Foer sparks discussion on factory farming

Jonathan Safran Foer speaks to the Class of 2015 about the ethics of farming.
Jonathan Safran Foer speaks to the Class of 2015 about the ethics of farming.

The Class of 2015 was urged Thursday to ask tough questions, especially as they pertain to food.

Jonathan Safran Foer, author of “Eating Animals”­­—the summer reading assignment for the Class of 2015—spoke to freshman as part of orientation week. He discussed his quest to learn more about factory farming and to challenge complacency in front of a crowd of several hundred people in Page Auditorium.

In his speech, Foer noted that one of the key goals in writing “Eating Animals” was to fight the idea that it is impossible to acknowledge the abuses of factory farming without being a strict vegetarian. People have created a strict dichotomy with regards to food awareness, Foer said.

“We don’t apply that dichotomy to any other ethical realm of our lives,” he said. “We’re so afraid of hypocrisy that we’d rather be completely ignorant than allow hypocrisy into our lives.”

Foer cited several statistics that seem to indicate a common belief in animal rights. For example, 76 percent of Americans think farmed animals deserve strict legal protection, he said.

“I think we share instincts about what’s right or wrong,” he said. “Who is the person who wants to put a pregnant pig in a cage so small it can’t turn around? Just about everybody will agree that’s not something that we want.”

Freshman Jia Chu said he appreciated the balance of Foer’s arguments.

“He was very perceptive. He gave both sides,” Chu said. “[Foer] is the first guy I’ve met who’s really balanced about [vegetarianism].”

Foer applauded the selection committee for selecting his book, an act that he said required bravery in a state with deep ties to the meat industry.

Senior Nate French, who served on the Duke Summer Reading Program selection committee and introduced Foer, assured students that the selection was not part of a plot to save the administration money on food costs.

“We did not select the book—just to clear the air—to convert you to vegetarians and vegans,” French said to laughter from the audience.

Foer confirmed that the purpose of the book was not to create vegetarians and vegans, but to challenge the ignorant.

“My goal in life is not to convert the world to vegetarianism. The problem I have is when someone says ‘yeah, yeah, I just don’t want to know about it,’” he said.

Foer said “Eating Animals” started as an investigation into the foods he would be feeding to his then-unborn child. He met with several pediatricians but none of them told him meat was a necessary component of a healthy diet.

“If someone told me we had to eat meat to be healthy, we would have eaten meat. It would have been the end of it,” he said.

The project took off after several unanswered letters from Tyson Foods, Inc. and other large meat producers. He urged students to reach out to the meat industry and to ask them about their practices.

“There’s no industry in the country other than the military that is as secretive as the meat industry, and there’s no industry that trusts its costumers less,” Foer said.

After the talk, many students were optimistic about food issues. Sophomore Ashley Helms, a First-Year Advisory Counselor, said she appreciated Foer’s insistence on asking the right questions about the food we eat.

“I also think he did a great job at expressing his excitement about talking to such open young minds,” she said. “Emphasizing that these freshmen are the future and have the power to change the way things are.”

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