Disclaimer: This post contains graphic/disturbing information and images.

{Source}

Over the past couple of weeks I read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. It took me longer than a normal book to read because it was a lot to process. I would often read a paragraph several times or have to literally sit back and process something after reading it.

In a nutshell, the book is about the American food industry (I’m currently doing research on the Canadian food industry – it’s not much better) and factory farming. It’s a combination of his interviews with animal activists, factory-farm workers, traditional farmers and his own opinion and thoughts on factory farming and eating animals.

First, a history of how I eat (or ate):

• I used to eat meat like it was my job. 2-3 times per day minimum.
• Since becoming healthier a few years ago I would reduce my meat intake but not cut it out entirely, I still felt like I needed it for dinner every day.
• Since starting to read healthy living blogs in the last 6-12 months, this one in particular, and seeing Food Inc. a few months ago I have been trying to eat a meat-reduced diet, only eating meat 3-4 times per week
• Note: Despite the information in Food Inc., I still ate meat pretty regularly. Something about this book clicked with me in a way that Food Inc. didn’t. Words really are powerful.

Crucial things I learned by reading Eating Animals

• Animal Agriculture (Factory farming) is the number one cause of global warming. It contributes 40% more to global warming then all transportation in the world combined.
• Organic and free-range means nothing when it comes to animal welfare.
• It’s not good for the animals – they are treated inhumanely and tortured.
• It’s not good for me – I am eating animals that have been pumped full of drugs and antibiotics and that haven’t even been processed properly so they are often shipped for sale covered in feces or other disgusting things.
• It’s not good for the planet – see point above.
• The “I need my protein” argument means nothing. Check out this blog about an ultra-marathoner who is a vegetarian. Or have you heard of Scott Jurek? The vegan ultra-marathoner who ran 165 miles in 24 hours. The “needing protein” argument is a weak one at best.

So, who is it good for? That’s the question he addresses in this book and, as it turns out, it’s not really good for anyone.

I’m now going to quote a few parts of the book that really, really stuck with me. WARNING: Some of this content is disturbing.

The following passage probably had the most profound effect on me. Whenever I think about eating chicken, I think about this and then I don’t want to eat the chicken anymore:

PG 47: “The typical cage for egg-laying hens allows each sixty-seven square inches of floor space…Step your mind into a crowded elevator, an elevator so crowded you cannot turn around without bumping into (and aggravating) your neighbor. The elevator is so crowded you are often held aloft. This is a kind of blessing, as the slanted floor is made of wire, which cuts into your feet. After some time, those in the elevator will lose their ability to work in the interest of the group, Some will become violent, others will go mad. A few, deprived of food and hope, will become cannibalistic. There is no respite, no relief. No elevator repairman is coming. The doors will open once, at the end of your life, for your journey to the only place worse.”

PG 134: “…He conducted interviews with nearly a hundred USDA poultry inspectors from thirty-seven plants. ‘Every week,’ he reports, ‘millions of chickens leaking yellow pus, stained by green feces, contaminated by harmful bacteria, or marred by lung and heart infections, cancerous tumors, or skin conditions are shipped for sale to consumers.”

{Source}

How it’s killing the environment:

PG 174: “All told, farmed animals in the United States produce 130 times as much waste as the human population – roughly 87,000 pounds of shit per second. The polluting strength of this shit is 160 times greater than raw municipal sewage. And yet there is almost no waste-treatment infrastructure for farmed animals – no toilets, obviously, but also no sewage pipes, no one hauling it away for treatment, and almost no federal guidelines regulating what happens to it…typically found in the shit of factory-farmed hogs: ‘ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosphorus, nitrates and heavy metals…”

PG 181: “But the power brokers that matter most – those who choose what to eat and what not to eat – have remained passive. So far, we have demanded no national moratorium and certainly no phaseout. We have made Smithfield (the largest pork producer in the U.S.A.) and its counterparts so wealthy that they can invest hundreds of millions to expand their operations abroad.”

This, an interview with a factory farm worker, is perhaps the most disturbing account I read in the entire book. It brought tears to my eyes.

