Your views on Foie Gras

[LadyDeliah]

Still a pretty disgusting way to produce food. I wouldn't want to eat anything that involved that kind of violence perpetrated on the animal i was going to eat.

Not sure how any of the people who eat it can block out the knowledge of what is done to the goose when they eat the fois gras. Seems a pointless and inhumane way to produce food to me.

[Mick Mac]

Loz. There is a big difference between how an animal is killed, which is necessary for food production, and an animal made to suffer every day in pursuit of a better taste.

[Alan Medic]

Jeremy Wrote:

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> aquarius moon Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Tom is trying to educate people.

>

> That's exactly the problem.

>

> Almost everybody who eats Foie Gras already knows

> what it is, and how it's produced. They don't need

> "educating" - they already know the facts, they

> just have a different opinion.

How do you know that Jeremy?

[Alan Medic]

You might. I doubt the vast majority even think about it.

[Jeremy]

Alan Medic Wrote:

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> How do you know that Jeremy?

I'm making the assumption that anybody who cares enough about food to buy a premium product like FG probably knows what it is.

[mockney piers]

"...been banned in many countries including Israel..."

A country where Tom's boycotting stance is now illegal....but I digress.

Kind of torn on this one. Yeah it's a bit wrong, but as people point out there is much wronger in this world, not in the least Otta's beloved colonel. I only buy free range chicken but figuratively look the other way when I lazily buy some sort of marinated chicken wings blah and blah so I guess I'm willing to cross lines.

Bottom [of said] line, it's bloody lovely with a good tokaji or Canadian Icewine, and for that reason alone i'll occasionally indulge myself, preferably supping the wine out of an ivory horn or you know, a dead child or something.

For Ted's grey line is key, where do you draw it.

I truly hope that in order to take such a principled stance, Tom doesn't consume oil in any form especially petrol/diesel, that he somehow manages to studiously avoid any goods manufactured in China, drink coke, take coke, interact with a NHS nurse from a country that can't spare her ....snip (you get my point)... shop in a supermarket, buy the Sun, get on a plane, hire a clown...blah...

[*Bob*]

Jeremy Wrote:

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> I'm making the assumption that anybody who cares

> enough about food to buy a premium product like FG

> probably knows what it is.

I think that's the point. I'd guess that nearly everybody who eats it knows how it's produced. The information is out there. Some restaurants have stopped serving it, some people have stopped buying it; other restaurants and people haven't. We're at critical mass.

By contrast, despite massive fingerwagging on a national televised level by top tv holier-than-thous - South London must still have several hundred indentikit southern fried chicken outlets serving beak which has never seen daylight sitting on legs which have never walked, you have to ask (as a campaigner) where your energies might be better spent, rather than fretting about a couple of pounds of FG served here and there on the weekend.

[Otta]

Not half as many as East London though!

[RosieH]

Mick Mac Wrote:

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> Loz. There is a big difference between how an

> animal is killed, which is necessary for food

> production, and an animal made to suffer every day

> in pursuit of a better taste.

As has already been pointed out, many (most?) animals are made to suffer every day in pursuit of a better price. We Brits will have our meat at every meal.

To echo Mockney's post a little, I trust that those talking about the disgusting practices of foie gras production eat only free range (as a minimum) meat..?

[KidKruger]

*Bob*

"South London must still have several hundred indentikit southern fried chicken outlets serving beak which has never seen daylight sitting on legs which have never walked, you have to ask (as a campaigner) where your energies might be better spent, rather than fretting about a couple of pounds of FG served here and there on the weekend.

"

Good point, in terms of numbers of birds' welfare that may be improved.

Perhaps Thomas realises that the EDF is an easier target than protesting outside Chicken Cottage et al, where he'd have to go because likely most customers there don't surf EDF...

[*Bob*]

If only there was a South & East London Fried Chicken Forum - where one could simply start a thread in order to 'do your bit'.. with the minimum of effort.

[RosieH]

Thing is, we'd all slope off over there after a few pints of an evening, deserting the fine and organic EDF, until morning came and with it the shame and the fear and the greasy aftertaste of pervasive self-loathing.

[katie1997]

Mockney, I understand what you're getting at here along with Ted's point about drawing the line somewhere.

I could be wrong but ... my sense is that Tom isn't trying to take on an oh-so-principled stance on everything rather that he's trying to tackle animal welfare issues and has chosen a specific practice and has directed it a local level is all. I agree that the tone or stance can come across as someone else said, 'holier than thou' but I think he is genuinely trying to make changes albeit in small steps (not saying I agree with the approach and proposed boycott of local restaurant).

I have never been to KFC but have happily eaten in Nandos and wondered at the back of my mind where they get their chickens from, never bothered to find out even and that hasn't stopped me occasionally eating there so there's a line I have crossed.

[Loz]

I think it comes down to personal decision - if eating fois gras makes you uncomfortable, then don't. By all means educate the public (honestly, please), but running around pressurising restaurants, etc., to stop selling it is just wrong.

I'd be interested to know Thomas's methods. Did he:

a) ask the restaurants in question to stop selling fois gras - to which they said, "What a jolly good idea. We will stop immediately. Gosh, us professional chefs never knew how fois gras was made."

b) 'ask' the restaurants in question to stop selling fois gras on the basis that if they don't then a bunch of protesters will be outside the restaurant next week demonstrating? And the week after. And the week after that.

Which was it? I wonder...

[mockney piers]

I'm happy to declare publicly that on this I have to say really couldn't give a flying toss, but each to their own, if it makes Tom happy more power to him.

More importantly, Lady Gaga, dressing mutton as lamb* is a particularly cruel animal husbandry practice....

*perhaps a bad analogy, she's more like a widget in a can of boddingtons, making a particularly bad product appear briefly palatable.

[katie1997]

By the time I managed to type that there's been about 5 more posts! Well all I can say is good on Tom for putting it on the EDF as he did politely ask for people's views. I agree that a campaign against battery chickens would be better and perhaps Tom will take on this feedback (if he isn't already involved in that).

[Otta]

Doner kebab anyone?

[mockney piers]

or

c) ask the restaurants in question to stop selling fois gras - to which they thought "hmmm, we don't anyway but can get rid of this chap by agreeing with him and maybe get in the good books of the types who profess to care about this sort of thing" and said "yes absolutely".

[*Bob*]

If we all focus our energies then perhaps - one day - foie gras could waste as much government time and energy as foxhunting did.

[mockney piers]

...or indeed Rupert Murdoch did....

[*Bob*]

Repeating points made above now, but..

I know lots of people who don't eat foie gras. Lots of people who or who only buy free range or organic this and that. But I hardly know anyone who doesn't do cocaine.

Essentially, you pick and choose where your lines are. So to speak.

[mockney piers]

This is one of my bugbears, truly the most evil trade on the planet bar none, and as you say those who advocate doing this or banning that are happy to partake.

On this one I really do feel strongly and won't touch the stuff for two reasons, a)I'm not funding yet another massacre in Mexico, and b)it turns one into an arsehole and I'm bad enough without that!!

[mockney piers]

if you're ever in doubt where your coke money goes....

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/07/los-zetas-may-attempt-to-overthrow.html

[*Bob*]

'But it tastes so good'

[mockney piers]

Though to my knowledge no goose farmers have wandered into a bar and shot every other person just to make a point.