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#89 I found Stephen Hanson essay online and I thank you for that. It's difficult reading, but I'll be getting some help. Thanks.

To Voter: I have a reading recommendation for you too, although I do it with a smile because I've little hope you will consider it. It's a book written by Matthew Scully, former speech writer for Pres.Bush. You can look it up online and see reviews. It's called DOMINION (the Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy)
Trust me, this Conservative Republican writes with no political agenda.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aLQseAZJFxzc

Obviously more research should be done, but this is what we know at the present. The refusal of chefs to talk about the issue results from not wishing to be targeted by certain activists.

I stand corrected on the $ amount incolved in foie gras: as of 2007, it was $20 million in NY.

Re 88: I understand the e-mail issue, and I don't have other research to recommend on contemporary class and consumer culture, as my work tends to be more historical. However, advocates on both sides of the foie gras issue many find the following enlightening:

Stephen Hanson, “Utilitarianism, Animals, and the Problem of Numbers,” Animal Liberation Philosophy and Policy Journal, 2:1-16 (2004), 6 (“The eventual aim of all animal liberation efforts is a world in which animals are not treated as food. . ..”)

JayJay: Before Ms. Kaufman replied, I found her symposium proposal online and happen to find it quite intriguing and rather germane to the conversation. Her comment on sumptuary legislation was the exact point I am attempting to convey to you in regards to Mr. Avella. I contend Mr. Avella, under the guise of liberating animals from cruel treatment, is engaging in class warfare by focusing on foie gras. Virtually none of Mr. Avella’s constituents have eaten or will ever eat foie gras , at the same time there are foodstuffs far more commonplace which involve cruel or unnatural treatment to animals which can be found on the plates of nearly all of Mr. Avella’s constituents. Commenter #70, MG, may be a published scientific researcher; however, I am not aware nor was it stated on what subject(s) he or she has published.
Ms. Kaufman: Pardon me if I am a bit shy on disclosing my e-mail address on here; however, I do think your proposal is interesting and will be on the lookout for your paper. I am very interested in (socioeconomic) class and consumer culture in the United States and would be interested in any other studies you could direct me to. Thank you.

Ok Dear Voter: So you want to read what #86 has written to publish, but you ignored #70 MG, who also has published work.
Now who would you trust? The person who cooks and eats wildlife or the person who was a wildlife caretaker? It all depends on your politics. And by the way, Avella is also trying to get a ban on the Central Park carriage horses on grounds of cruelty too.

#85: The paper will be published in August in "Food and Morality: 2007 Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery" (Prospect Books) If you want a copy in advance, I'd be happy to e-mail you one if you are comfortable supplying an address.

#76 JayJay:
I’m not asking Mr. Avella to do anything outside of his stated goal of ending cruelty to animals in food production. My criticism of Avella is that he says he is not against foie gras per se, but against cruelty to animals. Whether foie gras production is cruel or not seems to still be a matter for debate and unfortunately neither Mr. Avella nor the segments producers bothered researching the topic before asking the question. Yes, asking about topics like egg, milk, and meat production is off topic; however, when Mr. Avella says he is not anti-foie gras, but anti-cruelty, they are questions that should be asked of him. To Brian’s credit, he did ask if Avella’s stance was more so a populist issue (to galvanize “hard working blue-collar Americans” who can neither afford nor have ever tasted the stuff) than concern over torture to ducks and geese, but Mr. Avella was allowed to skirt the question.
#82 Cathy Kaufman:
When and where could I read more about your research? I look forward to reading it.

Why doen't Mr. Avella ban veal, eggs, chicken, lamb, pork and beef altogether?. Everything you buy at shoprite, A&P etc has been force fed, caged or abused at some point during its miserable existence. This is a complete waste of time and money. Mr. Avella, get back to work on something important. Worry about jobs, gas prices, mortgage interest...not Foie Gras.
P.S. I love it and will eat it as long as I can!!

#74: During the last 1-3 weeks of the life of the ducks/geese they are fed more frequently and a diet of corn. It is not a high fat diet. Indeed the liver enlarges disproportionally to the animal's weight, but it does not necessarily become "diseased". Again, are we justifiably comparing livers of water fowl with those of humans with diseased livers? an unfortunate comparison.....

One should not derive the impression that foie gras is consumed in hugh quantities through-out the year: it's a specialty food eaten at certain holidays times. The raising of the animals in foie gras production is much more "low key" than all the fuss that has developed.

