Activists Continue Fight To Ban Fois Gras
US - Many people eating the gourmet delicacy known as "foie gras" do not know how it is produced. They might not even know the translation from the French: "fatty liver."An aggressive campaign by animal rights groups aims to tell consumers exactly how the duck and goose livers become so tender and flavorful: by force-feeding cornmeal through a hard tube shoved down the bird’s esophagus, causing its liver to bloat up to ten times its normal size.
Groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Farm Sanctuary, an organization that rescues and provides refuge to animals discarded by the agribusiness industry, have led the charge against what they see as exceptionally vile animal mistreatment.
In response to the campaign, a number of high-profile institutions and some celebrity chefs have stopped serving foie gras.
Foie gras production was banned in California, effective 2012, by state legislation signed in September, and bills are now pending or proposed in Massachusetts, New York, Illinois and Oregon to ban its production.
The Massachusetts and Illinois bills also ban the importation or sale of the fatty livers in the state; the Oregon and New York bills are still in development.
"Once people find out just how cruel foie gras production is, they’ll refuse to purchase it or eat it," said Cem Akin, research associate at PETA, which started pressuring institutions to remove foie gras from their menus in 1992 and won such converts as the Boston Symphony and Williams-Sonoma, the specialty food and cookware supplier.
Source: The New Standard
3 January 2006
1 minute read
