Sunday, April 7, 2013

Exposing the Truths Behind Foie Gras

Foie gras, is, literally translated from French, "fat liver". It is a "delicacy" from France which comes from the fattened liver of ducks and geese. In fact, the birds must be fattened to such an unnatural degree that many of them actually die of ruptured internal organs.
According to Natural News (click here for the link) "farmers have to gorge ducks and geese with ghastly amounts of corn feed administered through a force-feeding tube, which causes the birds' livers to artificially expand in size, and may cause them severe pain and distress."
The birds' livers swell up to 10 times their normal size, making it difficult for them to stand, walk, or breathe.
This barbaric process first began when Romans and Egyptians noticed that the liver of geese tasted better right before the birds migrated (which was the time when the birds gorged themselves with food to store up enough fat for the long flight ahead). However, people started feeding birds much more food than was natural even at their migratory times, trying to exaggerate the taste. Over time, the modern foie gras industry took hold, probably much to the delight of gourmet foodies, yet to the horror of animal welfare advocates, (I don't think animal rights existed much back then).
Logo for www.nofoiegras.org

But there is hope. A quick Yahoo! search for "duck meat and foie gras" revealed that four of the ten results on the first page were indeed from animal rights and welfare organizations. No longer is foie gras simply a delicacy enjoyed in gourmet kitchens-- it is a hot topic that will hopefully open the doors to better animal treatment everywhere.
Here are some things you can do to help end this cruelty:
1) Don't serve or eat foie gras! Recommend that people, restaurants, etc. eat vegan "faux gras" instead of foie gras. "Faux gras" (which, oddly enough, translates into "fake fat" from French) can be made of mushrooms, vegetables, spices, and other ingredients. You can find recipes here: http://www.nofoiegras.org/fauxGras.html. However, you don't really need to have something that tastes like duck/goose liver anyway, do you?
2) Spread the word-- foie gras is the product of evil! (Oh, don't look at me like that. Force-feeding animals food, making them grotesquely uncomfortable, and hardly caring when their organs explode is evil.)
3) Get people to go vegan, and, if you haven't already, go vegan yourself. Vegans won't even consider eating foie gras, because it simply isn't vegan. So, the more vegans you convert, the less animal suffering in general! Yay!
Any ideas about what I ought to talk about next week? If not, it'll be a surprise! I have a few ideas swimming around in the back of my head...

2 comments:

  1. Please sign and share, thanks http://www.thepetitionsite.com/10/we-the-undersigned/

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  2. Thanks, Fiona, I just signed. If anyone else is reading this, you should sign, too!
    Good luck with your petition!

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