Foie Gras

[thunderball]

On the practice of force-feeding or 'gavage':

"The result of this practice is a severely enlarged and fatty liver which results in the liver disease hepatic lipidosis. The liver may swell up to 12 times its normal size (up to three pounds)".

Yeah...that sounds great.

 

[toucanlamp]

Some animal rights stuff is stupid, like all the opposition to seal hunting which is 100% only because they have cute little puppy dog expressions.

But there is a lot of stuff, like foie gras, serving fish that you cut up but don't kill and is wriggling on the plate in Japan, which is pure sadism. I mean why not carve up a cow's leg every two weeks before slaughtering it eventually because maybe scar tissue is a delicacy?

You accept that maybe the farmer mistreated the chicken you're eating, but you can know that mistreated livestock produces a poorer quality product and so there's a big disincentive there, plus regulation and inspection rules and processes have vastly improved in the last couple decades.

But if you can take pleasure in something which you absolutely know is the result of some unnatural biological experiment which destroyed the proper function of the animal's body, then you don't mind causing some animal major suffering for a needless luxury.

And the kind of argument that animals don't really suffer because they aren't self-aware like humans, that's so stupid. Like that family in Austria who grew up in an underground dungeon weren't really suffering because they never experienced anything else.

There's lots of suffering in nature and the world, but I don't think anyone should be just fine with a 100% direct exchange of pleasure to you from the prolonged suffering of another creature. And it is just immediate gratification because unlike regular meat which in moderation can be part of a healthy diet, foie gras is very unhealthy.

 

[Dubbya]

I don't eat factory cows or chickens, so factory geese are also probably out of the question.

I've had it prepared for me by a local butcher from three ducks taken from last year's 6AM, cold as hell by the way, expedition down to the river with a shotgun, a buddy, and a good dog. It's just as good wild as it is farm raised.

 

[Zombasaur]

But if you can take pleasure in something which you absolutely know is the result of some unnatural biological experiment which destroyed the proper function of the animal's body, then you don't mind causing some animal major suffering for a needless luxury.

If the production of foie gras was an unnatural experiment, you might have a point. However, the process of gavage mimics the process that migratory fowl undertake before the migration. Ducks and geese in the wild have their livers enlarged by themselves all the time. Also, ducks that have been in the process of gavage have had their livers return to normal size, with no noticeable effects afterwards.

For more reading on this topic, check out the book "Foie Gras Wars" by Mark Caro. I read this a few months ago and it really does bring up both sides of the entire debate very well.

 

[homebrewer]

It is so delicious that I'm considering making a pilgrimage back to Chicago, just to eat a foie gras hot dog at a little place called Hot Dougs. Honestly, I could care less about the "cruelty"... I personally fell that foie gras is one of the greatest human achievements, up there with the wheel, electricity, the automobile, etc.

 

[Blondie]

The stuff is awesome, don't care how it is made.

 

[toucanlamp]

If the production of foie gras was an unnatural experiment, you might have a point. However, the process of gavage mimics the process that migratory fowl undertake before the migration. Ducks and geese in the wild have their livers enlarged by themselves all the time. Also, ducks that have been in the process of gavage have had their livers return to normal size, with no noticeable effects afterwards.

For more reading on this topic, check out the book "Foie Gras Wars" by Mark Caro. I read this a few months ago and it really does bring up both sides of the entire debate very well.

They do but not anywhere near the extent that occurs as a result of force feeding. Stocking up on nutrition for a journey is a lot different than dumping a kilo of grain down a duck's throat per day. You look at the videos of ducks who have been force fed for foie gras, they couldn't even walk around let alone fly, the breathing is extremely laboured as well. No duck or goose is going to eat voluntarily until its liver makes up half or more of its whole body weight.

If someone is eating the liver of a duck that they have hunted or whatnot that has the enlarged liver prior to migration, that is not a problem. But I've read that attempts to make a "humane" foie gras have been weak at best because it ends up with a liver only a couple or so times larger than normal vs. 5 and more times larger in force fed ones.

That's like saying it wouldn't be unnatural to force feed any hibernating animal so it quadruples its weight because they put on extra fat for the winter.

 

[Zombasaur]

You're right, the process of gavage does take a natural act and push it past what nature had intended. The same is true of all modern farming, whether you're a vegetarian or not. Cows are made ready for slaughter in 18 months, instead of the 4-5 years it used to take. Turkeys are bred to have breasts so large that they can no longer fly. Corn is produced (and subsidized) so that farmers can pull 3-4 times what they used to be able to off the land. Soybeans are genetically modified so that they can be sprayed with weed-killer and not die.

If you buy any food in a supermarket, you're eating something that was in some way forced to push itself beyond it's limits. This is called agriculture. Humans have been doing it for millennia, ever since we moved away from a hunter-gatherer society in favor of cities.

SWMBO and I have tried to become more food conscious, thinking about where our food is coming from, buying more from local farmers that have actually raised the animals that we are eating. When is comes down to foie gras, I personally feel better ethically about how the animals are treated than how pigs are raised. Really, when it comes down to it, everyone has to make their own decision where they stand on the food spectrum.

 

[professorchaos]

It is so delicious that I'm considering making a pilgrimage back to Chicago, just to eat a foie gras hot dog at a little place called Hot Dougs. Honestly, I could care less about the "cruelty"... I personally fell that foie gras is one of the greatest human achievements, up there with the wheel, electricity, the automobile, etc.

Says something that Chicago banned it in 2006 and overturned that ban two years later.

