Eating Animals - Jonathan Safran Foer - Part 2

Eating Animals -
Jonathan Safran Foer

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 38

 February 7, 2017 

Book 11 - Eating Animals
by Safran Foer (2009)
 Part 2 - Pages 45-122
Reading Time - 1.5 hours

Animal Agriculture is THE leading cause of Climate Change. Yup, you read that right. More than all the vehicles in the world. In the name of meat and eggs and milk... we are cooking the earth. Yup... omnivores contribute 7 times the volume of greenhouse gases than vegans.

We have demanded cheap meat and the farmers and fishermen have obliged us. The thing is... we don't see the cost for our vanity. Kinda like The Hunger Games trilogy. We're living the Capitol, demanding our cheap meat but we don't see where it comes from. We don't see the suffering.

Every time we open a can of tuna, we don't see the 145 species that are regularly killed during a tuna catch - fish, sharks, birds, turtles, dolphins and whales. Every time we thaw out a shrimp ring, we don't see the 26 lbs of other sea animals that died for every 1 lb of shrimp.

The factory farmer (and the author has a letter from one) argues that we created this. We demanded more meat, cheap meat, and they came up with ways to produce it faster, quicker and cheaper. On the other hand, they know that their business model depends on consumers not being able to see (or hear about) what they do. Their business model revolves around how quickly animals can be made to grow, how tightly they can be packed, how much or how little they can eat, how sick can they get without dying.

The agricultural industry figured out that they don't need healthy animals to make a profit. Sick animals are more profitable. The dead and dying are simply incinerated. I read this part and I saw a mirror image... a society that turned a blind eye to the suffering that was going on under their noses. The transport trains. The sickly millions in sheds and behind fences. The dead and dying tossed into incinerators. Except those were humans.

I wonder... a few decades hence... if we will look back on this time with horror. At what we are doing to billions of animals... suffering and sacrificed on the altar of our craving for meat. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a carnivore... I still want meat... but I don't want to eat some poor chicken that had a hellish life. If I'm going to eat meat... I want to know that the chicken I eat had a happy life.

Which leads us back to us eating sick animals... is it any wonder that we are finding all sorts of new diseases popping up - autoimmune illnesses, childhood leukemia. When our food, whether animal or vegetable, is injected, sprayed, fed: pesticides, insecticides, growth hormones, antibiotics, etc.... is it any wonder?

All this makes me realize... going back to a few of the other books I've read recently... that we are out of relationship with our food sources. We don't know the butcher or the farmer who provides us with our food. We have sacrificed relationships for convenience and affordability. Naturally there is a trade-off. But is it a bargain we are willing to continue to make?

Eating Animals - Jonathan Safran Foer - Part 1

Eating Animals -
Jonathan Safran Foer

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 37

 February 6, 2017 

Book 11 - Eating Animals
by Safran Foer (2009)
 Part 1 - Pages 3-44
Reading Time - 1 hour

I'm writing this before I've even cracked the cover on this book. I'm not sure how it ended up on my list but... there it is. A confession... I am a hard-core carnivore. I love meat of any sort... and seafood and chicken. I've eaten one live cricket (but not a second one!). I love steak tartare (raw ground meat). I love my steaks blue (barely warmed through).

I do draw a few lines though. I don't eat dog or cat and the very thought of it... when we traveled through northern Vietnam... made my stomach turn. I saw how the dogs and cats were held and caged and had an epiphany. This is what we do to our cows, pigs, chickens. Not ours personally... but the ones that come to us all neatly packaged in the grocery stores as steaks and breasts and fillets. Coming back from Vietnam, I tried going the vegetarian route but... only lasted a half a year... maybe.


My philosophy on meat would be something along these lines. I don't think it's wrong to eat meat. I think how we raise and slaughter meat is the problem. We have lost our connection with the creature that gives its life so that we might live. It used to be a farmer would kill his own chicken and his wife would serve it for dinner. There was a connection to the animal, a gratitude to the animal. That has been lost. Could I eat a chicken that I've raised? Mmmm... don't know. Haven't ever tried it. Can I eat a fish that I've hooked, caught and killed. Absolutely. Done that. No issues. Anyhow... there's my preamble... now... into the book.

