Theyre trying to ban foie gras in New York:
Animal Rights Groups Ask New York to Ban Foie Gras. Of course this was coming. After what’s happened in California and Chicago, they’re just going to keep going after everyone else. The more they push, the angrier I get about this issue.
Here’s the core of what “they” are claiming:
Animal Rights Groups Ask New York to Ban Foie Gras – New York Times:
In a novel legal strategy, animal rights advocates demanded yesterday that state regulators in Albany help decide the fate of foie gras, made from the engorged livers of ducks and geese. It is a buttery but costly staple of four-star restaurants everywhere, especially those in New York City.
Advocates have long criticized the production of foie gras for pâté or another use, calling it cruel to the fowl because they are force-fed, usually with long plastic tubes, for four weeks before slaughter. Their livers grow in size by at least six times.
In a 16-page petition, the Humane Society of the United States and others, including New York residents, asked the state’s Department of Agriculture and Markets to use a law ordinarily applied to food like rotten or mislabeled beef.
The groups want foie gras declared an “adulterated” food within the meaning of Article 17, Section 200 of the Agriculture and Markets Law. The agriculture commissioner would then have the option of banning foie gras.
New York State law, in part, defines adulterated food as “diseased, contaminated, filthy, putrid or decomposed.”
Carter Dillard, director of farm-animal litigation at the Humane Society, based in Washington, said in a telephone interview that the petition “doesn’t speak to whether there’s a health risk or not” in foie gras itself.
The arguments go on and on: the animals are not diseased, it’s a natural occurrence in which fowl store fat reserves in their livers, it doesn’t affect human health so it can’t be an issue, it’s no worse than farming other animals. I have no opinion on (a), see below for more on (b), (c) misses the point, and (d) may well be true, which is why I don’t eat them either.
Mr. Ginor likened force-feeding to the treatment of confined cattle, which reach 400 pounds after two years, he said, compared with grass-fed cattle, which reach that weight after four years. He also said that foie gras ducks were 16 weeks old at the time of slaughter, compared with 8 weeks or less for ducks roasted or grilled in restaurants.
But Mr. Ginor acknowledged that it was unlikely that the liver of a duck in the wild or on a free-range farm, which typically has a liver weighing three ounces, would grow to restaurant-quality levels of 19 ounces or more without force-feeding.
Unlikely? Yes, I expect so: a six-fold increase in the size of one organ seems improbable. I suspect the goose or duck is not feeling 100% at the end of their 16 week life.
It’s simple. Don’t ask someone to do something you wouldn’t do. If you can’t slit a chicken’s throat or wring it’s neck, don’t ask someone else to do it just for your own convenience. If you can’t even watch a cow go through the chute to the killing floor with it’s non-zero chance of not having been stunned before it gets there, don’t pay someone else to do it. Be conscious. Be aware of your impact.
