From lostalice on Thu, May 15, 2008

Why must one focus only on avoiding feedlot-raised food, and ignore a food that requires the intentional abuse of an animal for its production? I’m not a radical by any means, but finding out how a large metal tube is forced down a goose’s throat several times a day to pour grain down it… it seems like a no-brainer to me that this practice should be banned. I absolutely adore foie gras, but no animal should have to suffer like that, not even a few. I’m disappointed that Chicago has bowed to the luxury restaurants (no home cook serves foie gras) who insist that this food “needs” to be on the menu. It’s a diseased, oversized animal liver, produced by intentional harm done to an animal. Not even CAFO’s can be accused of intentional harm in quite this way. How is this in any way a good thing, when there are so many other delicious foods out there to eat?

From Kurt Michael Friese on Thu, May 15, 2008

Actually the cruelty often cited in regard to the gavage process results from the all-to-common mistake amongst the likes of the Animal Liberation Front to project mammalian traits on birds.
There is more than enough evidence to demonstrate that the ducks a) do not feel pain during gavage; b) can breathe just fine during gavage (unlike humans and other mammals, birds’ esophagi and windpipes are not connected); and c) force feed themselves in the wild to fatten up for migration.  It was hunters recognizing that duck liver of migrating birds tasted better than those of nesting birds that led to the development of foie gras in the first place.
I refer you to an excellent article in the Times of London at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/02/21/do2105.xml
While the process may look unpleasant or even torturous to you or me, it is not so and should be considered with a more open mind.
And CAFOs can indeed be “accused of intentional harm in quite this way.” Have you visited one?  I live in Iowa, they are everywhere here, and they are not just cruel to the animals (mammals, by the way) but also to the humans who work in them and the neighbors who live nearby, and the land and the waterways too.  A far greater concern.