*******

Right... we start off with a discussion of the pros and cons of eating dogs. Why not? We euthanize 3,000,000-4,000,000 dogs and cats every year? Why not harvest them as a local and sustainable source of meat? Well... duh... cause dogs and cats are our pets. And they're smart... cats, naturally are smarter than dogs. But what about pigs... who like to play with toys and are easily as smart as dogs? What about chickens? What about fish who apparently have a very sophisticated society under the water? Why is it OK to smack a gaff hook into the head of a fish and not into the head of a dog?

Well... cause we tend to care most about what's close to us. We don't live cheek-a-jowl with cows, pigs or chickens. And over the last few decades, a conversation about eating meat has generally devolved into two polar opposites: eat animals... don't eat animals. Although there are shades of grey in there. Don't eat mammals but eat birds. Don't eat mammals or birds but fish are OK. Don't eat anything that sucks in oxygen (air or water-based) but OK to eat honey, cheese, milk, eggs. The author argues that we need a better way to talk about eating animals.

Because it's not just about eating animals... it's about how our society breeds, raises, transports and slaughters animals. Over 99% of all animals and milk/eggs are factory farmed. That means they are genetically engineered to grow faster on less food, even if that means they can't walk or fly or live longer than 6 weeks. This is not the happy barnyard pictures we envision from our childhood. This is a Factory... with animals as the raw parts and meat as the product. Descartes said we should treat animals as machines. We have taken that to heart with a vengeance. Except... they are not machines.

The author suggests that we struggle with a deep shame... and that shame is the work of memory against forgetting.

The thing is... factory farming is not just limited to "farms"... it happens in the oceans where technology and science can harvest fish far more efficiently than our quaint notion of a fishing trawler. It used to be that hunting or fishing was relatively "fair". One guy with a fishing rod trying to catch a fish. We have turned it into something else. And why?? All because we enjoy meat and we like our meat to be cheap.

"In the name of affordability, we treat food animals with cruelty so extreme, it would be illegal if inflicted upon a dog".

I buy 3 kg boxes of flash-frozen chicken breasts at Save-on-Foods. They're usually $40 but I only buy them when they go on sale for $20. We get 14 or so breasts in a box. That means 7 chickens were slaughtered for that box. Do I want to know what life those chickens had? Do I??

Already, I am going online and researching local sources of eggs and milk and cheese. F*@k the cost. I'm looking at ways in which we can rejig our eating habits. Ditch the grocery store meat/fish. Incorporate more protein-alternatives - legumes, quinoa, happy eggs...

For centuries, meat was a luxury... maybe it's time to consider it that once again.

Tattoos on the Heart - Gregory Boyle - Part 3

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of
Boundless Compassion
Gregory Boyle

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 36

 February 5, 2017 

Book 10 - Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
by Gregory Boyle (2010)
 Part 3 - Pages 109-206
Reading Time - 2 hours

We really are very hard on ourselves. Whether we are gang members or priests or just regular folk. Somewhere deep inside of us is a deep woundedness that doubts our sacredness. That doubts whether we are lovable. That questions how anyone could love us if we are not perfect/good enough.

But then we take that woundedness and turn it outwards, demanding that others measure up to some exacting standard that we say comes from the divine. We judge ourselves so harshly that we then find it comforting in some weird way to judge others. "See... there's someone out there who is even worse than I am!" As if that means we move further up the line of salvation and are assured an entrance ticket. Crazy really. I know... I know... there are some who believe that there are only so many tickets being sold for heaven. And that when the tickets run out... that's it... and if you didn't qualify, didn't make the cut... then you're cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

All I got to say is... if some fallible human priest working in a gang-infested neighbourhood can find it in is heart to "love kids who are killing kids I love"... then God has to be even MORE loving than that. Soo... my thoughts... there aren't any tickets to heaven... And what we think of as the front of the line might actually be the back of the line. Wouldn't that be just turn-about!

