Foie Gras
Sunday's SF Chronicle, April 29, 2012, had a front page story titled "Food fight:  foie gras" with a picture captioned "Foie gras appetizers at an event at La Toque in Napa that raised money to fight the upcoming statewide ban."  Some of the information in the article was fascinating.    Chefs are threatening that if they're denied the right to serve foie gras, it will go on the black market.  "Chefs throughout Califonia have been holding foie gras dinners to call attention to the upcoming ban.  (This is Prop 2, written by the Humane Society of the US,  to appear on the ballot soon.)  Foie gras is, the article explains, produced by what the French call gavage--feeding the animals through a tube up to three times a day for 21 days--which fattens their livers 10 to 12 times their normal size.  "Critics say the method is not only cruel and torturous, but unnatural."  Foie gras is banned--or at least force-feeding for foie gras is banned--in Europe (France?) as well as in Israel, where it used to be the world's #4 producer.  But it's interesting to note that the American Veterinary Medical Association hasn't taken a stand on this, and the Artisan Framers Alliance argues that "waterfowl in the wild naturally gorge themselves twice yearsy before migration."  (So why don't they just catch that waterfowl before it migrates?)  Someone named Douglas Keane, described as "a licensed dog trainer and frequent animal shelter volunteer"--refuses to serve milk-fed veal but thinks that force-fed ducks are just an example of "husbandry,...farming." 

So...in today's Chronicle there were some good responses.  I'll cite them tomorrow.