Eating Animals

In this chapter, Foer explores the idea of ethical farming of animals, as well as continuing an analysis of how factory farming is largely an issue of scale in terms of its environmental impact. Paradise Locker Meats and Paul Willis’s farm are examples of businesses that try to be as ethical as possible while still accomplishing the end goal of producing meat for consumption. Still, each business has its own issues, and this is most clearly displayed in the difficulties of the owners. Mario Fantasma struggles to answer the question of whether or not he cares about the animals, noting the incident in which he was pinned against a wall by a cow for 20 minutes before it was slaughtered. The incident raises the question for Foer of how Mario could have been pinned for that long when surrounded by other employees, as well as why Mario would have been in the kill room to begin with. These questions seem to imply that Mario, despite owning and operating a slaughterhouse, still grapples with the difficulties in the ethics and morality of killing animals, as he must have intentionally gone into the kill room to be with this particular cow, and he must not have allowed anyone to help him when he was pinned. For Paul Willis, the issue of transportation and locating ethical slaughterhouses prevents Foer from labelling the entire process as specifically ethical. This shows that, even when most of the people involved have good intentions, there are still issues in animal welfare and ethics.

Foer’s discussion of the waste management at factory farms continues to intersect with different areas of effect, drawing connections between Social Responsibility, the Environment, and Starvation. In this instance, waste management is affecting a broad range of environments, including the farms themselves, the land surrounding the farm, and the environment as a whole. While the discussion of excrement allows Foer to make a witty title for the chapter, it also serves to remind readers of the multi-faceted discussion that Foer is promoting. Though it is obvious to focus on issues like abuses against animals and the health benefits of different dietary choices, the discussion of excrement evokes other elements of raising animals. Inevitably, all animals, humans included, must excrete waste, and the bulk farming methods of factory farming involve an incredibly large amount of such waste. While some waste might be used for manure, the “lagoons” created by pumping waste into open areas create a problem by spreading disease, damaging the land, and expelling gases and chemicals that are damaging to the environment. Foer is creating a full argument from the beginning to the end of the factory farming system, as waste inevitably forms a byproduct of the process. Additionally, Foer is relying on the reader’s understanding of waste as something to be discarded, bringing in imagery of animals that are forced to live in their own waste, then also people that are forced to live near the “lagoons” of animal waste. In each scenario, the natural compulsion to repel waste is used to disgust the reader and strengthen Foer’s argument against factory farming.

As in other chapters, Foer includes some details on the abuses that animals face in this chapter, specifically the depth of information on pregnant pigs. The tight confinement of pregnant pigs, as well as the discussions of cannibalism and crushing of baby pigs, is meant to contrast with Paul Willis’s farm, on which no such issues occur. Again, this claim creates an issue of scale, in which Paul Willis can ethically raise pigs due to the small size of his ranch, while companies like Smithfield inevitably run into issues of space and management due to their large number of animals. One of Foer’s notable techniques in driving comparisons is the acknowledgement of meaningful differences, and, with regard to the housing of pregnant pigs, Foer considers the minor improvements made in recent years a “victory that matters” (184). The language of insisting on this minor change in housing as a “victory,” but emphasizing that it “matters,” is meant to show the contrast between the changes made within factory farming and the traditional, ethical farming done elsewhere. Foer notes that the pigs in factory farms, even with slightly larger spaces, “can’t run in a field or even enjoy the sun” (184). This comparison is a tactic on Foer’s part to further distance factory and traditional farms, as the acknowledgement of a difference between one inhumane practice and a slightly less inhumane practice calls attention to the much broader difference between inhumane and humane practices.