In Foer's Words

"Why is taste, the crudest of our senses, exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other senses? If you stop and think about it, it's crazy. Why doesn't a horny person have as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to killing and eating it?"

"Look at what we as a society have done to animals as soon as we had the technological power. Look at what we actually do in the name of 'animal welfare' and 'humaneness,' then decide if you still believe in eating meat."

[The above quotes were not from Foer, but from "the kind of person who finds herself on a stranger's farm in the middle of the night."]

"Shit became a problem only when Americans decided we wanted to eat more meat than any other culture in history and pay historically little for it."

"One study found that roughly 4.5 million sea animals are killed as bycatch in longline fishing every year, including roughly 3.3 million sharks, 1 million marlins, 60,000 sea turtles, 75,000 albatross, and 20,000 dolphins and whales."

"Whether we're talking about fish species, pigs, or some other eaten animal, is such suffering the most important thing in the world? Obviously not. But that's not the question. Is it more important than sushi, bacon, or chicken nuggets? That's the question."

"Does anyone really doubt that the corporations that control the vast majority of animal agriculture in America are in it for the profit? In most industries, that's a perfectly good driving force. But when the commodities are animals, the factories are the earth itself, and the products are physically consumed, the stakes are not the same, and the thinking can't be the same." [A Vegetarian Rancher]

"Let's describe the reality: that piece of meat came from an animal who, at best - and it's precious few who get away with only this - was burned, mutilated, and killed for the sake of a few minutes of human pleasure. Does the pleasure justify the means?" [A PETA employee]

"Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else? If contributing to the suffering of billions of animals that live miserable lives and (quite often) die in horrific ways isn't motivating, what would be? If being the number one contributor to the most serious threat facing the planet (global warming) isn't enough, what is? And if you are tempted to put off these questions of conscience, to say not now, then when?"

"Most simply put, someone who regularly eats factory-farmed animal products cannot call himself an environmentalist without divorcing that word from its meaning."

"We can't plead ignorance, only indifference. Those alive today are the generations that came to know better. We have the burden and the opportunity of living in the moment when the critique of factory farming broke into the popular consciousness. We are the ones of whom it will be fairly asked,

What did you do when you learned the truth about eating animals?"

[All quotes from Eating Animals by Jonathan Safron Foer]

{See Jonathan talk here and here (i heart Ellen!)}