"Humans are the only animals who have children on purpose, keep in touch (or don't), care about birthdays, waste and lose time, brush their teeth, feel nostalgia, scrub stains, have religions and political parties and laws, wear keepsakes, apologize years after an offense, whisper, fear themselves, interpret dreams, hide their genitalia, shave, bury time capsules, and can choose not to eat something for reasons of conscience. The justifications for eating animals and for not eating them are often the same: we are not them."
That's from Jonathan Safran Foer's new book, "Eating Animals." He's one of my favorite novelists, but he just published this "memoir-investigation" (as the Publisher's Weekly review called it) about his vegetarianism and the vegetarian raising of his child. So far I've read 19% of it (according to my groovy new Kindle!) and I'm pretty into it. It would have been cool to have read it for the gardening and sustainability class I took this spring, but it's awesome to be continuing to learn outside of that class! And what's interesting about this book in particular is that I probably wouldn't have bought it if I didn't already love JSF. I didn't even know what it was about; I just saw that he had a new book out and I needed to read it. So it's interesting that it's not a novel and yet I care about the subject matter deeply. A lot of the facts that I'm sure are meant to be shocking to the newcomer to the topic are relatively beaten into my brain. But there's a lot of talk of justification for being a "selective omnivore," which is a title I am adopting for myself (and you, Ben!).
I've been doing a lot of googling (I was going to say research, but, let's be real) about food in Berkeley. I know it's a super green place, so I'm not worried about not being able to find local, organic, grass-fed, free-range, cage-free, happy food -- I'm just anxious about knowing where to get it. I'm excited about being able to buy everything at a farmer's market or a whole foods store (not a Whole Foods store). Using LocalHarvest and the National Resources Defense Council I've been able to identify what's nearby that fits these specifications. I might be able to never have to set foot in a Vons! And when I was visiting, someone mentioned that the nearest supermarket is far away and hard to reach by public transit -- everyone buys local. So thrilling.
Anyway, back to reading.
That's from Jonathan Safran Foer's new book, "Eating Animals." He's one of my favorite novelists, but he just published this "memoir-investigation" (as the Publisher's Weekly review called it) about his vegetarianism and the vegetarian raising of his child. So far I've read 19% of it (according to my groovy new Kindle!) and I'm pretty into it. It would have been cool to have read it for the gardening and sustainability class I took this spring, but it's awesome to be continuing to learn outside of that class! And what's interesting about this book in particular is that I probably wouldn't have bought it if I didn't already love JSF. I didn't even know what it was about; I just saw that he had a new book out and I needed to read it. So it's interesting that it's not a novel and yet I care about the subject matter deeply. A lot of the facts that I'm sure are meant to be shocking to the newcomer to the topic are relatively beaten into my brain. But there's a lot of talk of justification for being a "selective omnivore," which is a title I am adopting for myself (and you, Ben!).
I've been doing a lot of googling (I was going to say research, but, let's be real) about food in Berkeley. I know it's a super green place, so I'm not worried about not being able to find local, organic, grass-fed, free-range, cage-free, happy food -- I'm just anxious about knowing where to get it. I'm excited about being able to buy everything at a farmer's market or a whole foods store (not a Whole Foods store). Using LocalHarvest and the National Resources Defense Council I've been able to identify what's nearby that fits these specifications. I might be able to never have to set foot in a Vons! And when I was visiting, someone mentioned that the nearest supermarket is far away and hard to reach by public transit -- everyone buys local. So thrilling.
Anyway, back to reading.