Comments

1
Raku won't sleep for a week.
2
These things need to be banned from our streets
4
@3: "Each 3-1/4" x 2-1/2" x 3/4" (8.3 cm x 6.4 cm x 1.9 cm) tin contains about twenty-two gumballs that taste vaguely like the decadent french delicacy."

LOL
5
(Side note: I had foie gras at downtown's new Loulay not too long ago—very tasty.)


How does someone brag about being immoral and cruel? It's so bizarre, essentially unhuman.
6
@3, Interesting bubble gum item. What I didn't expect was that people would also "protest" by submitting Amazon reviews of foie gras and some Amazon reviewer would let them in.

http://www.amazon.com/Foie-Gras-Grade-Sp…
6 of 35 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Don't be blind., June 19, 2013
By
Sarah - See all my reviews
This review is from: Foie Gras, Grade A by Specialty Duck Farm (Grocery)
http://www.amazoncruelty.com
With all respect, I implore you to use your own judgement and conscious when buying this product, but please understand what it is.
These animals have been force fed by sticking metal tubes down their throats until their livers become 10 times their normal size. They frequently have gashes all over their beaks and throats. The ducks are so frightened of humans that even the few that have been rescued will never let a human touch them again.
Please don't be allow these companies to hide the facts from you, and the facts are unsettling, to say the least. Use your own judgement, but please don't be blind.
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7
Yes, it's the billboard that needs to be banned, not the inhumane, awful, Marie Antoinette-style of murder passing itself off as food.
8
If foie gras bothers you morally, then you should just go straight up hardcore vegan right now. Unless you raise it yourself, virtually every product made of beef, pork, or chicken is produced in a manner every bit as cruel as what these geese go through.
9
Foie Gras comment threads are always guaranteed laugh riots.

Foie Gras is delicious, and ducks/geese do not have the throat or liver anatomy of a human. It's okay to eat it, no harm done.
10
@8,
True that... some people need to learn about why we add grit to poultry feed and there's things called cow magnets. Animal husbandry is very different from raising family pets/children.
11
Great, now my craving for sweetbreads is back.
12
"The ducks are so frightened of humans that even the few that have been rescued will never let a human touch them again."

Ducks that won't let humans touch them?! Well that's all we need to know. We've seen enough ducks in Disney movies to know that normally they are cuddly and love getting hugged by humans (and frequently wear sailor outfits).
14
8: Do you seriously think the only thing wrong with foie gras is potential throat irritation? Not the captive force feeding until their livers are engorged with disease?

If someone gave you a throat anesthetic, would you be okay with sticking a tube down your throat every day to force feed you massive quantities of food until you had fatty liver disease, and then slitting your throat so a sociopath could eat it because they like it a little bit more than the eggplant dish?

If you think humans are special in that they don't like being treated that way, how about doing it to your dog or cat?
15
Hardcore vegan -- picking the veg option available at any restaurant in the Seattle area. So hardcore!!

"I'd like the veggie fajitas with a side of guacamole"

OH SO HARDCORE!

"Can I have the pasta faglioli and a glass of red wine?"

FUCKIN HARDCORE!!

"Large veggie pho please"

STAND THE FUCK BACK
16
All of life is one. It only temporarily inhabits one body or another. It's a Western philosophical tradition that sees animals as such discreet, disconnected spirits, each having infinite value. Eat and be eaten, you transfer the local concentration of negative entropy from the Big Bang around a little from body to body. If you see how much in common our DNA has with a tree you'll know we're all of life only one thing.
17
There's so many more important things wrong with the world than duck discomfort. Fucking assholes. Stop wasting your time on bullshit.
18
raku, what about the enslaved diary cows providing all your milk/butter ? What about the use of animal bone charcoal in the whitening of sugar added to your foods ?
19
@15 Stop! Your quacking us up!
20
@14, equating a natural, instinctual, habit in a migratory bird that stores calories as fat to... disease.

Equating an anaesthized human fleshy throat to a birds rock filled gullet (capable of swallowing a spiny fish whole).

You're not even a good troll. You're a clown.

21
Of course they sell everything. I got our Christmas turducken through Amazon because even with the expensive shipping it was still quite a bit more affordable than getting one from a local store.

@ 5, it's poor manners when you lie like that. It's why you're an ineffective proponent for your viewpoint. I've tried to help you in the past, but you enjoy the feeling of righteous indignation and passing judgment too well to care.
22
Let them eat cake!
23
What I cannot understand is the anger toward vegans in this thread. The fact that so many of you cannot even comprehend how someone can be opposed to foie gras underscores how corroded our meat-obsessed culture is. Is force-fed goose liver really that important to you?
24
@23 Don't know where you're getting anger from. Some of us might think your ideas are a tad ludicrous though.
26
@24 Yes, ludicrous. The abstention from force-feeding geese.
27
@23 Until you move to subsistence plant gathering just put a lid on the cruelty talk.

