Jonathan Safran Foer

The analysis is based on the essay by JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER titled “Let Them Eat Dog”. This essay debates a topic that at first glance would seem to have a logical answer of no but the author provides many reasons that may make you wonder why is no the answer. What would your response be to the question should we eat dogs?

The Omnivore’s Dilemma, written by Michael Pollan, gives light to the question, “What should we have for dinner?” that he thinks Americans today cannot answer simply due to the fact that there are too many food options. This book serves as an eye-opener to challenge readers to be more aware and accountable of what is consumed daily. In order to understand fully where our food comes from, we must follow it back to the very beginning. Pollan goes on to discuss three different modern food chains in which we get our food: the industrial, the organic, and the hunter-gatherer. By tracing our food back to the beginning, we can understand that most of the nutritional and health problems America is going through today can be found on the farms that make our food and the government that can decide what happens. America deals with many food related illness such as, heart disease, obesity, and type II diabetes. Majority of a human and animals diet consists of being corn-fed leading to a high cause of obesity in the United States these are just some of the many diseases that come with over processed foods and diets we are unaware of. In this study, we will highlight the environmental and health issues and impacts related with modern agriculture and how these systems can be made more sustainable.

In this critical response to the article America’s Food Crisis and How to Fix it by Bryan Walsh. I am going to talk about how animals are being harmed and are given antibiotics to keep them from becoming sick, where the farmers put all the waste from the animals, and how people could fix it.

While everyone may love to go out and enjoy a fine meal with friends and family, most will never stop to think the process of how the food came about, or the production thereof. John Oliver’s piece on “Food Waste” outlines all the problems of food waste and how they can impact society, animals, nature, and even the farmers who harvest the produce. America and its businesses should try to decrease the amount of food being wasted. By doing so, not only are we a contributing factor to help reduce waste, save time and money, but we are also aiding the less-fortunate in a society, while still saving natural resources and the planet as a whole.

Today, the food industry has not just altered the American diet, but it has also had a negative effect within the labor sector as well as the animals meant for consumption and the lack of government oversight. Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, and Jonathan Foer in Eating Animals, illustrate the mistreatment of labor workers as well as the animal abuse that goes unseen within the food industry. Foer gives such examples of employees who work in slaughterhouses giving accounts of what goes on in the kill floors, and stories of employees who have witnessed thousands and thousands of cows going through the slaughter process alive (231). Eating meat does not have to be so inhumane for example, Foer quotes Frank Reese, who does not permit inhumane practices on his ranch that are cruel, and Reese believes that there are other ways of having a sustainable humane animal agriculture instead of the methods of the large corporate meat industry (238). Namit Arora in the article “On Eating Animals”, as well as Michael Pollan in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, address some of the issues that animals face once they hit the kill floor. The food industry has transformed not only what people eat, but how the government has neglected the issues of the wellbeing of labor workers and the animals that are processed for consumption.

He quotes, “ If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade” (52). This claim of value shows how consumers should know how food is considered as livestock and what animals go through to become meat. The cheeseburger consumers would buy from McDonald’s would be satisfying, but eaters do not realize anything about how the animal was treated or any of its background. Advertising keeps us buying food that is introduced to use as flavorful and looking good, so businesses can keep profits coming to them. The product at a grocery store seems appealing to us, so eaters buy and enjoy without having a doubt about the product. It seems like quantity is more important than

Imagine sitting around eating you’re sitting in a restaurant eating your burger and you see a cow in the back. You might think was the cow that I’m eating mistreated? Or did they have a good quality life before they became my meal. This is why many decide to not eat meat at all because they fear what happened to that animal before it became their meal. Author Gary Steiner is an American moral philosopher, and Professor of Philosophy at Bucknell University. He explained this best in his paper Animal, Vegetable, and Miserable, along with other pieces of work that focused on animal rights.

We need the protein and vitamins found in their meat and there's plenty of it. It will take a very long time before the earth completely runs out of animal meat. Foer did a very good job of making me feel bad for all the animals that are eaten, especially dogs. He tells his readers that dogs are basically begging to be eaten, which I thought was crazy talk. He says that three to four million dogs and cats are euthanized annually and the simple disposal of them is causing a great economical and ecological problem.