In this country, we need to put animal raising and production for food into a perspective where things make sense.

We need to differentiate between videos that may have been manufactured in squalid circumstances in order to prove a political point and something closer to what truly happens. As Americans, we are blind to where our food comes from. As a result of that, we cannot distinguish humane vs. cruel treatment of animals that are raised with the intention of becoming food for human beings.

Dr. Groskin,

Can you provide a citation to the AAV and EAAV position statements? I did not come across them in my research and would like to read them.

Re #76: You keep assuming your conclusion, that gavage is harmful.

Re #77: You are correct: gavage is limited to the 1-3 weeks.

Re #70: While more research would be welcome, the studies are:

EU Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, Welfare Aspects of the Production of Foie Gras in Ducks and Geese, 1998, http://ec.europa.eu/food/fs/sc/scah/out17_en.pdf

Faure, Jean-Michel, Daniel Guémené and Gérard Guy, Is There Avoidance of the Force Feeding Procedure in Ducks and Geese?, Animal Research 50(2):157-64 (2001).

Guémené, Daniel, G. Guy, J. Noirault, M. Garreau-Mills, P. Gouraud, and J.M. Faure, Force-Feeding Procedure and Physiological Indicators of Stress in Male Mule Ducks, British Poultry Science, 42:650-7 (2001).

Re #74: My understanding is that there is a disagreement about whether hepatic steatosis is a disease. The AVMA twice voted down a motion to condemn foie gras. Kahler, Susan C., Farm Visit Influences Foie Gras Vote, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 227:688-9 (Sept. 1, 2005).

Lang, Christopher D., Matthew D. Lang, Maciej Witkos, and Michelle Uttaburanont, Foie Gras: the Two Faces of Janus, Journal of the American Veterinary Medicine Association, 230: 1624-1627 (June 1, 2007).

Why when a problem is brought to light, the first thing people do is bring up other worse problems, like that's going to make the initial problem seem not so bad. Of course fast food restaurants are the worst of the worst. We are talking about foie gras. So you don't think it's so bad, but there are plenty of people who do. If you read the comments, there are people who have visited these farms and the objections are justified. I've seen the Peta undercover video and it looks horrible. If a woman is beating her child, is it not so bad because the women down the street is starving her SIX kids?

Additionally:

The quantity of foie-gras consumed world-wide pales when compared to the KFC, the McDonalds. Some of the biggest problems in the United States in terms of torturing animals aren't on the plates of up-scale restaurants: they're what is consumed every hour, every day at our fast-food restaurants---

Well No. 77. It's people like you who make necessary the ASPCA, The Humane Society of the United States, In Defense of Animals, etc. etc.
If it's beyond you to understand what cruelty to animals is, as opposed to anthropomorphising, consider yourself lucky. How nice it must be oblivious to animal suffering.

As I understand things, during the life of ducks/geese who are slated to become foie-gras, it is only during the last couple of weeks of their lives that the gavage process takes place. The rest of the time, they behave with regular feedings/behaviors/expectations for animals of their kind.

During the first couple of weeks of their lives, they actually are fed grasses to strengthen their throat muscles (by their mothers/fathers--not by farmers) ---a process that is a function of their hereditary make-up, not a promise of what is to come.

Perhaps many of the commentators (and a few city councilmen) should read up before anthropomorphising....

To #68 Cathy K

I don't understand what you mean. Bentham may have been addressing slavery, but the end of this quote is..."Why should the law refuse its protection to ANY sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over ANYTHING WHICH BREATHES"

And to Dear Voter...(as RR said) "There you go again" Why doesn't Avella do this or that...Because he's a)in a minority position,and b)it's unfair to be critical of him for trying to make inroads. Just mention the name PETA and POW! tons of hate speech! It ain't easy here on the OUTSIDE.

You just don’t get it JayJay. Foie gras is not the greatest ethical and moral animal-abuse crime in New York City. If Mr. Avella’s intentions were true, he’d look at animal cruelty that affects the restaurants and refrigerators of nearly every animal eating New Yorker. What affects more New Yorkers in regards to cruelty to animals, eggs or foie gras? Battery cages (where each hen has less space than a letter-sized sheet of paper), beak cutting, forced molting, calorie cutting/starvation, daylight cycle manipulation, and getting bathed in a shower of excrement from the cages above is what goes into egg production.
Why doesn’t Avella speak out against this? Because he doesn’t have the ***** to go after the billion-dollar commercial poultry industry and upset Queens natives Joe and Jane Six-Pack by telling them they can’t fry two ‘n’ let ‘em shine.
Until he does that, let's move on to the real issues in this city.