Anyhow... back to the book... here's a few quotes...

"it becomes impossible to demonize someone you know"

"all things are inventions of holiness... some more rascally than others"

This Catholic priest even (gasp) quotes Buddhism! And it's a good one - "we can begin to change the world by first changing how we look at the world". It's all a matter of perspective. That's the thing we don't really get. If we look at the world with eyes of judgement... well, heck... we'll see a gob load of things to judge. If we look at the world with eyes of compassion... we'll find tonnes of opportunities to engage with people from a place of kinship.

For Boyle... that's ultimately what it boils down to... Who are we standing with? Jesus stood with the outcasts. He didn't overthrow the government. He stood with the most marginalized. Because change isn't from the top down... it's from the ground up. We need to be the change we want to see in the world (to paraphrase Gandhi). If we stand with those who have been endlessly excluded... that is an act of visible protest".

Boyle would say kinship is our goal. If we stand with the marginalized... peace and justice will naturally follow. If we are one with the Other (not serving the Other)... we can change the world. And for me... this ties in with the Saved book by Ben Hewitt. Totally different topic... but ultimately the same message. We are social beings... we are most human when we are in relationship with others. Real, intimate, personal relationships. Not just on Facebook. But in the world. Standing with the oppressed. Standing with our neighbours. Standing with...

Next Book:

Eating Animals

Jonathan Safran Foer

(oh dear... and I am a dyed-in-the-wool carnivore... gulp)

Tattoos on the Heart - Gregory Boyle - Part 2

Tattoos on the Heart: the Power of
Boundless Compassion
Gregory Boyle

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 35

 February 4, 2017 

Book 10 - Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
by Gregory Boyle (2010)
 Part 2 - Pages 61-108
Reading Time - 60 minutes

This is really quite a radical book. Radical as in it really gets back to the heart of Jesus' teaching. The author, a Jesuit priest, works in the most gang-infested area of LA and everyday sees "kids I love killing kids I love". He doesn't love the killers any less than the victims. Loving only those we like isn't what Jesus taught.

This section opens with a discussion between "homies" (gang-members) and Boyle about the distinction between sympathy, empathy and compassion. The first two are easy... for the third, the homies can only shrug and say "compassion... that's like Jesus". Boyle would say... compassion is not a relationship between healer and wounded... it is a covenant between equals. Being with others... not for others.

It's kind of a mind-blowing concept in society today, where we so often want to "help the less-fortunate". Already, we have judged them as "less" than ourselves who are "more fortunate". We walk around through life with blinders of judgement on... judging where others live, how they live, what they own, how old they are, what gender they are, what colour there skin is.

The good news is... God doesn't have those blinders on... God sees "people I love hurting people I love". But we... we just can't wrap our tiny, judgemental, finite brains around that concept. And so we continue to go around judging people... including ourselves. Sad, really.

Tattoos on the Heart - Gregory Boyle - Part 1

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of
Boundless Compassion
Gregory Boyle

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 34

 February 3, 2017 

Book 10 - Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
by Gregory Boyle (2010)
 Part 1 - Pages xi-xv, 1-60
Reading Time - 70 minutes

Not sure how this book came to be on my reading list for 2017 but there it is. Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit priest who, in the mid 1980s, was assigned to Dolores Mission parish in Los Angeles. If LA is the gang-capital of the US... then the Dolores Mission area is the gang-capital of LA!

Working with gang members who want to get out... Boyle takes the opportunity to reflect on the boundless compassion of love. Most particularly that of God. Boyle is pretty clear that God is far bigger than we think God is, or rather, in his own words - "How much greater is the God we have, than the one we think we have."

I rather liked this quote too - "It is only because we have such an overactive disapproval gland ourselves that we tend to create God in our own image". If only we could all really get that. God isn't disappointed in us. God isn't standing over us whipping us to get up and do better. We are perfect, just the way we are.