I'm not talking human exceptionalism, just the food chain. We are top, for now, so I see no issue in taking advantage of that. It's evolution after all.

That goose or duck would eat the shit out of your liver given the chance.
28
@27 Geese or ducks are not going to destroy the planet. We are, probably if we keep eating meat and dairy, definitely if we do.
29
@6 - Having raised ducks, and in extremely comfortable conditions for them because I valued their eggs, not their meat, I can tell you that the incidence of ducks who don't dislike being touched by humans is extremely low. Ducks and geese are not touchy-feely pet-type animals. Find yourself another red herring.
30
@28 Good, fuck humanity, we're pretty shitty anyway. Seems like the universe would be better off without us.
31
Vegan food doesn't taste like shit. Every fruit, vegetable, grain, root, nut, seed, etc is vegan and they are absolutely delicious. But even if it did taste like shit, you'd be missing the point. Vegans eat what they eat not for themselves, but to avoid contributing to the suffering of other animals.

And it takes a great deal of strength to think beyond yourself, to show concern for other living creatures, for the health of the planet, and the well-being of future generations.

You're all very clever and funny but so very, very weak.
32
"Vegans eat what they eat not for themselves, but to avoid contributing to the suffering of other animals."

Or just maybe, occasionally, so they can indulge in feelings of smug superiority to non-vegans.
33
People, froi gras is NOT CRUEL! Geese and ducks ALWAYS have enlarged livers in the winter time...WHERE THE HELL DO YOU THINK THEY STORE THE ENERGY FOR THEIR MIGRATIONS?!
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/…

If meat is murder, than you can feel free to call me "Dexter Morgan".

@15 Being vegan is not hardcore...taking down the eight point buck I shot last winter was. Man, he was DELICIOUS. Not to mention the ducks last season, they were tasty too. I'll remember you next time I kill and eat an animal.

If man was not intended to animals the Gods would not have made them out of meat.
34
Foie gras is, by definition, a duck's liver with fatty liver disease. It's only caused by force feeding. There are regular duck livers for sale -- they're called duck livers.

Factory-farmed chickens might be worse in many/most cases, but that's like saying truck crashes are worse than car crashes. The point with foie gras is you have to go out of your way to be exceptionally cruel. People eating factory farmed chicken from McDonald's or Costco are doing so out of cost or ignorance -- it's impossible to eat foie gras without intentional cruelty despite the means to not be.
35
Flanders & Swann, The Reluctant Cannibal.

Lyrics.
36
I knew it existed, but it's pretty dispiriting to see such stupid, ironic, hipster anti-vegetarian/vegan I-like-killing-shit-and-sucking-the-bloody-marrow-from-the-bones kind of mentality. I think vegans can have a preachy/holier than thou vibe, but the "vegetables taste like shit and I like my food to be tortured" vibe is like next level dumb and it only makes you sound like a douchebag. It's not bad enough to add to the environmental doom that we all share, you gotta be proud of that shit?
37
Vegans are like Mormons. Most are intelligent and accepting, and they have introspective reasons for their choices. A handful make the rest look bad by actively trying to shame those of us who choose to live outside their doctrine.
38
@25: Yes, vegetables and fruits and grains and nuts and legumes all taste like shit. So much worse than a Big Mac.

I know, you're attempting to be funny. Failed on that count, too.
39
There are a lot of nasty fuckers in this thread. I hate people. I hope most of us are force fed our own fatty liver disease in the next life. Jesus FUCKING Christ we deserve it. Selfish nasty fucking pieces of shit.
40
ah yes foie gras is exceptionally cruel, but it's okay and lots of vegans do:

-castrate their dogs
-imprison them inside apartments all day.
-never let them roam.

we're all cruel to animals. we mutilate them, breed them, eat them! enslave them in zoos. we then kind of pick and choose what thiings to be against and virtually every single person who gets high and mighty about one thing like foie gras has some other sin on their plate, so to speak, like owning a dog and fucking castrating it.

or not letting the coyotes in the neighborhood come dine on your cat.

or putting bugs outside your house -- where they will die!

or exterminating the RATS making a home in your house.

it's so arbitrary while calls for more justice are fine the extreme demonizing that's so selective is more about pumping up yourself than actually being moral, which if you were btw you'd care more about humans than animals. foie gras when we have homelessness, joblessness, domestic violence etc. is just bullshit as a chosen issue for your moralizing. driving a truck around and wasting the gas wrecks the planet too.
41
Ha ha! How many of you pale clammy zealots have ever visited a farm? Why do I imagine you are pretty much all suburbanites whose experience of animals extends to stuffed fluffy ones, nursery rhymes, furry pets and ducks in the park?

