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Chef-owner Damien Brassel of the East Village restaurant Knife + Fork is finding his place, somewhat unexpectedly, at the center of the foie gras cruelty debate: According to a post on The Feedbag, Brassel was confronted last weekend by a man who told him “stop serving Foie Gras or else,” who then “promised a protest.” On Saturday, eight protestors stationed themselves outside Knife + Fork; elsewhere, lawsuits from animal rights activists continue to challenge to ethics of foie gras production, which are considered by some to be cruel. Brassel is the only cook in the small restaurant, which has a pint-sized kitchen he shares with his potwasher. He told the Feedbag “I expect them to be back this Saturday and I’ll have a new foie gras dish ready for them.”
Foie Gras Activists Descend on East Village Restaurant
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Crazy woman on the subway. This is too great not to post!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOCbij4lgl
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I think I might have to march myself down there tout de suite and order myself a few courses of foie gras as a gesture of solidarity.
mmm... I think I'll join you
Foie gras production involves force feeding intensively-confined ducks and geese an unnatural amount of food through a pipe thrust down their throats two to three times a day until their livers expand to several times their natural size and they are at the point of extreme illness. The resultant liver disease is called hepatic lipidosis and makes it so the birds find it hard to stand or breathe without difficulty and often suffer tremendously due to throat, liver and esophegal bruising, lacerations, sores, rupture. These are not opinions but facts: please do let me know if you find otherwise.
DUE TO ETHICAL CONCERNS, OVER A DOZEN COUNTRIES – including the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, Israel, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland – as well as the state of California (passed in August 2004 and effective in 2012) have banned foie gras production and/or sales.
People who advocate on behalf of animals, ducks or others, often come from backgrounds in which they were helping people, and who have extended their circle of compassion to include animals. It is common to not be interested in one or the other cause, but in both.
Visit www.nofoiegras.org and force yourself to watch the videos. Is your few minutes of pleasure really worth months of suffering? There are plenty of other things to satisfy your palate. The 'anything goes' attitude in how far we'll abuse animals for some fleeting pleasure in unacceptable.
ditto
foie gras is sooo tasty, haven't had any in a while. i think i'll rectify that shortly.
Force feeding geese is just as inhumane as feeding cows corn slush. So unless those people are vegans, go after any restaurant that doesn't serve grass fed beef.
Yeah, but they don't nail the cow's feet to the floor.
Factory farmed cows are packed shoulder to shoulder in warehouses three feet deep with their own shit. So the difference is negligible.
And geese and ducks don't have a gag reflex, they are natural gorgers. (The nailing feet to the ground thing is bs too.)
They don't do that with geese, either. The PETA people are counting on you being dumb enough to believe lies (like that) that they shamelessly spread.
If you think foie gras is tasty, wait till you try a baby seal cutlet. MMmm..
Or maybe PETA protester pan-seared in a pomegranate reduction served over a bed of frissee drizzled with white truffle oil?
It's unbelievable how people can defend this practice so flippantly. Isn't animal abuse hilarious!
Plants have feelings too.
Why aren't you out protesting folks mowing their lawns? I mean, think about it, all those spinning steel blades chopping up those poor, defenseless blades of grass.. !
Or what about every time you squash a roach? There's genocide happening EVERY DAY in NYC.
THE HORROR OF IT ALL!
SO CLEVER! I've never heard that one before!
Where is Knife + Fork? I'm going to order myself some of that tasty treat!
i'm eating lunch right now (this is a tasty burger) & this foie gras thing sounds disgusting.
isn't the liver an organ that processes/fitlers toxins/waste? not something i want to eat.
I'm with you. Organ meats are best avoided. Ironically enough, they can help cause kidney stones too.
I like eating more than I care about farm animals
HTFH
Where's felixthecat? Are geese not cute enough to defend?
Next they'll want us to stop eating "poor, little cuddly bunnies". They're trying to get kids to call fish "sea kittens" to turn them against seafood.
As Anthony Bourdain said: "If it's smaler than me and slower than me and dumber than me... it's called 'lunch.'"
