“Food, for her, is not food. It is terror, dignity, gratitude, vengeance, joyfulness, humiliation, religion, history, and, of course, love. As if the fruits she always offered us were picked from the destroyed branches of our family tree.”

In explaining his grandmother’s perspective, Jonathan Safran Foer presents a view of food that goes beyond mere sustenance. For Ethel Safran, food is a matter of life and death, so it embodies all the emotions and ideologies that relate to her conception of living and dying. Making food for her offspring and having them imbibe her creations helps the family heal from old wounds—food is the symbolic and literal source of life-giving. All these emotions and ideas are discussed in the book, and they each relate individually and connectedly to the practice of eating animals.

“And that, I thought, was that. And I thought that was just fine. I assumed we’d maintain a diet of conscientious inconsistency. Why should eating be any different from any of the other ethical realms of our lives? We were honest people who occasionally told lies, careful friends who sometimes acted clumsily. We were vegetarians who from time to time ate meat.”

This is Foer’s main characterization prior to embarking on his investigation, as he explains his and his wife’s longstanding wavering on vegetarianism. For the reader who has never considered vegetarianism or who has also wavered on vegetarianism, this characterization is meant to be relatable. Humans are fallible, and people often fail to meet their own goals for themselves. For Foer, vegetarianism was one such goal, and he is expressing how imperfection is not really a cause for shame, as everyone makes mistakes.