Eating Animals

by Jonathan Safran Foer

NEXT TIME YOU SIT DOWN for a meal, imagine that there are nine other people sitting with you at the table, and that together you represent all the people on the planet. Organized by nations, two of your tablemates are Chinese, two Indian, and a fifth represents all the other countries in Northeast, South, and Central Asia. A sixth represents the nations of Southeast Asia and Oceana. A seventh represents sub-Saharan Africa, and an eighth represents the remainder of Africa and the Middle East. A ninth represents Europe. The remaining seat, representing the countries of South, Central, and North America, is for you. If we allocate seats by native language, only Chinese speakers would get their own representative. All English and Spanish speakers together would have to share a chair. Organized by religion, three people are Christian, two are Muslim, and three practice Buddhism, traditional Chinese religions, or Hinduism. Another two belong to other religious traditions or identify as nonreligious. (My own Jewish community, which is smaller than the margin of error in the Chinese census, can’t even squeeze half of a tuches onto a chair.) If seated by nourishment, one person is hungry and two are obese. More than half eat a mostly vegetarian diet, but that number is shrinking. The stricter vegetarians and vegans have one seat at the table, but barely. And more than half of the time any one of you reaches for eggs, chicken, or pork, they will have come from a factory farm. If cur...

This book is incredible, and this passage will blow your mind.