Just thinking that someone who would force-feed an animal like this, or someone who would eat the product of such a process, is someone without any sense of dignity or self worth. It sounds like what Jeffrey Dahmer did to the animals he found as a child in terms of sheer sickness and torture. Super, isn't it?
No it's not.
The two farms in the US that produce foie gras have been nothing but upfront about their practices. Peta's campaign against small farmers and tiny restaurants is cowardly and pointless.
If they really wanted to make an impact on animal rights they'd grow a pair and protest in suburban supermarkets about the way most factory farmed chickens are raised that make it into food every American eats.
This approach causes nothing but backlash and noise. Even animal rights fanatics should see this obsession with foie gras isn't working.
The focus of foie gras activism is to protest an egregiously cruel way of processing animals for food. The ducks are kept in tiny cages and force-fed several times a day until their livers become diseased and swell 10 times their natural size. The disease, hepatic lipidosis, wracks the birds' bodies, preventing them from walking, standing, or even breathing without extreme pain.
Animal rights activists take up many social justice causes and issues, including factory farming, so when you see protests against a restaurant serving foie gras, that doesn't mean we forget about other sentient beings needlessly suffering or being exploited. We have also been making major strides in terms of helping animals, in both culturally and legislatively, so there is no backlash. The black "humor" posted here is really disturbing but I'm confident that this is a minority opinion overall -- most people are horrified when confronted with the truth about how animals used for food/entertainment/clothing etc are treated.
Oh please. Tell me exactly how you think you are doing advancing any cause by harassing a random small business with your protests. You are reaching for low hanging fruit. As a commenter above said, you should be protesting in front of supermarkets and McDonalds. This is utter idiocy. Foie gras production is a drop in the bucket. As for the feelings of ducks and geese, I have ZERO sympathy. Birds are mean, filthy, disease carrying, stupid animals. Their only saving grace is that they taste good. Talk to me about the suffering of fellow mammals such as cows, pigs, sheep, and I will suffer to listen to you. Birds? No way. Fatten them up, kill them, apply lots of heat and put em on a plate.
I have nothing but respect and appreciation for those who take a little time away from their own appetites and desires- on a cold Saturday night no less- and try to advocate on behalf of the helpless. Farm Sanctuary's positive message is spreading across New York City as people willing to grant a little mercy and compassion get active. Instead of attacking them, find out what they have to say. You may find yourself learning something!
Well said! :)
Or how about you help feed the fucking homeless instead of worrying more about animals than people.
Bunch of douches, you are.
Well said :)
Foie gras production involves force feeding intensively-confined ducks and geese an unnatural amount of food through a pipe thrust down their throats two to three times a day until their livers expand to several times their natural size and they are at the point of extreme illness. The resultant liver disease is called hepatic lipidosis and makes it so the birds find it hard to stand or breathe without difficulty and often suffer tremendously due to throat, liver and esophegal bruising, lacerations, sores, rupture. These are not opinions but facts: please do let me know if you find otherwise.
DUE TO ETHICAL CONCERNS, OVER A DOZEN COUNTRIES – including the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, Israel, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland – as well as the state of California (passed in August 2004 and effective in 2012) have banned foie gras production and/or sales.
People who advocate on behalf of animals, ducks or others, often come from backgrounds in which they were helping people, and who have extended their circle of compassion to include animals. It is common to not be interested in one or the other cause, but in both.
Yes, it's a curious accusation that animal rights activists don't care about human issues. Thank you for addressing that so eloquently.
Thank you Cosmo1, for your eloquent explanation.
Get a life! And stay out of mine. I shall be at K & F eating foie gras to my heart's content tonight in a show of solidarity.
I'd love to see them threaten restaurants in Little Italy for serving veal.
The same people who posted on peta today. you don't hate peta, you hate animals.plain and simple
Some Peta activists bring in upon themselves. Dressing up as KKK members? You wouldn't call that extreme. There are better ways to be productive about animal rights and those extremists give all animal activists a bad name.
I will donate 150 or more to Peta if I don't send it all this weekend.
If you want duck liver go into the woods, shoot it, gut it and eat it. Someone else should not do the dirty work for you.