And for what it's worth, I've always thought that this is among the more insightful commentaries on vegetarianism...

Jason is right: Cruelty takes many forms, and it is illogical to say that any one of those forms should be condoned so long as others remain beyond redress.

The now-overturned ban was not at all "silly."  Its purpose was to improve the state of civilization in a beautiful large city.

And if foie gras was an "easy target," that is no reason for the animal-rights groups not to have aimed at it.  Anything that raises awareness of cruelty to animals is a worth-while action.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

People hear the term "force-feed" and they go all indignant.  Even a little preliminary research will show that this "force feeding" is actually pretty gentle and only intended to make the goose fatter and tenderer than it would be otherwise if it only ate what it wanted to.

Fois gras is nothing along the lines of veal for inhumane treatment.  They're you're torturing a poor little cow for some blobby taste meat.

And for the record, I think fois gras is nasty anyway :^P

From Wikipedia:

While force feeding is required to meet the French legal definition of "foie gras", producers outside of France do not always force feed birds in order to produce fattened livers that they consider to be foie gras, instead allowing them to eat freely, termed ad libitum. Interest in alternative production methods has grown recently due to ethical concerns in gavage-based foie gras production. Such livers are alternatively termed fatty goose liver, ethical foie gras, or humane foie gras, though these latter terms are also used for gavage-based foie gras production that is more concerned with the animal's welfare (using rubber hoses rather than steel pipes for feeding). Award-winning Spanish producer Patería de Sousa produces foie gras under the brand Ganso Ibérico by taking advantage of the natural instinct of geese to fatten their livers in preparation for migration,[4] which results in a seasonal product, as slaughter can only happen in winter, prior to migration. Others have expressed skepticism at these claims of humane treatment,[46] as earlier attempts to produce fattened livers without gavage have not produced satisfactory results.[47] In 2006, Schiltz Goose Farms began developing non-force-fed fatty goose livers by similar seasonal methods,[48][49] producing their first "fatty goose livers" in 2007, with sizes two to three times that of normal goose livers (by comparison with up to six times for force-fed geese).

Personally, I dislike foie gras (which is why my foodie friends jostle to sit near me in fancy French restaraunts!) but I also dislike ill-informed legislation that impacts my personal life.  I think the "silliness" of this law is in the fact that is it perfectly legal to go to a restaurant in Chicago and order a steak from a CAFO steer (which have to be suffering in far greater numbers than foie gras birds), or pork chops, or veal, but not foie gras? Isolating this one instance of animal cruelty in our typical American diet seems odd and unfair.

Nevertheless, I could wish the original legislation was intended to allow "humane" forms of foie gras, similar to the California legislation, which put the focus of the method of producing the food, not the food item itself.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinio ...


Peace, kmf ___________________________________________________________________ A meal is a terrible thing to waste

Possibly the most famous opponent of raising ducks and geese for foie gras is none other than Pope Benedict XVI.  This is one of the very small number of subjects regarding which he and I are on the same page.

Anyway, a blogger in the New York Times today (whose comment I cannot locate at present) made an interesting connexion between the repeal of this ban in Chicago and the horrid death of the racehorse Eight Belles, saying that the cause of animal rights ought to be advancing, but it looks like it is retreating.

I have felt similarly, with regard to meat-eating in general: It may indeed be true that more and more Americans (of a certain class and/or educational background) are becoming vegetarian (that is just a guess, actually; I do not have real figures); but as other people in the world are becoming more affluent, they seem to be including more meat in their diets.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

The article to which Kurt Michael Friese refers (which seems to emanate not from The Times but from that still more notoriously right-wing rag The Telegraph) suggests that activist attention to foie gras is more about class resentment than compassion for animals (we should of course stipulate that to the Brits pretty much everything is about class). I'd suggest it's more to dispute the extreme-foodie notion that if it tastes great we should have no qualms about eating it.

Aside from that, I've never cottoned to this notion that because evil 'X' is worse we should not concern ourselves with evil 'Y'. Should we neglect to prosecute burglary and fraud because they are less heinous crimes than torture, rape and murder?

Meanwhile. Work to be done.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

Hudson Valley Foie Gras is the largest foie gras producer in the U.S. and one of the largest factory farming corporations in New York State.
and
Sonoma Foie Gras buys their ducklings from Grimaud Farms, one of the country's largest duck factory farms.

Sonoma Foie Gras is responsible for the production of 20% of the United States' foie gras, and the confinement, forced-feeding, and slaughter of over 100,000 ducks a year. At a very young age, the ducks are put into crowded pens in filthy sheds. The floor is covered with feces and vomit. The farm is so unsanitary that rats run freely. Investigators witnessed and documented a rat eating two ducks alive.

These are 2 shining industry examples who produce the majority of this literally crappy 'food' and the exposure of their operations are the reason that many of these bans have been passed around the country (including the force feeding production ban in CA that will soon go into effect)

Once they view the videos and photos of the standard industry practices of intense confinement  unsanitary conditions, and rampant disease and the evident pain and suffering of these creatures, many of the more compassionate chefs, such as Wolfgang Puck have come to renounce this 'delicacy of despair' and no longer offer it on their menus.

Like so much of modern industrial food production, its about greed, and profit first and animal welfare and environmental impacts last, and in the case of the 'foodies' its all about putting on pretensions of being a gourmand or wanting to eat like the elite and appearing to have 'taste' because some marketer told you that this is a 'delicacy' for the refined palate, but you are really just eating an apparently flavorful piece of diseased bird organ produced in an arguably cruel manner. Foie gras is simply gourmet cruelty. bon appetite.

http://www.gourmetcruelty.com/

 Inside the giant sheds of these factory farms, investigators witnessed and documented tens of thousands of ducks crammed into filthy, crowded pens, and tens of thousands more languishing in tiny isolation cages so small they could barely move, much less spread their wings or turn around.

