Week 4 Kenny Levine

One of the words Safran Foer used in chapter 3 that stood out to me was downer.  Downer is a word that really has no positive quality.  Foer then goes on to explain how downer is "an animal that collapses from poor health and cannot stand back up."  He does this to gain the sympathies of his audiences, by describing the mistreatment of downers.  Foer gives out statistics about how many downers there are every year and how they are just being left to die because they have no value.  I think that Foer did a good job of gaining credibility by talking about his visit to Farm Sanctuary.  He was there first hand so he knows how poorly some of these animals are being treated, and that is important for the reader to know.  It was also important that he mentioned the story of the person who found a group of downers, but specifically saved one of the sheep and because he saved her, she was able to live for ten more years.  This part really got to me because it shows how easily some of these "downers" can be helped and yet the farmers are doing nothing to help them.  As I read this section of the chapter 3, I was definitely looking back on some of my food choices and thought about how the animals had to suffer.