Before he even thought of writing a book, Foer wanted to know where the meat we eat comes from and how it is produced. He also wanted to know how animals treated and what are the social, economic and environmental effects of eating animals? While searching for answers, he discovered a sordid reality, which as a citizen he couldn’t ignore and as a writer couldn’t keep to himself. This book interestingly enough is not a case for vegetarianism and despite its complex topic, reads like a story with plenty of drama.
The action starts right in the beginning when we are told that technologies of war have been applied to fishing. Radars, echo sounders (once used to locate enemy submarines), navy-developed electronic systems and satellite-base GPPS give fishers unprecedented abilities to locate and identify fish schools. Fishing nowadays has turned into an industry and fishermen have become “factory farmers.”
One thousand and two hundred nets, each one thirty miles in length, are used by one fleet alone to catch just one species. Furthermore, the ability of a single fishing boat to haul in 50 tons of sea animals in just a few minutes, in addition to the 1.4 billion hooks used every year on loglines, are emptying the Earth’s oceans, seas and rivers. A number of scientists are predicting the total collapse of all fish species within less than 50 years.
“For every 10 tuna, sharks, and other large predatory fish that were in our oceans 50 to a 100 years ago, only one is left… and intense efforts are under way to catch, kill and eat even more sea animals,” writes Foer.
What is even more alarming is the “bycatch,” which refers to the sea creatures caught by accident. For example, a shrimp-trawling operation discards 80 to 90 percent of the sea animals it captures as bycatch. The list of species killed while fishing tuna is horrendous — it numbers more than 110 species.
We also learn that there are in fact two kinds of chickens — broilers and layers — each with distinct genetics. Layers make eggs and broilers make flesh. Broilers have been engineered to grow more than twice their size in less than half the time. In fact, chickens, which have a life expectancy of 15 to 20 years, are now being killed when they are only six weeks! What’s more, all the male offspring of layers, which man hasn’t destined to produce meat and which nature hasn’t designed to lay eggs, are simply destroyed. In the US alone, more than 250 million chicks a year are destroyed.
According to a poultry farmer, food and light also play an important role in factory farms because they increase productivity:
“As soon as females mature — at 23 to 26 weeks in the turkey industry and 16 to 20 weeks in the chicken industry — they are put in barns and lower the light. Sometimes, it’s total darkness 24/7. Then, they put them on a very low protein diet — almost a starvation diet, which will last about two to three weeks. After that, they run the lights on for 16 hours a day, or 20 with chickens, so they think it’s spring and put them on a high-protein feed. As a result, they immediately start laying. They have it down to such a science that they can stop it, start it and everything…Turkey hens now lay 120 eggs a year and chickens lay over 300. That’s two or even three times as many as in nature. Even more, after that first year, they are killed because they won’t lay as many eggs in the second year. The industry figures out that it’s cheaper to slaughter them and start over than it is to feed and house birds that lay fewer eggs.”
After reading this, we are faced with many questions. Industrial farming has lowered the price of chicken but haven’t consumers asked for cheap food? On the other hand, can family farms feed a world of 10 billion inhabitants? People are increasingly aware that chicken does not taste like chicken anymore, so why do they still buy it?
Industrially farmed chickens are not only plagued with a long list of diseases such as bacterial infection of bones, paralysis, internal bleeding, anemia, respiratory problems, blindness, but scientific studies and government records also show that practically all chickens become infected with E.coli and between 39 and 75 percent of chickens in retail stores are still infected. Furthermore, around eight percent of chickens become infected with salmonella and 70 to 90 percent are infected with campylobacter, another deadly pathogen. The use of nontherapeutic antibiotic in chickens also increases antimicrobial resistance and causes people to become ill. Finally, just before they are released on the market, chickens are injected with “broths” and “salty solutions” to give them the look, smell and taste that consumers associate with chicken.
The factory farm industry in alliance with the pharmaceutical industry has prevented the ban of nontherapeutic use of antibiotics. However, we are to blame because we give this industry its immense power by “eating factory-farmed animal product and we do so daily.”
“The USDA currently has an informal policy to avoid saying that we should eat less of any food no matter how damaging its heath impact may be. Thus, instead of saying “eat less meat” (which might be helpful), they advise us to keep fat intake to less than 30 percent of total calories. The institution we have put in charge of telling us when foods (especially if they are animal products) are dangerous has a policy of not (directly) telling us when foods (especially if they are animal products) are dangerous,” writes Foer.
Foer weaves science and statistics into a gripping story, which can leave no one indifferent. This sweeping account of the horrors and dangers of industrial farming reminds us that what we choose to eat also defines our humanity.
