Jonathan Safran Foer on Factory Farming, Thanksgiving, and Birthday Cake (Interview)

Jonathan Safran Foer is known for his novels, not for animal activism. But his most recent book, Eating Animals, is a work of nonfiction and has gotten attention everywhere from newly converted vegetarians after just one read to longtime vegans who wonder why the author is not vegan himself. I had the opportunity to chat with him right around what sounded like a delicious (vegetarian)Thanksgiving

Planet Green: It seems like Eating Animals has landed you in the middle of two extremes: some people have gone vegetarian after reading it, while you've also been criticized for not being vegan. What are your thoughts on the criticism? Jonathan Safran Foer: I'm very conscientious about milk and dairy, I don't buy it out, it just so happens that I eat occasional foods that have nonvegan ingredients, so it wouldn't be technically correct to describe myself as vegan. Is that where the important argument lies, is it really worth that quibble? I don't think so. I think being vegan is a full extension of this argument, and is what I hope for for myself. It's also a lot harder than vegetarianism, it's a whole different ball of wax. I admire people who seem to do it so effortlessly.

The reason I think this whole conversation is approaching a tipping point, where things are going to start to change very quickly, very dramatically, is that everyone really agrees on 99 percent of what's out there. Everyone who knows really does agree that factory farming is not what we want, it's not a good system.

We need to put our energy on making visible the consensus around the 99 percent, rather than arguments about the one percent.

It's not to say there aren't really important philosophical differences, but they are just not important as all of the overlap. All farmers and activists at PETA have like 95 percent overlap. It's true-farmers don't become farmers because they hate animals. Of course they kill them at the end, and that's a big deal. But I think a bigger deal is moving away from the system where 50 billion animals are, as a rule, treated cruelly and as a rule, it's environmentally destructive.

We're wasting time, we're wasting energy by going after the exception-the far end of the spectrum when we have this huge middle of the spectrum to deal with.

PG: How do we move past the language issue-the point you made in the book, where people who eat anything are seen as somehow more polite than people who try to make food choices based on ethical values? JSF: I think we need to move away from that word. It's useful in a way, but I think it does a disservice to the conversation, to imply that either you are or you aren't [vegetarian or vegan]. There are a ton of people who care, but find the idea of changing their lives according to a rule, rather than according to daily choices, intimidating. If we can move toward a place where people are just eating lots less meat-I don't think there's a great chance that in the next ten years, there will be more vegetarians than people who eat meat. But I do think there's a good chance that there will be more vegetarian meals, and I think approaching it that way-through meals, rather than through lifestyle patterns-I wonder if it wouldn't be more effective.

I know a lot of people say, what's wrong ever is wrong always. But those people will also say that what matters at the end of the day is how animals are treated and how the environment is treated. Not to mention human health and all of those other things that are part of this. So toward that end, I think if we moved away from this absolutist, dichotomous language, and just be more reflective of where people are, I think that would be good.

PG: There's a line in your book about not staying quiet when you sit across from someone eating factory-farmed pork. Do you really use those moments to speak up? JSF: I stay quiet. I can't stay quiet inside maybe, but I do plenty of things that other people can't stay quiet inside about. My experience has been that arguments just don't work-especially at a meal. What does work, I think, is going about your business in a very clear way, and being consistent about it as much as possible.

For example, the guy i dedicated the book to, he never asked me to do anything. But he's somebody I deeply respect, and I watch what he does. We all watch what our friends do, people that we admire and care about. And I changed around him.

PG: Are you raising your son vegetarian? Vegan? JSF: Vegetarian, yes. He is far less close to vegan than I am, in large part because so many of his meals aren't at home. I don't feel comfortable now asking for the kind of, I don't know what you would call it-social awkwardness? I don't want him not to eat cake at his friend's party.

I don't think that's the best way to raise him as an adult who cares about these values. I am not interested in some sort of perfection, like-this product has never entered his body. I'm really interested in him growing up to be somebody who thinks and works on these things.

This is my idea, it's not what I would tell anyone else to do, I well admire people who do raise their kids vegan.

PG: Was there one particular find in all of your research that you found the most surprising? JSF:I think the most surprising thing is just the breadth of factory farming. It's in everything. It's 99 percent of all the animals. If it's wrong, as I think everybody would agree it is-and when I say everybody, I don't mean activists, I mean farmers, I mean middle American moms and dads. The values that would tell us it is wrong are very traditional, deeply conservative. I think the most surprising thing is when you go to supermarkets, that's what it is. When you go to restaurants, with very few exceptions-but there are some exceptions-that's what it is. So I guess the 99 percent is what really most threw me.

PG: You have also talked about ethnic and family traditions. What tips do you have for people to get through the holidays when they care about these issues and their families maybe don't? JSF: Talk to your family: who we are, what we want to eat. What values do we have, do we need it, do we want it? Different people will inevitably come up with different answers. But I think the conversation itself, regardless of the answer, makes Thanksgiving more like Thanksgiving.

PG: Did you have an exciting Thanksgiving menu? JSF: I did actually. I think almost everything on our menu was a Martha Stewart recipe. I was on her show and we cooked something, it was like a vegan orzo casserole and it was just awesome, so I went to her website. She has two or three entire [vegetarian] Thanksgiving menus.

She was having a vegetarian Thanksgiving, by the way. I have to say, I was really blown away spending time with her. She is very far ahead on this issue, [more than] any big, comparable media figure. She did this whole show, basically on the problems with the meat industry. She didn't mince her words, she didn't hide behind her guests, it was really impressive.