Vegetarian Star

Credit David Shankbone on Wikimedia Commons

So you love the taste of a well done steak or a ham and cheese sandwich.

You don’t give a flying saucer about animals and their pain and suffering.

Why should you make an effort to eat less meat, especially factory farmed meat?

Well, you don’t really want everyone in the office (not even the co-workers you don’t like) to come down with Swine Flu next year, do you?

Jonathan Safran Foer, author of his book on factory farming, Eating Animals, has interviewed with Vegetarian Times in the May/June 2010 issue where he gives this argument for those who aren’t interested one bit in “animal” welfare and rights.

“We known where the flu came from: it came from factory farms in North Carolina. The link between flu pandemics and animal agriculture is not an opinion. It’s a well documented fact by scientific organizations that have no interest whatsoever in promoting vegetarianism.”

Swine flu, of which cases were seen in humans over the past few years, has traditionally been confined to outbreaks among pigs.

Like other viruses, it sometimes develops an affinity for a different host.

According to Wired, in 1998, scientists found a strain of swine flu in U.S. factory farms that spread quickly, and experts warned then it could one day evolve the ability to infect humans, resulting in a pandemic.

Bob Martin, former executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Animal Farm Production and a critic of factory farms, called these environments, “super-incubators for viruses.”

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"Eating Animals" Jonathan Safran Foer

You always aced any literature test in high school by reading the Cliffs Notes.

That was, until your Honors English teacher decided to write test questions that specifically couldn’t be answered from the yellow book.

Some people!

If you haven’t read Jonathan Safran Foer‘s book about animals and factory farms, Eating Animals, perhaps you’d like to at least look over 10 main arguments he makes in his book for not consuming animals.

The summarized arguments on issues such as pollution, infected animals and human rights of employees may give you the push to give up eating animals entirely or provide arguments to people who ask why you choose vegetarianism.

Factory farmed animals contribute to antibiotic resistance:
“In the United States, about 3 million pounds of antibiotics are given to humans each year, but a whopping 17.8 million pounds are fed to livestock—at least that is what the industry claims. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has shown that the industry underreported its antibiotic use by at least 40 percent…. Study after study has shown that antimicrobial resistance follows quickly on the heels of the introduction of new drugs on factory farms.” (p 140)

Cruel treatment of animals before they’re even slaughtered:
“Animals are bled, skinned, and dismembered while conscious. It happens all the time, and the industry and the government know it. Several plants cited for bleeding or skinning or dismembering live animals have defended their actions as common in the industry and asked, perhaps rightly, why they were being singled out.” (p 230)

Need to study more before the big “test?”

Visit Sojourners for the other eight key points discussed in Foer’s book.

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Author Michael Pollan hasn’t always expressed warm feelings for the vegetarian and vegan community, but in a recent interview with Time magazine, he said he has “enormous respect for vegetarians,” and eats a lot less meat than in the past.

In an exclusive interview with the Huffington Post, Pollan gave his thoughts on animal rights, criticizer of factory farming and author Jonathan Safran Foer and even Oprah.

That’s quite a combination, and here are a few highlights.

On Foer and “Eating Animals”
In terms of the argument that I don’t grapple with meat, I would refer Jonathan and anyone else to Chapter…hold on, I can dig it out… (flips through book)…it’s a very long…Chapter 17 of Omnivore’s Dilemma, “The Ethics of Eating Animals.” And that is where I try to grapple with the best arguments against meat eating, which in my view are Peter Singer’s arguments, and defend a very limited kind of meat eating, which is the kind I do.

On Animal Rights:
I think one of the changes you’ve seen in the animals right’s community in the last five or ten years is a lot more interest in mitigating the worst abuses of animal agriculture …which I think is a more realistic goal than abolition.

On Oprah Winfrey:
She had a very bad run-in with the cattle industry, and she doesn’t want to spend any more time in court, so it was much to her credit and it took a certain courage for her to air the issues and show clips from Food Inc., especially, and to have me on, and the fact that she was willing to re-engage on these issues of factory farming was all to her credit.