Some things you are apparently not getting: plenty of us do not agree with you that forcing dumb birds that swallow their food whole (yes swallow their food whole) to eat more than they would otherwise prefer constitutes outrageous cruelty. In fact plenty of us believe, with some amount of evidence, that poultry raised on farms that produce foi gras are by and large treated vastly better than factory farmed poultry. So you can dredge up some PETA sourced vids of mistreatment from say Moldavia, are there any farms in the US that produce foie gras where birds are getting flagrantly mistreated? If there are believe it or not even many foie gras aficionados would like to hear about it.

Most educated people in this country with the money to eat whatever they want support humane raising of farm animals. But of course vegan zealots could care less about improving the lot of farm animals. What they want is to impose their religious beliefs on others. Problem is you are losing and you will always lose, completely, utterly, for the simple reason people eat meat, they always have and always will. Would it not perhaps be a better idea to take a slightly more rational approach if what you are really concerned about is the welfare of animals?
42
If I had a couple grand to blow I'd hire the bicycle billboards people to ride around the mobile (truck) billboard office admonishing them for using precious fossil fuels.
43
@34
Duck or geese livers get big when they eat for their migration. I've shot wild ducks with livers three times as big as they are in the store because, again, THAT IS WHERE THEY STORE THEIR FAT FOR THEIR MIGRATION! It is NOT a disease, it is a natural process. Smaller duck livers are from ducks that aren't eating for the migration.

And if you want to see cruel, why not watch an animal eating another animal. Go ahead, feel free to preach veganism to a mountain lion. Said mountain lion will indeed "Eat something vegan" as a result.
44
My favorite preparation of this delicacy was the foie gras with seared duck breast, cherries, almonds, and cherry Jus from Joel Robuchon's 3 Michelin star restaurant in las vegas. So delicious. It was portioned perfectly so almost every bite had the perfect ratio of duck breast to foie gras. The cherries were bright, tart and acidic without being too sweet, and the almonds (some hidden inside the cherries where the pits should be) added a great crunch and surprise. I'd highly recommend it. A server I was chatting with about the food recommended it when I was unsure what entry I had to have before I left. I sought him out after the meal to tell him it was the second best thing I ever ate (the first being the tomato dish from the same restaurant). I also really liked the preparation of foie gras with bitter leaves at Guy Savoy (although the very best at that restaurant was the pea dish and the caviar dish and the gorgeously plated chilled seafood salad.)

Food is culture, and people who agitate against foie gras are trying to outlaw culture. fuck those people
45
The vegans who protest make sense. Less so the meat-eaters.
46
But what will all the yuppie Caucasian males in Seattle eat if they can't buy this???? Maybe there are abortion clinics that will sell them fetuses to eat.
47
@32 Damn straight I feel smug.

As a vegan, my carbon footprint is smaller even than switching from a gas to a hybrid car.

As a vegan, I don't participate in an unsustainable food system that is draining the world's grain and fresh water supply.

As a vegan, I keep my money out of an industry that has created and refused to improve an extremely hazardous, unsafe, and unregulated work environment for its employees.

As a vegan, I don't consume a product that both spreads disease and contamination pretty much unchecked, and is a significant contributor to the rise of drug-resistant bacteria.

Oh yeah, and as a vegan, nothing has to be tortured and slaughtered for my meals.

I'm also not a defensive whiny tittybaby when someone challenges the food choices I make, because my choice isn't part and parcel to a system that creates terrible economic, environmental, psychological, health-related, and moral consequences.

Yeah, I think I'm better than meat-eaters who understand what they're doing, have the means to change, but don't. Because even if it's occasionally inconvenient and requires me to break away from the social norm, I choose to conduct my life in a responsible way.
48
I'll just leave this here: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archiv…
49
@47 I rest my case.
50
@47 As a vegan you're also an insufferable prick.
51
@49 & 50 Yeah, but since I'm actually taking steps to make sure the species has a habitable planet to live on and resources to sustain itself before a catastrophic food and/or water and/or energy and/or environmental crisis hits, I think I can live with the low opinions of mouth breathing, meat stanky man children.