PG 253: “Down in the blood pit they say that the smell of blood makes you aggressive. And it does…One time I took my knife – it’s sharp enough – and I sliced off the end of a hog’s nose, just like a piece of bologna. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it just sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into his nose. Now that hog really went nuts, pushing its nose all over the place. I still had a bunch of salt left on my hand – I was wearing a rubber glove – and I stuck the salt right up the hog’s ass…I wasn’t the only guy doing this kind of stuff. One guy I work with actually chases hogs into the scalding tank. And everybody – hog drivers, shacklers, utility men – uses lead pipes on hogs. Everybody knows it, all of it.”

{Source}

What am I trying to achieve with this post? To educate people, the way this book educated me. To encourage people to get out there and research this topic and learn the facts. I’m not trying to “convert” anyone into being a vegetarian or vegan. Read the book, I’d be happy to mail you my copy. Go poke around the books website, it has some great resources and information. Educate yourself on the system.

Then make a decision when it comes to how you eat – whether it’s to continue eating meat, eat less meat, or not eat meat at all. At least make an informed decision. Don’t be ignorant to the problem. I was ignorant to the problem for a long time and millions of people still are, we can’t start to solve this massive problem until more people know about it and understand it.

I haven’t ate meat for 2.5 weeks (with the exception of Calamari, which I’ve ate on two occasions) because I literally have no appetite for it after reading this book. I’m not going to say I’ll never eat meat again, but I do plan to eat a very meat-reduced diet from now on and when I do eat meat I will be paying the extra money to make damn sure I know where it’s coming from. Imagine what a difference it could make if every person in North America gave up meat for just one day a week? One day a week.

So, tell me in the comments, are you a vegan/vegetarian/flexitarian/omnivore/pescatarian? What are your thoughts on factory farming? If you’ve read ‘Eating Animals’, please let me know what you think!

PS: I will be replying to any questions people have for me about my new eating habits or my thoughts on this book in the comments today. I have SO MANY MORE THOUGHTS on this book but the blog post was just getting much too long

I know a few of you read Margarita Shapes Up over on glamour.com. I was SO sad to read on Friday that Margarita will no longer be writing the blog, I actually said “NO” out loud when I saw the title.

Margarita’s blog has inspired me so much. When I first decided to start changing my lifestyle over a year ago I logged onto glamour.com and used the Body by Glamour program to record my food and workouts. I found Margarita’s blog when she first started writing it and began reading about her journey. I have read every single post since then.

I honestly think that without the BBG program and Margarita’s blog I would not be where I am today with my weight loss and fitness. Reading her real-life stories about her struggles and all the comments made me realize that I am not alone. When I eat five pieces of pizza or a giant dessert, I am not alone. It’s this knowledge that got me through six months of weight-loss and helped me to shed 20 pounds and keep it off.

When Margarita added running to her routine, I added running to mine. Now I’m almost to my half-marathon goal and ran 10 miles on Saturday.

Margarita’s blog was also the first blog I ever started reading. I never read any blogspot or wordpress blogs before that. I started by reading glamour blogs and then found more blogs through the comments section on glamour and started reading them and found more blogs through other people’s blogs etc. Eventually, I was inspired to start my own blog. I’m so thankful for this blogging community and all my blog friends. You guy’s mean more to me than you could ever know. I wonder, if I’d never stumbled upon Margarita’s blog and been introduced to the blogosphere, if I’d even be blogging today.

I felt that leaving a comment telling her how much she would be missed is not enough, I wanted to pay this longer tribute to her blog and tell other people about her. It wasn’t until she announced that she’d be leaving that I realized just how much I will miss her blog and just how much it has affected my life over the last 15 months.

She has been an inspiration to me in so many ways and I am deeply saddened by the fact that she will no longer be blogging. It takes A LOT of courage to share the things that she shared on her blog and watching someone go through the transformation that she has experienced is truly life changing.

Margarita, you will be missed terribly by me and many others. Thank you for inspiring me so much. XO

If you don’t read Margarita’s blog already you should check it out and browse through the archives, her story is amazing.

If you read her blog, are you sad to see Margarita go? Have you ever had this kind of experience where a blogger you LOVED quit blogging and you were truly sad about it?

Two years ago at Christmas time.

About three weeks ago, right before Eric and I came home for Christmas vacation.

Well, what do you think? I know it doesn’t look like I’ve lost that much weight (notice I’m wearing the same jeans in both pictures) but I feel WAYYY better about myself.

Also, tomorrow’s New Years Eve! Where does the time go? I still remember Eric taking that first picture like it was yesterday!! What are your plans for the New Year? Me–I’m working and then probably nothing. Whoo! Haha.