Eating Animals

Foer declares that he did not like dogs until he met his current dog, George, who he and his wife adopted on a whim. Foer notes that the rise in pet ownership coincided with the rise of the middle class, and he cites Sir Keith Thomas in noting how pet ownership inspired the moral consideration of animals. Though Foer cannot understand George’s psychology, he understands that she must have a perspective on the world around them.

Foer makes an argument in favor of eating dogs, discussing how the rules that might be used to exclude dogs from human diets also exclude other animals that are commonly eaten, like pigs. For example, pigs are intelligent, not all people have pets as companions, and there is no notable health detriment in consuming dogs. In addition, there are a lot of dogs and cats that are euthanized and used as food for animals that are then eaten commonly, so Foer argues that it would be more ecologically and economically efficient to eat these animals directly. The purpose of this argument is to show how “selective carnivores” are blinded by ingrained ideas about which animals can be eaten.