Article on Foie Gras in this week's East Bay Express: Please Writ e Letters!

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends,

This week's issue of the East Bay Express includes an article by Jonathan

Kauffman on Foie Gras. While Kauffman's conclusion does not align with the veg

perspective, his article does offer a lot of very good and important information

on the cruelty inherent in the production of foie gras. He even

eludes to the cruelty visited upon egg-laying hens. Please take a couple of

minutes to send a letter to the editor of the East Bay Express (you can do it

online at:

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/feedback/index_html?author_email=feedback@eastbaye\

xpress.com & headline=Letter%20to%20the%20Editor:%20Foie%20Gras%20Follies & issuedat\

e=2002/08/21), commending them for running a piece that sheds light on this area

in which consumer choices can make such a huge difference

in alleviating unnecessary suffering.

Thanks so much!

Best,

Alka

 

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/2002-08-21/sink.html/1/index.html

East Bay Express (East San Francisco)

August 21, 2002 Wednesday

SECTION: Dining/Columns

HEADLINE: Foie Gras Follies

Eat the rich instead.

BYLINE: By Jonathan Kauffman

BODY:

Form the battle lines: the foie gras war has come to town. Activists from the

American Coalition for Animal Defense (www.americad.info), a nationwide animal

rights group, recently opened an office in Oakland. Their goal is to conduct a

campaign of education, protest, and legislative advocacy to halt the production

and sale of foie gras in California. The organization, which formed in 1997 out

of a loose coalition of student-run groups in New York state, originally

targeted the fur industry.

To make foie gras (French for " fat liver " ), ducks or geese are force-fed

cornmeal through a metal tube for several weeks. " [They're fed] up to seven

pounds a day, " says ACAD spokesperson Bryan Pease; a PETA brochure claims the

human equivalent would be sixteen pounds of spaghetti daily. The birds' livers

swell to six to ten times normal size, and become milky-hued, delicately

flavored, and unctuously rich. (Their much-prized breasts are sold as magret.)

The practice of fattening up birds to swell their livers goes back to

Egyptian times. The Larousse Gastronomique reports that Romans force-fed geese

with figs. In France foie gras is most often eaten in the home as a Christmas

specialty.

Pressure from animal-rights activists convinced Switzerland, Britain, and

several other European countries to outlaw foie gras production, but Switzerland

and Britain are two of the top four importers of foie gras from France. There

are two foie gras producers in the States: Hudson Valley Farms in New York and

one far closer to home: Sonoma Foie Gras in Sonoma County.

ACAD has picketed cooking demonstrations by the owner of Hudson Valley Farms

and protested at Manhattan restaurants that serve the new veal. The group plans

to do the same in California, and they hope to spread their legislative

activities nationally so that foie gras farmers can't set up shop in other

states.

The group has also targeted the San Diego tourist board for its statewide

advertising slogan: " Feed the part of you that foie gras simply can't. " " We feel

that the tourism department shouldn't glorify foie gras or make it seem socially

acceptable, " says Pease. Likewise, he isn't very subtle about the class aspects

that surround foie gras.

Does force-feeding cause the ducks excessive pain? Without a doubt. Pease

claims that the feeding process -- during which the ducks are kept almost

immobile in small cages -- can rupture the ducks' stomachs, tear their esophagi,

and make breathing difficult. And is force-feeding ducks for their livers really

any crueler than commercial egg-laying techniques, where debeaked hens spend

their lives packed into crowded cages without room to ever spread their wings?

For modern urbanites, the ethical quandary that eating animal products such

as veal and foie gras presents us stems from our awareness that the personal

relationship between food source and dinner plate has disappeared. On one side,

we're disturbed by this fact; on the other, we're relieved to claim that our own

hands are bloodless. It's only recently that artisanal, special-occasion

products such as foie gras are being made in mass quantities. Somehow we find

more horror in the picture of a row of caged ducks awaiting the pass of an

automated force-feeding machine than we do with that of a farm wife holding the

Christmas goose between her knees and pushing food into its belly with a funnel

and plunger.

As a food critic I can neither justify refusing to eat foie gras nor buying

it for myself. On my own time, I make an effort to buy meat that reflects

sustainable, " humane " hunting and farming practices. I made my peace with eating

animal flesh of all kinds long ago. I will continue to eat foie gras -- as I do

farm-raised salmon, commercial bacon, and yes, the occasional veal shank -- in

moderation, when circumstances demand, and with relish. I keep returning to the

words of one of the chefs I talked to when researching this article: " Foie gras

is not the enemy. "