 

[gratewhitehuntr]

comparisons to the rest of animal agriculture are incorrect

lets say a lamb were made more tasty by being beaten in the head with a stick three times a day

everything else was normal, but the animal had to be beaten severely every day or it would lose flavor

of course there would be a death rate due to brain trauma
I suppose maybe even enough deaths to make it expensive

maybe the farm operator could offer a prize for the worker who killed the least animals

 

[masonjarjar]

And it is just immediate gratification because unlike regular meat which in moderation can be part of a healthy diet, foie gras is very unhealthy.

Good point. It's definitely not an "its the cycle of life" issue.

no one needs that stuff.

 

[Fnord5]

comparisons to the rest of animal agriculture are incorrect

lets say a lamb were made more tasty by being beaten in the head with a stick three times a day

everything else was normal, but the animal had to be beaten severely every day or it would lose flavor

of course there would be a death rate due to brain trauma
I suppose maybe even enough deaths to make it expensive

maybe the farm operator could offer a prize for the worker who killed the least animals

Comparing head trauma to forced feeding is like comparing apples to moray eels.
Ugh.

Foie Gras is delicious.
Story, End of.

 

[Zombasaur]

comparisons to the rest of animal agriculture are incorrect

So you're ok with cows being fed corn (not what they would normally eat) so that their stomach turns from a basic pH (natural) to an acidic pH. Then when they get ulcers from the acidity due to the unnatural diet, they are fed antiboitics to stop infection.

Or hens being placed in battery cages, with each hen being allotted the size of a sheet of paper for it's entire life.

Or pigs having their tails taken off so that when another anxious pig starts gnawing on another's tail, it won't cause an infection.

There is a LOT worse animal practices in the food industry than gavage. Where do you draw the line? People's problem with foie gras isn't really the practice. If McDs sold foie gras, there would be no problem. People get hung up because:

a. It's liver.
b. It's something 'rich' people eat.

It's perfectly within the scope of the discussion to talk about whether or not it falls within acceptable farming practices. As an avid meat eater, I've felt the need to further examine exactly WHAT I'm eating, and where it's coming from. It's why I've switched from battery hen eggs to local eggs, and from supermarket beef to local farm raised beef. If you've decided that foie gras is cruel in your eyes, so be it, but it looks like fine farming to me.

 

[gratewhitehuntr]

I don't think it has anything to do with rich people

plus, I grew up on a beef farm

you are 100% right in everything you said (other than rich people)

everyone should know that their bucket of chicken grew in a box

I like to be personally responsible for the death f my meat

 

[Confilo]

I don't think this poll is meaningful - delicious and cruel are not mutually exclusive or even shades of grey, so my answer is "both", like veal and some authentic sushi dishes. Great foie gras is one of the best things imaginable. Chicago banned it for a time but I don't believe the ban was ever enforced - it just raised the price even more!

I agree, I voted both for delicious and cruel

 

[thunderball]

So you're ok with cows being fed corn (not what they would normally eat) so that their stomach turns from a basic pH (natural) to an acidic pH. Then when they get ulcers from the acidity due to the unnatural diet, they are fed antiboitics to stop infection.

Or hens being placed in battery cages, with each hen being allotted the size of a sheet of paper for it's entire life.

Or pigs having their tails taken off so that when another anxious pig starts gnawing on another's tail, it won't cause an infection.

There is (are) a LOT worse animal practices in the food industry than gavage...if you've decided that foie gras is cruel in your eyes, so be it, but it looks like fine farming to me.

Ahhh...the old 'Two Wrongs Make a Right' fallacy. Takes me back to Philosophy 101:

"This fallacy involves the attempt to justify a wrong action by pointing to another wrong action. Often, the other wrong action is of the same type or committed by the accuser, in which case it is the subfallacy Tu Quoque. Attempting to justify committing a wrong on the grounds that someone else is guilty of another wrong is clearly a Red Herring, because if this form of argument were cogent, one could justify anything―always assuming that there is another wrong to point to, which is a very safe assumption."

 

[toucanlamp]

I just think that really if you want to eat foie gras then go for it, but don't try and say it isn't cruel. And you can't hold your beliefs ala carte either, so if you think it is delicious and cruel and are fine with that, then next time you read an article about the kid who sticks a cat in the microwave then you better not say a thing because you've taken the position that an animal's suffering doesn't count for anything.

It doesn't have anything to do with it being a rich person's food, some of the most viscious criticism of livestock treatment has been directed at fast food companies like KFC, who have been exposed as buying their meat from places where the animals are treated with insane cruelty, and as a result of public pressure, they've had to make major reforms and the state of livestock raising today is vastly more humane than it was ten years ago.

Like I said, there is the irrational kind of animal rights positions, exemplified by opposition to seal hunting, and then there is perectly rational positions and I think foie gras fits that perfectly - suffering for unncessary pleasure. That's called sadism.

 

[Zombasaur]

If one thinks that foie gras is suffering, so be it. I truly do not think it is suffering after what I've learned about it.

The whole discussion really comes to where you morally stand on certain items, and I'm not about to get into a morality of food discussion online, as I don't think this kind of discussion really lends itself well to quick posting, and I'm not a pro writer. My last post got taken a bit out of context. I wasn't trying to say that 2 wrongs make a right, I was stating how I had recently been reevaluating a lot of my eating. (The whole part that got left out by elipses.) It's hard for me to sum up a whole 2-3 months of thought about my food in a few posts.

If anyone wants to talk more about it, feel free to PM, but right now I feel like I threadjacked and now am spinning the wheels.

 

[thunderball]

My last post got taken a bit out of context. I wasn't trying to say that 2 wrongs make a right, I was stating how I had recently been reevaluating a lot of my eating. (The whole part that got left out by elipses.) It's hard for me to sum up a whole 2-3 months of thought about my food in a few posts.

Upon re-reading your posts it looks as though I may have misunderstood the gist of what you were getting at and may have taken your comments out of context as you mentioned.

 

[Greyfox]

Love the stuff.