Eating Animals

Like many young Americans, Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between enthusiastic carnivore and occasional vegetarian. As he became a husband, and then a father, the moral dimensions of eating became increasingly important to him. Faced with the prospect of being unable to explain why we eat some animals and not others, Foer set out to explore the origins of many eating traditions and the fictions involved with creating them.

Traveling to the darkest corners of our dining habits, Foer raises the unspoken question behind every fish we eat, every chicken we fry, and every burger we grill. Part memoir and part investigative report, Eating Animals is a book that, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, places Jonathan Safran Foer "at the table with our greatest philosophers."

"Stirring...compelling....Foer brings an invigorating moral clarity to the topic." -Entertainment Weekly

"Eating Animals isn't just an anti-meat screed, or an impassioned case for vegetarianism. Instead, Foer tells a story that is part memoir and part investigative report....It's a book that takes America's meat-dominated diet to task." -NPR, All Things Considered

"Foer's aim is not to make your choice, but to inform it. He has done us all a great service, and we, and the animals, owe him our thanks." -Andrew Weil, MD

"Foer's case for ethical vegetarianism is wholly compelling....Eating Animals is a blend of solid-and discomforting-reportage with fierce advocacy that will make committed carnivores squeal." -Kirkus Reviews

"A work of moral philosophy....The fact that Foer makes me wonder whether I'm being, at best, a hypocrite every time I eat a piece of beef suggests he's completely successful in at least one ambition." -San Francisco Chronicle

"Extraordinarily thoughtful and intelligent." -St. Louis Post-Dispatch