading Eating Animals. Foer's personal narrative spoke to me more than any of the many exposes on factory farming slyly sent my way. At the same time, Eating Animals left me far more informed than I was before ... It's the standard cliché, but I really couldn't put the book down. In place of the didactic or moralistic, Foer welcomes the reader into his life and his story. Foer is his own main character, and his own self-examination inspires the same. You won't be the same after reading it.

• Excellent read  Nov 10, 2009 (10 of 12 found this helpful)

  I had seen the author on the ELLEN show and was intrigued but at the same time wondering if it would be a bit 'heady' and difficult to read. Not difficult in an emotional sense but difficult in that it would be nothing but statistics. I couldn't have been more wrong. Eating Animals is a very readable book. The book is so interesting and is so well researched. It opened my eyes like no other book on this subject. It is not preachy or dry. Thank you Mr. Foer.

• Makes us human  Oct 22, 2009 (45 of 62 found this helpful)

  As someone who loves Foer's previous work, but isn't usually interested in non-fiction, I wasn't sure what to expect from Eating Animals. I got so much more than I ever bargained for. Eating Animals made me laugh, and cry, and think. Seriously think. The horrors Foer depicts are as impossible to ignore as is the fact that this book goes far beyond a simple journalistic consideration of the issue. It's a non-fiction book like no non-fiction book I've ever read.
  
  Foer's point is simple: Virtually all of the animal products we consume come from factory farms. Regardless of where each of us ultimately land on the larger philosophical questions about meat, we have no choice but to recognize that factory farming is utterly reprehensible. And, whether we like it or not, we can't avoid making decisions about what practices we are going to support. Foer reminds us that we need to make those choices deliberately without assuming that farming practices haven't changed since biblical days. He asks us to ask ourselves what kind of "eating animals" we want to be.
  
  Foer helps us remember that our food choices mean more to us than simply taste; the food we spend our lives eating is a meaningful part of who we are. While giving up all animal products doesn't sound terribly simple for any of us, this book has left me thinking for the first time that such a choice is not just necessary, but possible, and most importantly, completely worth it. Because facing the issues in our lives that are the least palatable, and dealing with them head on, is what truly makes us human.