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

[varjohaltia.livejournal.com]

I recall the mess that became of forcing McDonald's to abandon the polystyrene foam containers for hamburgers in favor of cardboard ones in Finland. Once life cycle analysis became more accepted practice, it was determined that overall cardboard containers had a significantly higher environmental impact. (This was before the use of recycled material and more environmentally friendly bleaching methods, though.)

That really is a big problem of mine with the environmental movement -- a lot of it was "feel good" activism where people who didn't understand the complexity of issues bandwagoned for easy to understand causes. Like a campaign against building more nuclear power, and putting resources towards wind energy instead. When the construction of wind power in the region began, the same people now opposed it due to the visual impact and habitat destruction.

I stand fully behind sustainable development, but figuring out what is and isn't sustainable is a lot harder than it seems.

[barberio.livejournal.com]

And probably also before we understood the greater implications of polystyrene's accumulation and particular degradation in oceanic environments. (ie, the Sargasso Sea and Pacific Gyre plastic soup.)