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My wife and I have chosen to bring up our children as vegetarians. In another time or place, we might have made a different decision. But the realities of our present moment

compelled us to make that choice. According to an analysis of U.S.D.A.13 data by the advocacy group Farm Forward, factory farms now produce more than 99 percent of the animals eaten in this country. And despite labels that suggest otherwise, genuine alternatives — which do exist, and make many of the ethical questions about meat moot — are very difficult for even an educated eater to find. I don’t have the ability to do so with regularity and confidence. (“Free range,” “cage free,” “natural” and “organic” are nearly meaningless when it comes to animal welfare.)

According to reports by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N.14 and others, factory farming has made animal agriculture the No. 1 contributor to global warming (it is significantly more destructive than transportation alone), and one of the Top 2 or 3 causes of all of the most serious environmental problems, both global and local: air and water pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity. . . . Eating factory-farmed animals — which is to say virtually every piece of meat sold in supermarkets and prepared in restaurants — is almost certainly the single worst thing that humans do to the environment.

Every factory-farmed animal is, as a practice, treated in ways that would be illegal if it

were a dog or a cat. Turkeys have been so genetically modified15 they are incapable of natural reproduction. To acknowledge that these things matter is not sentimental. It is a confrontation with the facts about animals and ourselves. We know these things matter.

Meat and seafood are in no way necessary for my family — unlike some in the world, we have easy access to a wide variety of other foods. And we are healthier without it. So our choices aren’t constrained.

While the cultural uses of meat can be replaced — my mother and I now eat Italian, my

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father grills veggie burgers, my grandmother invented her own “vegetarian chopped liver” — there is still the question of pleasure. A vegetarian diet can be rich and fully enjoyable, but I couldn’t honestly argue, as many vegetarians try to, that it is as rich as a diet that includes meat. (Those who eat chimpanzee look at the Western diet as sadly deficient of a great pleasure.) I love calamari, I love roasted chicken, I love a good steak. But I don’t love them without limit.

This isn’t animal experimentation, where you can imagine some proportionate good at the other end of the suffering. This is what we feel like eating. Yet taste, the crudest of our senses, has been exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other senses. Why? Why doesn’t a horny person have as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to confining, killing and eating it? It’s easy to dismiss that question but hard to respond to it. Try to imagine any end other than taste for which it would be justifiable to do what we do to farmed animals.

Children confront us with our paradoxes16 and dishonesty, and we are exposed. You need to find an answer for every why — Why do we do this? Why don’t we do that? — and often there isn’t a good one. So you say, simply, because. Or you tell a story that you know isn’t true. And whether or not your face reddens, you blush. The shame of parenthood — which is a good shame — is that we want our children to be more whole than we are, to have satisfactory answers. My children not only inspired me to reconsider what kind of eating animal I would be, but also shamed me into reconsideration.

And then, one day, they will choose for themselves. I don’t know what my reaction will be if they decide to eat meat. (I don’t know what my reaction will be if they decide to renounce their Judaism, root for the Red Sox or register Republican.) I’m not as worried about what they will choose as much as my ability to make them conscious of the choices before them. I won’t measure my success as a parent by whether my children share my values, but by whether they act according to their own.

In the meantime, my choice on their behalf means they will never eat their great- grandmother’s singular dish. They will never receive that unique and most direct expression of her love, will perhaps never think of her as the greatest chef who ever lived. Her primal story, our family’s primal story, will have to change.

Or will it? It wasn’t until I became a parent that I understood my grandmother’s cooking. The greatest chef who ever lived wasn’t preparing food, but humans. I’m thinking of those Saturday afternoons at her kitchen table, just the two of us — black bread in the

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glowing toaster, a humming refrigerator that couldn’t be seen through its veil of family photographs. Over pumpernickel ends and Coke, she would tell me about her escape from Europe, the foods she had to eat and those she wouldn’t. It was the story of her life — “Listen to me,” she would plead — and I knew a vital lesson was being transmitted, even if I didn’t know, as a child, what that lesson was.

Thinking Critically about This Reading

Foer states that “taste, the crudest of our senses, has been exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other senses” (paragraph 9). What does he mean? Do you agree? Explain and support your opinion with examples.

Questions for Study and Discussion

1. Foer states that millions of years of evolution are behind his infant son’s instinct to breastfeed (paragraph 1). How does this relate to his later argument about his decision to become a vegetarian? (Glossary: Argumentation)

2. Foer argues that changing what people eat can create a “cultural forgetting” (3). What does he mean by this? How then can he justify becoming a vegetarian, which means no longer eating the foods he used to eat?

3. Foer names animal agriculture — and, specifically, factory farming — as the biggest contributor to global warming and the cause of other environmental problems (5). Why does this matter so much to him? Does he think the actions that he and his family are taking will have any effect on these global problems? Explain.

4. Foer admits that a vegetarian diet is not as “rich” as a diet that includes meat (8). Does this admission weaken his overall argument, or does it make his decision to become a vegetarian more sympathetic and realistic? Why?

5. Why does Foer state that his grandmother’s “primal story, our family’s primal story, will have to change” (12)? Is such a thing possible?

6. In his conclusion, Foer brings together the idea of food and family by reflecting on his own childhood memories with his grandmother (13). How does the ending unify Foer’s essay? (Glossary: Beginnings and Endings)

Classroom Activity Using Unity

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Write a list of foods that have had special relevance to you, whether because of the person who cooked the food, the occasion or place where it was eaten, the cultural or personal history behind the food, or any other significant reason. In a group, compare your lists of foods with your classmates’ lists. Make a “map” of the foods, drawing connections between them based on why they’re important. What does this say about your group’s “society”? Does it reveal anything important about your shared values and ethics or your cultural practices? More broadly, how does food connect us?

Suggested Writing Assignments

1. Foer makes a moral argument for vegetarianism based on the environmental harm done by factory farms and the suffering of the animals in those farms. Do you agree that his reasons are important, whether or not you’re a vegetarian? Write a unified essay in which you argue whether you found his reasoning convincing (or convicting). Be sure to include reasons to support your thesis; you may want to do some library or Internet research for more points for or against vegetarianism.

2. Explore the listings of restaurants in your area. Consider what types of food seem most popular, who attends which restaurants, and occasions for eating out. Write a unified essay in which you argue why certain types of food are more popular in your community than others. Be specific.