Lemmie start off with a little preamble: Morality is a fucker.

This week, animal-rights group Mercy For Animals targeted Amazon for selling foie gras, the french dish of fattened duck or goose liver. Mercy For Animals unveiled a video (not for the faint of heart) showing an underground investigator who claimed to work for Hudson Valley, one of Amazon's foie gras suppliers. The investigator videotaped ducks apparently being force-fed with a large metal pipe rammed down their throat, and eventually slaughtered.

In a press release, Mercy For Animals stated "Amazon has stopped selling other products, including whale meat, shark fin soup, and animal fighting videos, due to their cruel production practice." A quick search showed that, indeed, all of those things were not available to buy. Amazon has yet to respond to the group.

It all seemed rather hypocritical. How could Amazon refuse to sell those meats, yet not fat/diseased duck liver? Then again, who was I to judge Amazon. I'd never had foie gras, maybe it was God's gift to the mouth and people were just pissy about it.

I argued to myself that, while ramming metal rods down a duck's throat does seem particularly cruel, unlike whales and sharks I don't think the population of ducks is necessarily in any peril. Amazon's not killing the ducks themselves, just selling a product. A product that, while gruesome, in the long run is probably just as devastating to the world than any pound of ground beef.

So I ate some.

Why not? I am an avid meat lover. My Facebook picture for six months was me gorging on a five pound hamburger topped with a smaller hamburger. Might as well at least try some cruelly damaged liver to see what all the controversy is about.

Moreover, isn't all meat technically cruel? Even the most loved and cared for cow still needs to be slaughtered to get the meat. Yeah it's a straw man argument, but I think it's hard to give a quality definition on what humane treatment is when the end result will always be execution.

So how was it you ask? Meh. It's not bad, a little rich. I'm more surprised that enough people eat this to warrant controversy. The texture and smell reminded me of when I tried Fancy Feast as a kid (which you can also purchase at Amazon). It is one of those things I'll eat if some one hands me it and I'm drunk enough, I guess.

To be honest I didn't end up eating a lot. I just couldn't get the grittier details out of my head. I felt bad for whatever duck I was eating. Images of the Pope and Kate Winslet food-shaming me on Mercy For Animals' website echoed in my head. Whether their video is authentic or not, the Amazon Cruelty campaign is still effective.

Ethics aside, it's just really fucking expensive depending how you get it. The Fancy Feast by comparison costs $81 less, and probably won't leave the bad taste in your mouth (morally (maybe literally)).

Make your own judgments, I'll stick to my affordable, humane-ish meats.