At Hudson Valley Foie Gras, investigators found many birds blinded by infections. In some cases, these infections were so severe that it was difficult to tell where their eyes once were.

At Sonoma Foie Gras, investigators encountered many birds with festering gaping wounds on their rears. Investigators documented two birds literally being eaten alive by a rat. In the isolation cages of Hudson Valley, many birds had painful open wounds and stained the birds in adjacent cages with their blood.

Investigators also documented the daily torture of the forced-feeding process at both facilities.

Forced-feeding begins when the ducks are just three months old. For nearly a month, the ducks have a long metal pole repeatedly shoved down their throats. Through this pole, they are forced to ingest a pound of food--a tenth of their healthy body weight--three times a day.

Investigators documented workers carelessly and roughly grabbing ducks by their throats as they struggled to avoid the forced-feeding pipe. After pumping massive quantities of food into the ducks stomachs, one worker was documented literally throwing birds across the pen.

Investigators uncovered the aftermath of this forced-feeding at both farms. GourmetCruelty.com documented dying birds covered in their own vomit. The corpses of birds who had suffocated and choked to death from forced-feeding were found in the cages and pens. Numerous garbage cans filled with dead birds, some of whom appeared to have exploded from the forced-feeding process, were also uncovered.

Along with the cans of corpses and the dead birds who were found in the pens and cages, investigators found decaying corpses on the floor, in piles of excrement, and under pens. The stench of death permeated the sheds. The discarded victims of foie gras production were everywhere, laying testament to the cruelty of the industry.

I believe it is a worthy goal for those of us who care about the world to do what we can to help create a future that is more compassionate, just, and loving than the present.

In the kinder, gentler world that we all should be helping to create, there will be a greater degree of respect for the lives of animals. There will be no room for foie gras and other similarly cruel products.

Whether the ducks and geese are force-fed or not, confining animals and then slaughtering them so that humans can eat them is unnecessary. Doing so makes a victim of the individual who is imprisoned and murdered, and victimizers of those individuals who perform and support such actions.

It is time to abolish the production of foie gras, and all other forms of animal abuse, whether it is raising animals for food, for clothing, for entertainment, or for scientific experimentation.

Towards a more compassionate world for all beings,
Loren Hart
Chapel Hill, NC

P.S. Here's some information about foie gras that may be of interest to you.

==

The Trend to Stop the Cruelty of Foie Gras Hits Speed Bump

May 15, 2008

From http://www.farmsanctuary.org/get_involved/update_fg_speed ... .

Foie gras is produced by force-feeding confined ducks or geese enormous amounts of food--up to a third of their body weight-several times a day. A worker grabs each duck and, one by one, thrusts a metal pipe down his throat so that a mixture of corn can be forced directly into his gullet. The force feeding causes the birds' livers to swell up to 10 times their normal size and develop a diseased state known as hepatic lipidosis. As disease wracks their bodies, the ducks become unable to walk, stand or even breathe without extreme pain.

The cruel conditions of force feeding of ducks and geese to produce foie gras is well known:

*    Foie gras production has been banned in California andmore than a dozen countries, including Israel, formerly the world's third-largest foie gras producer.

*    Scores of dining establishments (including 217 in Illinois alone) have removed foie gras from their menus, owing to the extreme cruelty involved in its production.

*    Even top-notch chefs like Wolfgang Puck have spoken out publicly against the cruelty of foie gras production.

*    Luminaries like Pope Benedict XVI and Prince Charles of England have spoken out against the cruelty of foie gras production--the latter banning it from royal menus earlier in 2008.

*    In May 2008, the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (comprised of experts including former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman and former University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine Dean Dr. Michael Blackwell) released a report urging, among other things, that the force feeding of ducks or geese be phased out.

==

Prince Charles Bans Foie Gras

2.26.08

From http://blog.peta.org/archives/2008/02/prince_charles.php

The Daily Mail just reported that Prince Charles has banned foie gras from royal menus and "instructed chefs at all of his royal residences to stop serving the dish." The announcement came after an activist in Bristol wrote to the prince about the cruelty involved in producing the stuff when she noticed that it was being sold in the royally appointed shop House of Cheese. Here's how Prince Charles' Deputy Master of the Household (i.e., the guy who writes back to you when you send a letter to the Royal Palace) responded:

"The Prince of Wales has asked me to write and thank you for your letter about animal welfare issues surrounding the production of foie gras and your experience in Tetbury. I just wanted to reassure you that The Prince of Wales has a policy that his chefs should not buy foie gras. His Royal Highness was not aware that the House of Cheese sells foie gras and this will be addressed when their warrant is reviewed."

That's about as big a boost to Britain's growing movement to permanently ban the sale of foie gras as you could hope for: If the few remaining establishments that are still selling the stuff won't take it from outraged consumers, they might want to think twice about ignoring a frickin' royal mandate. PETA's president sent a letter to the Prince today, thanking him for taking this compassionate stand, and we're hoping that this positive example from overseas will influence cities like Chicago to stand by their decisions to ban this cruel delicacy forever. Thank you, Prince Charles.

===

Seeing is believing. For more information, please see the following videos.

http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=foie_gras_U ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IWN8UGDyC0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s-23fHnnP0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u4OGbUVkHE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds65Dl15qMw

Thanks too to good ol' SpaceShaper, for pointing out that the foodies' argument from aesthetics is awfully weak.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Hey, on an unrelated note, did you all know that the Nazis used human hair, fat, and skin in the production of various consumer goods during WWII.  I wonder how those consumers justified to themselves that there was nothing inhumane about those products.

Shu pas a vende.