Jonathan Safran Foer and Aaron Gross on (Not) Eating Animals

With impending fatherhood, literary wunderkind Jonathan Safran Foer—the celebrated author of "Everything Is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"—started thinking about the food he was going to feed his son. For this omnivore with vegetarian tendencies, these thoughts soon turned into a quest. He visited industrial farms and "cage-free" chicken coops and began a sustained reflection on the inextricability of food and family. The result was the 2009 bestseller "Eating Animals," hailed as an instant classic of the new food writing along with Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" and Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma." But the story didn't end there. Foer's venture into nonfiction was a life-changing experience for the author, leading to a commitment to vegetarianism and animal rights advocacy. Foer reflects on the writing and reception of "Eating Animals" and updates us on his family's alternatives to chicken soup and gefilte fish.

Foer is joined in conversation by Aaron Gross, founder and CEO of Farm Forward, who collaborated heavily with Foer on "Eating Animals."