Gothamist: A Move to Ban Foie Gras in New York

Stevie Vong

Sat, 24 Jun 2006 23:18:02 -0500

If we base what we eat on treatment... we will starve. Period. All meats would have to be pulled and we just don't produce enough of our own greens to cover everyone. I guess I will have to go to France to eat Foie gras! Imagine- more freedoms in France than in the USA...how does that taste?! The process in a nutshell: Duck is forced fed with water or food, multiple times a day and then when the ducks are huge, they are killed. The suffing of these ducks causes the liver to expand. This is used to make Foie Gras. Tasty as hell this food is. Now we have a Canadien Geese overload on the Island and a bunch of really good French chef's in Manhattan...I do see a solution here :) Jean-George Vongerichten- My hero...are you available? Peace.

Ria

Sat, 24 Jun 2006 23:05:46 -0500

Who the HELL do these "people" think they are telling me what I can and cannot eat? I hope the legislature has better things to do than kowtow to these idiots. I for one enjoy eating foie gras, and plan to continue doing so - and yes, I'm a meat eating, fur-wearing bitch, too - got a problem with that?

La Leone

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:31:17 -0500

I worry about cruelty to my fellow men and women AND to animals everyday! I read about the foie gras process & raising veal & chickens, etc. I won't mention it here, as obviously no one cares, but it's just changed me, that's all. This article makes no mention WHATSOEVER of the foie gras process - it's actually disgusting. I don't think it's 'treatment' of the duck, it's how foie gras is actually made. Not that anyone cares. Meat is fucking delicious, who denies that? I just couldn't deal with the reality of it after I got my hands on the information.

MT

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 09:08:03 -0500

People really need to get a grip. Maybe they should start worrying about the cruelty happening every day to their fellow man and get off their self-righteous soapboxes for an issue that is completely trivial in the bigger scheme of things. If you have nothing better to bitch about that the treatment of ducks, consider yourself damn lucky.

Jake

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 08:27:04 -0500

These animal rights jerk-offs should quit force-feeding their assholes with their own faces and get a life.

anonymass

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 23:51:11 -0500

Nice to see foie gras-ers aligning (or at least identifying themselves) with Charlton Heston. That thar's good company.

EJ

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:56:26 -0500

"from between my cold dead hands." Jeez, you really love this dish.

-ed

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 18:58:18 -0500

We have been producing foie gras for at least the last 4000 years. They'll get my foie gras when some skinny PETA twerp pries that duck from between my cold dead hands.

Kojak

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 18:09:07 -0500

When I make Foie gras, after I stuff the duck with only the fattiest of foods, I then beat it with a large blunt mallet while it’s still alive. Then I place the unconscious, but still breathing duck inside a large vice and then SQUEEZE the duck until the Foie gras comes out of its orifices. It tastes soooo much better when you prepare it that way! Is it inhumane to prepare it that way?

dug

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 17:58:52 -0500

while i totally disagree with gov't intervention, i think most 'fine diners' are idiots when it comes to the reality of fois gras. as evidenced in this forum. the ducks are literally jammed full of grain, as in a ramrod down the throat to bursting point. many explode alive. that's not the 'traditional' or 'ancient' way. it has nothing to do with collecting chicken menstruation, honey, milk, or normal slaughter of animals for meat. it's not that extreme to spotlight routine, unnecessary and illegal torture of animals. they can produce the fois gras without torture, it would simply cost more. you can eat whatever you please darrin but... hitler?! educate yourself and grow up before you speak in public.

Ethan

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 17:46:41 -0500

I think most of us can agree that it would be better if animals were treated well and respectively while they are alive before being slaughtered and brought to market. The problem with a foie gras ban is that it does very little to lessen the real source of animal cruelty, vast factory farms. Unlike the large farms, Hudson Valley Foie Gras are completely transparent about their business. They invite journalists to visit the farm and observe how the ducks are treated. Hell will freeze over before a factory farm voluntarily allows a journalist onsight. Ducks do not have a gag reflex so the force feeding is NOT painful. It may not be natural, but ducks with enlarged livers have been found in the wild. There is little to suggest that the treatment of ducks for foie gras is significantly worse than, say, free-range chickens. It is a hell of a lot better than the treatment of chickens on factory farms, where their beaks are routinely cut off without anesthetia. I am NOT an animal rights activist by any means but the controversy over foie gras just strikes me as completely ridiculous in the face of the awful animal cruelty in other areas. There is no need to even compare it to human suffering because everyday we eat food from animals that were treated far worse than ducks used for foie gras. So matt, until I hear of a city making it illegal to sell chicken from factory farms that do not adhere to animal cruelty laws (which they are generally exempt from), I will gladly ridicule those who are driving the anti foie gras movement.

Darrin

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 17:37:13 -0500

Just another move by the people who want to push their own "moral values" onto the rest of us. Many of them, when pressed, will admit that their goal is to free the animals from the slavery we impose upon them, which means: no killing animals for their meat, no confining chickens & ducks so we can "steal" their eggs, not taking milk for drinking & for cheesemaking, not robbing the innocent bees of their honey. No animals or animal products. Period. Yeah, they're as extremist as Ann Coulter & Adolph Hitler, but they hide behind the warm & fuzzy little geese & bunnies, trying to get just one little law passed at a time, telling us what we can't eat. We are biologically onmivores: if it's dumber, smaller & slower than we are, it's called "lunch"! Choose for yourself, but keep your "moral values" away from my kitchen.

josh

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 17:32:56 -0500

re the oysters: use horseradish to numb their pain- it's more humane.

Judas Iscariot

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:32:48 -0500

errrr but it's not wrong to hurt and kill humans. And again we definitely know where to place our priorities. Isn't it great that we've created a society that give rise to individuals who is able to find the time and energy to fight for the rights of ducks against all other concerns in the world. Makes me sooo sooo happy that I'm not in Darfur, Africa looking for my next meal while keeping from getting hacked to death, but fighting for the rights of ducks! YEAH!!

will

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:20:33 -0500

matt, i feel so guilty now. how may i repent?

matt

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 15:54:20 -0500

yes, mock the people who think it is wrong to hurt and kill animals.

yum

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 15:54:11 -0500

You'll have to pry my foie gras from my cold, dead hands. Stuffing cows full of corn, antibiotics, and growth hormone is pretty awful too. So are we therefore going to ban beef and wind up shutting down Shake Shack?

will

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 15:53:42 -0500

you know, its things like this that make me proud. i know my grandparents were dreaming of the day that their grandson's meals would be subject to compulsary inspection & approval by puritan scolds when they got on the boat in search of a better life. in fact. the very -presence- of foie gras in the old country is what motivated them to immigrate.

foi grasse

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 15:10:48 -0500

I find it shocking that there has been so much noise made about a supposedly cruel, yet ancient custom regarding the treatment of animals raised for human consumption, but, to my knowledge, there has been no such organized outrage about the treatment of humans in Guantanamo, for example. If, however, we're sticking to the subject of how animals should be treated, factory farming of cattle, chickens, etc. seems to be the far more egregious system of cruelty. I wonder what a starving Somalian would think about this "controversy."

b

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 15:10:21 -0500

lol @ foie gras haters ...such dumb asses

ok

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 15:07:13 -0500

Scientists found that when live plants are cut, the cells vibrate with a high-pitched frequency. They are screaming, in a sense. But they have no mouths or lungs for us to hear them. So should we stop eating plants then?