Eating Animals

Ethel Safran, born Ethel Bronstein, is Jonathan Safran Foer’s grandmother. She survived the Holocaust, a genocide perpetrated largely against Jewish people in the 1930s and 1940s, and she spent most of World War II fleeing from Nazi efforts to capture Jewish people. Her husband, Louie, was also a survivor, though he lost his first wife and daughter before meeting Ethel. Ethel is portrayed as one of the inspiring factors in Eating Animals, as her experiences during the war raise questions for Jonathan about ethics and tradition about eating meat. Ethel’s chicken and carrot meal, her signature dish, and, Foer notes, her only dish, is a staple in the Safran Foer family, but Foer is unsure whether allowing his son to eat that meal is needed for his son to feel that he is a part of the family.

Additional information that Foer presents about his grandmother includes her tendency to purchase more food than is realistically needed, such as his anecdote about finding flour in her basement. Ethel’s notable use of coupons to purchase these excess amounts of food signify her frugality, but they also play into her sense of food as sustenance. For Foer’s grandmother, food is important to stay alive, and issues of quantity and quality seem to be less relevant. Nonetheless, she notably refused to eat pork during the Holocaust to preserve meaning for herself, and Foer uses this same justification in the conclusion of the book to justify his vegetarianism.

Frank Reese is a fourth-generation farmer from Kansas, and he is known for raising heritage turkeys, the oldest flock of such turkeys. Frank also raises chickens, ducks, geese, and guineas, all specifically without antibiotics or confinement unless needed. He is the founder of the Good Shepherd Conservancy, which is a non-profit organization that protects biodiversity through training and information. Though Frank struggles to find ethical slaughterhouses and meet demand for ethically sourced meat, he has refused to compromise his values, keeping his operation at a smaller scale than factory farms maintain.

In Eating Animals, Foer interviews Frank Reese and uses him as an example of ethical farming. Usually in comparison to factory farms, Foer examines how Frank’s turkeys can live and function as regular animals, as well as how Frank is able to maintain his business despite growing demands for ethically sourced meat. Frank’s turkeys are not unnecessarily confined, and they are allowed to roam and socialize during their lives. Though the turkeys are ultimately slaughtered, Frank tries to work with slaughterhouses that can provide ethical and humane methods of slaughter for his animals. Frank’s inclusion in the book shows that ethical farming is possible, though there are still possible gaps in their humane practices. Frank also highlights the issues of scale that Foer brings to light, namely that ethical farming is only sustainable at a small scale, and the larger the farm becomes the more likely it is that there will be abuses.

Bill Niman is the founder of Niman Ranch, a farming organization that maintains humane practices in the raising of animals. Bill began Niman Ranch when he moved from Minnesota to Bolinas, California in 1969, and his goal was to run a humane and sustainable farm. Bill’s first wife died in a ranching accident, and he later married Nicolette, who, along with Bill, was interviewed for Eating Animals. Paul Willis, who was also interviewed, was a rancher under Bill using the name Niman-Schell. Nicolette is an attorney and rancher, as well as a vegetarian, who joined Bill’s business after the two began dating. Despite being a vegetarian, Nicolette was running Niman Ranch at the time of her interview with Foer.

Both Bill, Nicolette, and Paul are dedicated to raising animals humanely, and Foer uses their testimony in Eating Animals to establish both the negative elements of factory farming and the benefits of humane, ethical farming. Like Frank Reese, Niman Ranch allows animals to roam and socialize, and one of their main concerns is locating ethical slaughterhouses. However, Nicolette seems to take issue with meat eating, though she refuses to call it “wrong,” and Bill advocates for branding despite its inefficacy. As such, Foer uses Bill and Nicolette as examples of both the promise of small-scale, humane farming, but also as illustrations of how tradition and belief play into the ethics of farming.

Foer cites Celia Steele as the original factory farmer, as she famously ordered 50 chickens and received 500 in 1923. Celia was the first to separate her chickens into broilers and layers, and, following her acquisition of 500 chickens, she continued to expand her production, ordering 1,000 chickens in 1924, and 10,000 in 1925. In trying to keep as many of the original 500 chicks alive, Celia was able to figure out how to store the chickens in restricted spaces, all while raising them to be larger for a more profitable sale. Celia’s accident bloomed into the modern factory-farming system, according to Foer, inspiring men like Tyson and Perdue, whose companies now produce chicken similarly to Celia but on an even larger scale.

The reason that Foer discusses Celia’s process is timing, as her accident occurred in 1923, serving as a starting point for the development of factory farming. As of the writing of Eating Animals, Celia’s starting point was less than 100 years prior, revealing the relative recency of factory farming during agriculture. When Foer refers to traditional farming, he is referring to common farming techniques prior to Celia’s incident, as well as the predominant forms of farming prior to factory farming becoming the norm.

C is an unnamed animal rights activist who accompanies Foer on an investigation, called a rescue. C regularly breaks into factory farms to videotape and document the animals and interiors of the buildings. While no name is given for C, she appears to be experienced in the field, and she expresses dedication to the cause of raising awareness on animal rights and factory farming issues. While in the farm with Foer, C kills a chick who appears to be struggling to live, and C explains that, while it is rarely necessary, activists like herself do find it necessary to kill some animals that are close to death or severely incapacitated.

The most important characterization of C is in her own statement: “I’m not a radical” (90). C asserts that on most issues she is a moderate, and animal rights is the only topic on which she takes a strong stance. She became interested in animal welfare when a friend showed her a video of an animal being tortured, which elicited only jokes from her friends and family. Now, C takes videos like the one she saw as a child, and her goal is to spread awareness on the issue of factory farming. Foer includes C as an example of those who risk their own wellbeing to document abuses as an outsider. Most of the people Foer includes in the book are involved in farming, but C operates outside of that system to attempt to monitor the farms.