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Credit David Shankbone on Wikimedia Commons

How do you embarrass an anti factory farm, pro plant based diet guru?

Remind him of his past transgressions.

Jonathan Safran Foer was at a book festival in London discussing his Eating Animals book, when British author Hephzibah Anderson mentioned something to Foer about sharing a bacon cheeseburger with him several years ago.

How did Foer respond?

The New York Post described his reaction as “sheepish.”

Gotta wonder what this Anderson guy’s intentions were, bringing up Foer’s “past” in front of everyone like that.

Was he hoping Foer would say something along the lines of, “Yeah, that was the best tasting burger I ever had–before I went vegetarian.”

Or was he waiting for Foer to deny it, then whip out the big photo taken back then for memories?

If you’ve taken to spreading the good news about how a vegetarian diet is better for yourself, animals and the planet, be aware that what happened in carnivorous days doesn’t stay there.

If you get reminded of  how you used to eat the double double with fried egg on top in the most annoying and inconvenient situations, politely say that was before you realized how crowded the conditions in factory farms are or the amount of antibiotics wasted in animal agriculture.

Then ask him why he is still going to the steakhouse twice a week–with two different girls who think they’re “exclusive.”

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Livia Firth got involved in being green three years ago, and more recently she discovered Jonathan Safran Foer, author of the book, Eating Animals, that made her rethink her eating habits.

“I recently read an interview with Jonathan Safran Foer, who wrote the book, Eating Animals, about becoming a vegetarian,” Firth told Ecostiletto. “He pointed out that if you eat meat only one day less a week it’s the equivalent of taking five million cars off the road.”

Firth insists that anyone can make the most of their buying habits, regardless of their budget.

“Once you know these things it becomes less about what background and money you have—it’s about how you behave as a consumer.”

“Instead of buying an economy pack of chicken and eating that every day, eat pasta or vegetables and buy organic chicken once a week.”

Firth tries to buy local and organic whenever possible and has three veggie beds in her garden, something she’s been doing since childhood without attaching the label “green” to it.

“As Italians, the way we grew up was just that way—we cooked only fresh, locally produced food. It just came naturally.”

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Mayim Bialik has become the official woman of the house and gotten her husband to stop eating meat!

The former Blossom actress and PhD holder told Parent Dish, “My husband and I read “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer, and my husband has not eaten meat for four months.”

Similarly, Mayim’s other two favorite men are following dad’s lead.

“The boys do not eat dairy or meat or eggs. We also have a kosher home.”

Mayim’s method for getting her family to adopt a meatless lifestyle is accomplished through education, rather than by setting hard fast rules that are expected to be followed.

“It’s actually helpful that my son understands that different people eat different things for different reasons.”

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Credit David Shankbone on Wikimedia Commons

Jonathan Safran Foer did extensive research before writing his latest book, Eating Animals, which included visits to farms where animals were reared for food.

Not every farm welcomed Foer with open arms and Foer indicated to Lateline that finding out how meat gets from the farm to the plate isn’t as easy as learning the source of other foods, like produce.

“If you wanted to know where your orange juice comes from, you could probably write a letter to the manufacturer and get a tour of the orchard.”

“If you wanted to know where your bread is made, the baker will almost certainly let you behind the counter and show you the ingredients and the machines.”

And although Foer says attempting to know where meat comes from might be difficult, he encourages people to investigate this as well.

“But if you want to know where meat come from you are totally out of luck and I would encourage all viewers of this – go to your refrigerator, open it up, find a brand name and give the company a call.”

Might the final answer in the evolution of meat turn every amateur investigator vegetarian?

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“The heroes of my book are small-scale family farmers. They tend to be responsible people who leave the Earth in better condition than they found it, know their animals as individuals and treat them with as much compassion as a farmer can.”

—-Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Eating Animals, as quoted by Metro.

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