Foie gras, sustainability, and fancy restaurants.

[beetiger]

A very interesting and well thought out opinion piece by the owner of an upscale San Francisco restaurant, concerning the foie gras issues and general issues of food choice.

Thoughts welcome.

Comments

"Hey, duck! Be careful! Broken glass!"

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

Bleah. Made me feel like I was watching Irwin Mainway defend his products on Consumer Probe. "Hey, lady! Everybody gotta suffer! Why, I could step on a little puppy on the way to the kitchen! Yeah, where are the activists there?" The insinuation that this whole issue is trivial until we tackle world hunger(?!) struck me as especially low, the sort of tactic activists get real fucking sick of after their first couple debates.

And it's a really bad sign that I feel so moved to trash this essay... since I've never been especially opposed to foie gras. In fact, I think I'm more inclined to look into those claims about duck and goose feeding now that I've read it, which had sounded plausible to me before, because now I'm suspicious...

Re: "Hey, duck! Be careful! Broken glass!"

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I saw it done on a farm in France some years ago, which was where I first heard about the idea that foie gras was a horrible animal-rights issue. He's quite right that the ducks don't mind. You've never seen a healthier flock of birds than the ones ten days from slaughter on that foie gras farm.

I believe the general consensus in France now is that American activists need to stick with their McDonald's and stay out of issues involving real food - since they clearly know nothing about it.

Re: "Hey, duck! Be careful! Broken glass!"

[aprivatefox.livejournal.com]

I don't think I quite took the same message out of it. I thought he wielded rhetoric poorly, but I really read it as saying "If you actually care about where your food comes from, then foie gras is a distraction; something to give you a hollow sense of good feeling while you're ignoring the issue of mass factory farming." Honestly, I thought he made a fairly good case on that front, but maybe it's because I'm already fairly aware of the evidence he referred to.