this book will make you become a vegan

when i was eleven, i decided to stop eating any form of pig, because at the time i was into pigs - i had a huge collection. one day, or maybe this happened over time, i realized that the very bacon that i was putting into my mouth had in fact at one point been one of these beautiful, intelligent creatures. and how could i eat something i loved so? it seemed wrong, and so i stopped.

other animals followed, and by the time i was twenty-one, my diet was completely meat free. there was a brief period in my late twenties when i tried shrimp and lobster, but it didn't last long. my conscience couldn't handle it. i continued to eat dairy and eggs, up until two and a half years ago, when i found that i was actually allergic to both.

i was teased and mocked over the years because i chose not to eat meat; my brother would dangle raw bacon in my face, people would grill me on my diet choice, and going vegan has only increased the attention. i put up with the jokes, and the mockery; i still have a hard time eating with people, sometimes, because of the unending questions and comments. i always said it was a choice i made because it was healthy for me; my body changed so drastically when i gave up eating meat (and therefore giving up most forms of fast food and junk food), and secondary to that, it made me feel good that i wasn't hurting any animals. i had found my way of surviving and thriving, without hurting any of god's creatures.

this book makes me feel proud to have made the choices i have.
from this day on, i vow to challenge each and every person that chooses to mock my choices. i shall encourage them to learn more about where their food comes from, about how the animals that they are eating were raised, about the lives they lived, and the deaths they suffered. i will encourage learning and understanding about how the effects of the food choices they make affect our world.

if every person on this planet could read this book, i am sure that it could change the world. it could change the lives of millions upon millions of animals; it could change our environment, and it could save our planet.

from the flap:
"like many others, jonathan safran foer spent his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. but on the brink of fatherhood - facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf - his casual and questioning took an on urgency. so foer set out to find the answers for himself. this quest ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong."


please read this, and recommend it to everyone you know.