Don't worry guys, the price of meat is going to skyrocket in the next two decades, so you'll be eating a veg diet anyway without ever being burdened with taking responsibility for yourselves.
52
dear mr. wonderful vegan:

got a dog? did you castrate your dog? or do you have cats and fix them?
do you in fact drive a car, or a prius? didn't you take a plane once in your life?
what do you do when rats show up in your home, you remove them right? and do you swat bugs? now as to plants, why do you not recognize their being too, you seem to think it's okay to eat the hell out of them, that is, KILL LIVING THINGS FOR YOUR PERSONAL BENEFIT.

you're an insufferable prick and it's largely people like you who doom much of the environmental movement to political loserdom. ie, never has there been such a strong movement on the facts that is so insufferable most people are turned off. you don't even have the self awareness to recognize that you, too, sin in multiple ways, as we all do, and that the lines you draw are in a sense just as arbitrary as the lines other people draw. and even when you're right on some fact things the most important thing about it all to you is the fact that your choices demonstrate you're Superior to These Crappy Things Called the Average Human -- you really do it all for you, you, you and a way to feel superior. asshole.

grow the fuck up and stop admiring your own farts. you have compassion selectively and are in no position to lecture others, and like most in your camp you're a boring arrogant egoist slathered up in false modesty.
53
@52

All that half cooked drugged up meat you eat is inhumane and is ruining the environment. Plants and veggies don't have to be force fed with a tube down their throats or kept in cages full of their own shit on top of each other. But then it's not as easy to impress your yuppie Caucasian male friends with a salad as a tortured animals body parts is it? Bwahahaha idiot!!!!
54
@47 How many kids do you have? How many dogs? The amount of carbon produced by having a single kid makes driving a fleet of Hummers look like nothing.
55
Apparently now it is racist to be a carnivore. Good to know! Probably worth noting: the environmental impacts of beef are indeed severe. You're not on such firm ground when it comes to say poultry or pork however. Although for sure factory farming is malignant.

Most of us omnivores who live here in the NW have vegan friends (they being so unusually numerous around here). It is kind of an unspoken rule, they don't proselytize and the peace is kept. If you're going to preach however, we are going to point and laugh.
56
I have an idea: I'm going to generally eat what I want, try to avoid saturated fats and cholesterol, talk to my doctor about my weight gain goals, try to eat more whole grains and organic veggies when I can, paying attention to where my food comes from and consuming whatever I purchase so it doesn't go to waste, but generally choosing my diet based on taste, seasonal availability, and my own ethical standards which will always be different from (and more fitting to my lifestyle and moral calculus) than pretty much everyone else ever.

And the simple corollary is that anyone who tries to tell me to do differently can fuck off.
57
@ 47/51- Wow. Just wow. But also, it is worth pointing out that being vegan doesn't necessarily mean that any of the following are true, nor do you have to be vegan to accomplish them:

As a vegan, my carbon footprint is smaller even than switching from a gas to a hybrid car.


A vegan can have a carbon footprint higher than someone who drives a hummer and there are probably people who eat meat and have lower carbon footprints than you.

As a vegan, I don't participate in an unsustainable food system that is draining the world's grain and fresh water supply.


Being vegan doesn't mean your food consumption is sustainable. Eating some meat doesn't mean your food consumption is unsustainable.

As a vegan, I keep my money out of an industry that has created and refused to improve an extremely hazardous, unsafe, and unregulated work environment for its employees.


You might. You might not. But it has nothing to do with being vegan. It is produce farms using large numbers of migrant workers that create the worst working conditions. The best way to avoid this has nothing to do with meat, it has to do with small & local.

It is also worth pointing out that your efforts as an individual do not amount to anything measurable, no matter how small your carbon footprint is. The only real solution is policy change and/or a social movement that meaningfully changes people's habits on a large scale. It is quite likely the small harm you cause to any movement or policy reform by being so smug and insufferable outweighs whatever negligable benfits your personal consumption choices create. Something to think about.
58
@56 it is your privilege as as yuppie Caucasian male that thinks you can choose what you eat. You can eat a pile of goose shit and call it whatever you want but you will not be allowed to harm animals to do so without being criticized.
59
Most foie gras in France is produced on family farms. Far from being mistreated, the geese and ducks are well cared for. If you don't like the product, don't buy it. I don't tell you what to drink or smoke, or what to do with your body's private parts; don't tell me what I should or should not eat under some phony pretext.
60
@59 To impress your privileged Caucasian male peers you eat a tortured goose liver shipped from half way around the world.

But you are lying and pretending these geese are well cared for. Hahaha Dipshit. They are force fed with a steel tube down their throats and kept in small cages wallowing in their own shit not allowed to move so they get fatter. Is that how you'd like to be cared for when you get old at the senior center? Just put you in a cage so small you can't turn around then shove a tube in your throat and pump liquid food in there for five minutes a day.
61
People delude themselves by thinking this practice is not cruel. I guess they also think the pork they eat comes from a family farm where the pig lived a bucolic life, frolicking in the sun. I would ask them to please take a pipe and stick it down their throat and gush food down pipe, over and over again, until their liver becomes mutilated. People know the difference between right and wrong. It is a talent we were born with but sometimes forget when we get too much fat on our brains, likely from eating foods like foie gras. Another natural tendency humans have is to speak up for suffering when the oppressed can't speak for themselves.

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