What punishment...

Its only Cruelty to the birds if they are prepared wrong.

Pan Seared to perfection....the bird would be proud.

dickie

Put 'em on a diet of Big Macs and Whoppers for 20+ years... No mercy!

Mark Lipton

Force them to read the Chronicle daily?

Seriously though, there has long been an anti foie gras movement in France, based on the cruelty argument. My experience is that gavage is not particularly cruel if performed correctly.

Certainly not a patch on the horrible US veal industry. At least the fowl are allowed a relatively normal life outside of feeding time.

-E

Yes, quite painless as long as you don't catch your fingers between the beak and the funnel.......

Motto of La Gavage - When "all you can eat" just isn't enough.

(see

Pssst - for those lacking a sense of humour, it's a JOKE.....

Anti-corrida? Sounds like a lot of bull to me!

(One of these movements is named after Islero, the bull that did in Manolete, and the one my particular model of Lamborghini is named after).

Besides, I thought you Austrians baited bears or taunted the Swiss or something, instead of fighting large horned beasts armed only with a bedspread to wave in their faces.

Salut/Hi Bill Spohn,

le/on 08 Sep 2003 23:04:56 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Actually Bill, this is becoming quite a problem. Such serious magazines as the BBC Good Food mag have campaigned against it.

The problem is that industrial foie gras production is not very savoury. I could add that it's no worse - arguably less cruel - than industrial duck, chicken turkey, veal and pig production, ALL of which involve cruelty.

I personally think it's extremely important that as many as possible of us challenge this nonsense. It is part of a bizarre perversion of anti elitism. It's OK to treat animals with cruelty if it makes for indifferent food, but not if it makes something excellent. Do the people who campaign against foie-gras do so with the same enthusiasm against the other food production methods I've mentioned? Never. That's one prong of the counter attack.

Another is that in fact craftsman produced foie-gras is NOT in any way cruel. I've seen the ducks and geese in foie gras farms. When it's feeding time, they rush to the farmer - not exactly the behaviour of animals cruelly treated. An animal cannot be force fed against its will, the intruduction of the tube would damage the oesophagus if they struggled against it, and so it's not worth it. The animal is fattened up normally and sold for roasting, about 10% of animals won't accept the tube. After force feeding, I've seen the birds give themselves a shake and rush off to join the end of the queue again - also a sign that although WE might not like being force fed, THEY don't seem to mind it too much. So we should insist that the antis specify what it is that they are campaigning against.

Lastly, one should challenge their integrity. Will they be prepared to VISIT a small scale foie-gras farm and see for themselves what happens? That's how I got the beeb to shut up about it. I publicly challenged the editor whose article I took exception to, to come and see for himself, I'd put him up for free. He sort of retracted, saying weakly that you couldn't tell whether fg was industrially produced or not. So I pointed out he should then campaign for accurate labelling, not only for FG but for all the other obscenities like ducks piled deep in industrial growing centres, like chickens fed with their own waste products, to the point that they are carriers of Salmonella, not throw out the excellent baby (decent free range birds and artisanal foie gras with the somewhat unsavoury mass produced bathwater. Since then there's been no peep from the Beeb about the subject.

Sorry, bad command of English once again. What I wanted to say is: Here in AT we have heard of the existence of anti-corrida movements in the rest of Europe (as we've heard of anti-fox hunt lobbies), but never of any anti-foi-gras lobby.

Militant animal protectionists over here tend to rave against furriers and peltmongers. Although, now that you say it: There has been a butyric acid attack against a fine restaurant here in Vienna a few years ago.

M.

Even the cattle industry in the US is far worse in its abuses than the fg people. As we learned from the "mad cow" incident, the same might be said of the European cattle industry, too. Is force feeding worse for the animal than being treated with hormones and antibiotics, being fed animal parts and being penned in a space far too small for a large ruminant? I think not.

Ian, I think there's a different motivation at work. These people are challenging the small targets because they've given up on challenging the big industrial operations. Rather than taking their case to the public and applying economic pressure (as has been done successfully with McDonald's), these cowards choose the smallest, most vulnerable targets and terrorize them, regardless of the hypocrisy involved in that decision.

Mark Lipton

I thought God created Foie Gras for those of us with Low Cholesterol...

Cohabiting with Dick Cheney at his Halliburton, ooops, undisclosed locations.

Salut/Hi Mark Lipton,

le/on Tue, 09 Sep 2003 11:26:30 -0500, tu disais/you said:-

I can't comment here, as I don't know zip about cattle production in the USA.

An interesting point, Mark. It is my personal belief that it is best to keep cattle on natural pastureland, in groups, with the bulls in the same field as the cows and calves. I think this produces animals which are more contented. The reasons I am in favour of this are two-fold - one entirely aesthetic the other moral. I have found that animals treated in this way - without added growth hormones (ALA USA) or regular antibiotic doses (ALA Europe) give meat that tastes better. The moral argument is one I'd not expect many to agree with. As far as I'm concerned, raising animals to kill them so that we can eat more animal protein than is _essential_ for our well being is only morally defensible if we make sure that it's carried with minimal possible suffering. That forbids dehorning, blinding of calves, castrating male animals without painkillers and a whole string of other practices that I believe to be unacceptable.

You may be right. Having finally read the article (yeah, I know ;-))) to which Bill refers, the actions of these people is quite simply criminal, just as criminal as that of the the fundamentalist preacher executed for murder recently. The difference is purely one of degree. I'd be interested to read whether their self justification is along the same lines.

However, the position of Cem Akin the research associate with PETA contacted by the newspaper, is precisely as I said. He called foie gras "one of the most egregiously cruel food products out there", without any qualifications, neither differentiating between large scale industrial production and small scale hand feeding. NOR attacking other forms of animal cruelty. The SF Chronicle is also partly responsible in perpetuating the myth in that Kim Severson failed to ask the key questions about animal cruelty, though in his case it is more likely to be ignorance and idleness than a mischievous perversion of the truth.

I still think that those of us who care for quality in foodstuffs (whether solid or liquid) should always challenge and attack such propagandists.

I have decided to join those proposing a ban on foie gras and help them eliminate it!

I have dedicated myself to consuming as much as I can until it is all gone.......