This paper will review and discuss Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, A Natural History of Four Meals, which was named a New York Times best seller. Michael holds the prestigious title of the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at Berkeley, as well as being a contributor to the New York Times Magazine. He also has the distinction of being named one of the one hundred most influential people in the world by Time magazine. The author will discuss the book, its references to the omnivores dilemma, but most importantly how the author views the content of the book. Which is how the government and the agribusiness have their hands on our dinner table deciding what and how American’s should eat.

To illustrate the similarities between dogs and other animals and further support his argument that eating dogs should not be condemned, Foer directly compares dogs to another commonly eaten animal: pigs. At first Foer jokingly concedes dogs as unique in some respects, such as “hopping into the back of a Volvo” (Foer 217), but ultimately states, in an oxymoronic way, that dogs are

In his journalistic investigation into the depths of industrial agriculture, Michael Pollan analyzes “what it is we’re eating, where it came from, how it found its way to our table, and what it really cost” in an effort to provide both himself and his readers with an educated answer to the surprisingly complex question of “what should we have for dinner?” (Pollan 411, 1). However, what appears as a noble attempt to develop a fuller understanding of the personal, social, and environmental implications of food choices soon reveals itself as a quest to justify Pollan’s own desire to continue eating meat despite its undeniable detriments to animals, human health, and the environment. Indeed, the mere title of Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma as well as his assertion in the book’s introduction that “omnivory offers the pleasures of variety,” exposes the author’s gustatory preferences that prompt him to ask which meat to eat, rather than if to eat meat at all (Pollan 4). This preemptive refusal, due to mere gastronomic pleasure, to consider methods of eating responsibly that do not involve meat renders Pollan’s investigative endeavor essentially meaningless why would he take the time and effort to thoroughly examine the consequences of his food choices if he vowed at the outset to not allow his discoveries to truly shift his eating habits? Why would he write an entire book delving into the minute details of industrialized food production only to advise himself and his audience

For centuries, man has relied on animals for clothing, food, and transportation. However, the recent increase in technological advancements has been accompanied by a rise of animal consumption. Currently, the average person consumes an exceptional amount of meat each year. In order to compensate for this, an overwhelming amount of changes has enveloped the meat industry. Animals aren’t raised, they are manufactured. Eric Schlosser, the author of “Fast Food Nation” uses imagery, understatements, and short sentences when describing his visit to a meat packing plant to develop his argument against the inhumaneness of the meat industry.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” This is one of the most famous quotes from George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm. This quote can be used to argue about the moral wrongness of how humans treat animals and the concept of eating meat in general. There are many excuses humans make up for why they eat meat, but it is still morally wrong. It is wrong for the following reasons; First, because animals have feeling, second because humans don’t require meat in their diets, and lastly because raising animals just for them to be slaughtered is inhumane.

40). This conveys Korean government has adopted western society views. Moreover, pet registration law, created in 2007, indicates that dogs are not only meat, but also can be pets (Oh & Jackson, 2011, p. 40). Korean government acknowledge ‘animal rights’ but rather emphasized the ‘cultural rights’ of Koreans to maintain traditional food (Oh & Jackson, 2011, p. 33). One of the dog meat defender asserts that, “No one should criticize another’s eating culture without considering their historical background. It’s a traditional delicacy, much like snails, horse meats and even monkey brains in some other countries” (Oh & Jackson, 2011, p. 44). This indigenous eating practice actually has nutrition values and prevents illness. The soup made by dog meat is known to protect humans’ liver and kidney and there are lots of nutritional values such as vitamins, proteins, calcium, irons, and potassium, which may support human body to keep healthy (Oh & Jackson, 2011, p. 40). People live in Asian culture felt shameful when they were known to dog meat consumer and were considered as savage people in a view of western country; however, eating dog meat is part of Asian culture which may thought to be maladaptive. Nevertheless, there are health effects of dog meat

What is the ideal doneness of a burger? Some may claim that well-done is the best, others may like medium-rare. While this is one of the most common questions asked in regards to meat-eating, there is an even more important one that everyone should be asking. What are the ethical implications of eating meat? This oft-debated question has been obscured, especially in recent years, by the outcry for the humane treatment of animals being raised for food. There have been many recent documentaries, books, and debates about how these animals sometimes never see sunlight before they are slaughtered, among many other abusive treatments. In his essay, “Animal, Vegetable, Miserable,” Gary Steiner raises this issue of the morality of meat-eating and challenges the readers to question their own views on this topic. Regardless of the morality of eating meat or using animal products, Steiner does not support his claim strongly enough to be accepted.