What Boyle recognized early on was that the principal suffering of the poor is not poverty but shame and disgrace. The shame comes from an utter failure of self-love. And yet, so often, the Church doesn't promote our own self-love but rather urges us to "do better". If only we could love ourselves the way that God loves us... the world would be a very different place. For really... our own lack of self-love is what drives the evil in the world. Love really is the answer.

Saved - Ben Hewitt - Part 1

Saved: How I Quit Worrying about
Money and Became the Richest Guy
in the World
Ben Hewitt

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 33

 February 2, 2017 

Book 9 - Saved: How I Stopped Worrying About Money and
Became the Richest Guy in the World
by Ben Hewitt (2016)
 Part 1 - Pages 1-224
Reading Time - 4 Hours

I think I came across this book on the library shelf as I was randomly browsing. It looked interesting so I grabbed it. That is part of the problem with my Reading Challenge... I keep getting side-tracked by interesting books that are not on my "official" reading list. Argh.

Anyhow... this book was interesting. The author takes a look at what he calls the unconscious economy (what we live in right now) and makes a pretty convincing argument for how unstable and unsustainable it really is. He makes a case for something called the conscious economy. Along the way, he examines how our monetary policy works (it doesn't), what is money (debt) and the unsustainable expansion of our commodified society (the earth is finite, not infinite).

His argument essentially lies along these lines. We have traded relationships for commodities. We just go to the Big Box Store and buy what we need. This really tears at the fabric of our communities. We could, for example, share things with our neighbours. I've heard of this before... the idea that we don't all need to own a hedge-trimmer but that we could borrow things like that from each other. That we could make an investment in our neighbourhood relationships. Instead of hiring someone to build a fence or fix our toilet, we draw on our "savings" by seeing if friends or neighbours can help us. These sorts of relationships strengthen our community and feed our own souls.

This isn't really a book on minimalism but... it does crop up. To be happy with what we have... to buy things that have meaning and are not simply cookie-cutter particle board things from IKEA. He argues that money is really a representation of trust. In which case, our real wealth does not lie in our bank accounts (as virtual numbers) but exists in the real world as our relationships with others. Cause, ultimately, if the whole economy goes in the toilet... money and even gold will be worthless... what will have worth is the deposits we have with others... the trust, the community, the relationships.

It's an interesting vision of a new world.

A Complicated Kindness - Miriam Toews - Part 1

A Complicated Kindness
Miriam Toews

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 32

 February 1, 2017 

Book 8 - A Complicated Kindness
by Miriam Toews (2007)
 Part 1 - Pages 1-256

Reading Time - 5 Hours

A friend of mine recommended this book a few weeks ago. I'm finding that my 2017 Book Challenge List is expanding by the day! Some of these "extra" books are read on the side while I'm reading an "official" book off my list. Rather than mixing up my blog posts between different books, I'm just doing a single post on these extras.

This book comes with an impressive pedigree: Canadian Bestseller, Winner of the Governor General's Literary Award. Set in a small Manitoba down, the novel takes us into the world of a fundamentalist Mennonite sect and the experience of one teenager, Nomi, who struggles against the world into which she is born.

The prose in this book is... well... it's not grammatical. The book is written sort of along the lines of a stream-of-consciousness thinking of our teenage heroine, Nomi. She writes about life from a very raw and real place. She writes about the shallow aspects of her life, and the deep. But we, as the readers, aren't always sure what is shallow and what is deep.

I can't say I "enjoyed" reading the book. Such raw writing isn't really enjoyable. On the other hand... the book stayed with me long after I finished reading it. It made me think about the role of religion in the world and how we can be caught in a web of belief and deceit... pretending that everything is OK, while we are quietly dying inside. At the end of the day, the book made me consider and question some of my beliefs... and that, in my opinion, is a great book!

Next Book

Saved: How I Quit Worrying about Money
and became the Richest Guy in the World
Ben Hewitt - 2013