228 animal, vegetable, miracle
voices as diverse as talk- show host Oprah Winfrey and Fast Food Nation
author Eric Schlosser. In an essay titled “Food with a Face,” journalist
Michael Pollan wrote: “More than any other institution, the American
industrial animal farm offers a nightmarish glimpse of what Capitalism
can look like in the absence of moral or regulatory constraint. Here, in
these places, life itself is redefined—as protein production—and with
it, suffering. That venerable word becomes ‘stress,’ an economic problem
in search of a cost- effective solution.... The industrialization—and
dehumanization—of American animal farming is a relatively new, evita-
ble, and local phenomenon: no other country raises and slaughters its
food animals quite as intensively or as brutally as we do.” U.S. consumers
may take our pick of reasons to be wary of the resulting product: growth
hormones, antibiotic- resistant bacteria, unhealthy cholesterol composi-
tion, deadly E. coli strains, fuel consumption, concentration of manure
into toxic waste lagoons, and the turpitude of keeping confi ned creatures
at the limits of their physiological and psychological endurance.
It’s that last one that finally ended it for me. Yes, I am a person who
raises some animals for the purpose of whacking them into cuts of meat
to feed my family. But this work has made me more sympathetic, not less,
toward the poor wretches that have to live shoulder- to-shoulder with their
brethren waiting for the next meal of stomach- corroding porridge. In ’97,
when our family gave up meat from CAFOs, that choice was synonymous
with becoming a vegetarian. No real alternatives existed. Now they do.
Pasture- based chicken and turkey are available in whole food stores and
many mainstream supermarkets. Farmers’ markets are a likely source for
free-range eggs, poultry, beef, lamb, and pork. Farmers who raise animals
on pasture have to charge more, of course, than factories that cut every
corner on animal soundness. Some consumers will feel they have to buy
the cheaper product. Others will eat meat less often and pay the higher
price. As demand rises, and more farmers can opt out of the industrial
system, the cost structure will shift.
After many meatless years it felt strange to us to break the taboo, but
over time our family has come back to carnivory. I like listening to a roast-
ing bird in the oven on a Sunday afternoon, following Julia Child’s advice
to “regulate the chicken so it makes quiet cooking noises” as its schmaltzy