Jonathan Safran Foer Quotes About Eating Animals

Quotes about: Eating Animals

• We can't plead ignorance, only indifference. Those alive today are the generations that came to know better. We have the burden and the opportunity of living in the moment when the critique of factory farming broke into the popular consciousness. We are the ones of whom it will be fairly asked, What did you do when you learned the truth about eating animals?

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Ignorance, Opportunity, Animal

  Jonathan Safran Foer (2010). “Eating Animals”, p.208, Penguin UK

• Perhaps in the back of our minds we already understand, without all the science I've discussed, that something terribly wrong is happening. Our sustenance now comes from misery. We know that if someone offers to show us a film on how our meat is produced, it will be a horror film. We perhaps know more than we care to admit, keeping it down in the dark places of our memory-- disavowed. When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Memories, Dark, Science

  "Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, March 4, 2010.

• Ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore -- "I'm easy; I'll eat anything" -- can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Trying, Way, Easy

• When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Vegetarianism, Meat, Flesh

  "Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, March 4, 2010.

• Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose, keep in touch (or don't), care about birthdays, waste and lose time, brush their teeth, feel nostalgia, scrub stains, have religions and political parties and laws, wear keepsakes, apologize years after an offense, whisper, fear themselves, interpret dreams, hide their genitalia, shave, bury time capsules, and can choose not to eat something for reasons of conscience. The justifications for eating animals and for not eating them are often identical: we are not them.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Dream, Children, Party

  "Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, November 2, 2009.

• While it is always possible to wake a person who's sleeping, no amount of noise will wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Sleep, Noise, Pretending

• If nothing matters, there's nothing to save.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Matter, Nothing Matters, Eating Animals

  "Everything Is Illuminated". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, April 16, 2002.

• Elsewhere the paper notes that vegetarians and vegans (including athletes) 'meet and exceed requirements' for protein. And, to render the whole we-should-worry-about-getting-enough-protein-and-therefore-eat-meat idea even more useless, other data suggests that excess animal protein intake is linked with osteoporosis, kidney disease, calcium stones in the urinary tract, and some cancers. Despite some persistent confusion, it is clear that vegetarians and vegans tend to have more optimal protein consumption than omnivores.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Cancer, Food, Athlete

  "Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, March 4, 2010..

• If we are not given the option to live without violence, we are given the choice to center our meals around harvest or slaughter, husbandry or war. We have chosen slaughter. We have chosen war. That's the truest version of our story of eating animals. Can we tell a new story?

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  War, Animal, Choices

• Almost always when I told someone I was writing a book about "eating animals", they assumed, even without knowing anything about my views, that it was a case for vegetarianism. It's a telling assumption, one that implies not only that a thorough inquiry into animal agriculture would lead one away from eating meat, but that most people already know that to be the case.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Book, Writing, Animal

  "Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, 2010.

• We need a better way to talk about eating animals. We need a way that brings meat to the center of public discussion in the same way it is often at the center of our plates. This doesn't require that we pretend we are going to have a collective agreement. However strong our intuitions are about what's right for us personally and even about what's right for others, we all know in advance that our positions will clash with those of our neighbors. What do we do with that most inevitable reality? Drop the conversation, or find a way to reframe it?

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Strong, Reality, Animal

  "Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, 2010.

• Cruelty...prefers abstraction. Some have tried to resolved this gap by hunting or butchering an animal themselves, as if those experiences might somehow legitimize the endeavor of eating animals. This is very silly. Murdering someone would surely prove that you are capable of killing, but it woudln't be the most reasonable way to understand why you should or shouldn't do it.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Silly, Animal, Hunting

• Language is never fully trustworthy, but when it comes to eating animals, words are as often used to misdirect and camouflage as they are to communicate. Some words, like veal, help us forget what we are actually talking about. Some, like free-range, can mislead those whose consciences seek clarification. Some, like happy, mean the opposite of what they would seem. And some, like natural, mean next to nothing.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Mean, Animal, Talking

  "Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, November 2, 2009.

• Ninety-nine percent of all land animals eaten or used to produce milk and eggs in the United States are factory farmed. So although there are important exceptions, to speak about eating animals today is to speak about factory farming.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Animal, Ninety Nine, Land

  "Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, November 2, 2009.

• We need a better way to talk about eating animals, a way that doesn't ignore, or even just shruggingly accept things like habits, cravings, family and history, but rather incorporates them into the conversation. The more they are allowed in, the more strongly we will want to follow our best instincts.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Animal, Needs, Able

  "A New Way To Talk About Eating Animals". Interview with Jeff Glor, www.cbsnews.com. November 3, 2009.

• Animal agriculture makes a 40% greater contribution to global warming than all transportation in the world combined; it is the number one cause of climate change.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Animal, Numbers, Agriculture

  Jonathan Safran Foer (2010). “Eating Animals”, p.41, Penguin UK

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