Yes, there are two types of chicken..."Eating Animals" by Jonathan Foer

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer is well worth your time. It is an incredibly interesting book which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. In my next two posts, I just wanted to talk about certain passages that really stuck out in my mind and made me think a lot.

The first passage I want to talk about is on page 47 of the book published by the company Back Bay Books. (Mrs. Collier: I believed you read this passage to us in class, but I wanted to bring it up again. I think it's so interesting and well worth blogging about.) This passage talks about the awful living conditions of the egg-laying hen (not to be confused with the broiler chicken. Fun Fact: Yes there are indeed two types of chicken. For more information see the bottom of the post.) Here is the passage: 

The typical page for egg-laying hens allows each sixty-seven square inches of floor spaces-somewhere between the size of this page and a sheet of printer paper. Such cages are stacked between three and nine tiers high...Step your mind into a crowded elevator...so crowded that you are often held aloft. This is kind of a blessing, as the slanted floor is made of wire, which cuts your feet...There is no respite, no relief...The doors will open once, at the end of your life, for your journey to the only place worse (Foer 47). 

These are obviously awful and disgusting conditions. Foer goes on to talk about how some of these chickens go mad and become violent or cannibalistic. Is that really how we should treat animals? I think Foer makes it clear that this book isn't about promoting vegetarianism, but it obviously does question your morals. Throughout the book, Foer also kind of mocks the idea that humans are the center of the universe and how we compare everything to us. (Also known as the theory anthropocentrism).

On a different topic, I mentioned above that there are two types of chicken. Foer discusses them on page 48 and talks about how they have different genetics and bodies. These are the two types of chicken:
1. The one we already discussed: layers
2. The other type: broilers. Broilers are chicken that become meat. Broilers are now being genetically modified to grow more than twice as large in half the time. They once had a life expectancy of about 15 or 20 years but not they are killed at around 6 weeks.

Now, Foer then goes on to discuss, what happens to the male off spring of layers? Because obviously they don't serve the function of producing eggs or becoming meat. So what happens to them?

Most male layers are destroyed by being sucked through a series of pipes onto an electrified plate...Some are tossed into large plastic containers. The weak are trampled to the bottom, where they suffocate slowly. The strong suffocate slowly at the top. Others are sent fully conscious through macerators (picture a wood chipper filled with chicks) (48-49). 

Well I suppose this sounds a wee bit cruel...but maybe that's just me.

-KW