For the record, the AVMA did not approve the production of foie gras but rather took no position on the its production. However, the Association of Avian Veterinarians, and the European Association of Avian Veterinarians both have reviewed this issue and are against the production of foie gras.
Tube feeding birds is a widely accepted proceedure, which when done properly, is not harmful to birds. In fact this proceedure has saved countless birds as well as saving several birds species from extinction. However, the high fat diets used to product the desired 'product', are actually inducing a diseased fatty liver, which is not in the best interest of these ducks. Diseases in people which result in similar dramatic enlargement of their livers over a short period of time, experience discomfort and some pain.

Brian,
Listening to your program, this morning, and hearing this nonsense about foie gras brings to mind how the liberal mindset regarding animals is ridiculous. May I digress, momentarily, to say, when animals began to assume "human status," not too many years ago (thanks to PETA and the Walt Disney crowd), common sense, in my opinion, took a pitiable descent into an abyss. So, a goose gets stuffed with sustanence to provide a delicacy for human consumption. Hello?, as one would say, to express the obvious. It has something to do with a food chain, does it not? --- Bad to be a goose, good to be a human! Bad to be a steer, good to be a human! Bad to be a piglet, good to be a human! ---And so it goes. But, as I conclude, may I remind Mr. Avella, this baloney (whoops!) cannot exist in a nation suffering food shortages. Should that occur, here, anytime soon, all bets will be off when it comes to anything that moves.

if you eat animals they have to be killed.
you don't have to keep feeling guilty about it,
just become a vegeterian
and the debate will be over.
otherwise keep eating animals and shut up.

To those mocking Mr Avella's concern for animal suffering, he is also a thorn in the side of the construction industry, because he wants to stop over-building in NYC and keep landmark bldgs from being destroyed. He's been a public servant for at least 15 yrs., so his "publicity stunts" have been around for awhile.

#68

I worked for many years in wildlife rehabilitation caring for ducks, Canadian geese and raptors (feeding, administering medications, exercising, etc.) and many other creatures. I have never fed nor seen a duck eat a whole large fish, with the exception of feeder goldfish which tend to be rather small.

Further, I am a published scientific researcher and appreciate the value of validity and reliability in study design and measurement. Without more detail of the specific studies you reviewed, I would suspect significant methodological flaws and limitations that would cast some doubt on their findings.

Ban foie gras production, the sooner the better. I wholeheartedly support a ban. As for the person who doubts this topic will catch on with Mr. Avella's constituents, good luck with that condescending attitude. Thank you, Tony Avella, for having the decency to pursue this issue and others of concern to New Yorkers, including a much-needed ban on horse-drawn carriages in NYC.

Re "59": $18 million is nationwide (actually 17.5 million for the year 2002, the last year for which I could get figures when I was researching.)

Re "67": Bentham was addressing a different issue, the pre-Enlightenment view that animals were incapable of feeling pain. Unless you believe that veganism is the only morally defensible way to eat (a position I can understand intellectually, although there are still grave issues with what happens to animals if we cannot make some economic use of them. Is extinction of species preferrable?), the question is NOT whether animals CAN suffer (which is incontrovertible), but whether they DO suffer from gavage. Have you ever seen a duck swallow a whole fish, distending its esophagus much more than a feeding tube on the way down? It is in their nature to feed differently.

So Brian, are you saying that anyway you kill an animal (or a person for that matter) is of no importance if the outcome is the same? They did away with crucifixion, and drawing and quartering people.The problem, as I see it, is they're killing people in kinder ways, but they're getting crueler when it comes to animals.

Philosopher Jeremy Bentham said, "The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But can they suffer?" If that doesn't matter to you, this conversation is at an end.

You are so right Dave from Albany! That recipe for Tortured Quail where a live quail is immobilized and plucked one feather at a time, declawed, flash-fried (but only ‘til the skin is crispy gold brown), then has its vocal cords slashed so it doesn’t make a fuss while you eat it’s living flesh is so wrong. And at $5000 a plate?!? Too rich for my blood, so it must be wrong.
It’s easy to pass judgment on issues that don’t directly affect you. Raising up a row on issues like these is the mark of a good politician.

You're asking me whether it should be legal to torture an innocent animal to death just so somebody at an upscale restaurant that I'll never be able to afford to eat at can enjoy a delicacy?

Ummm...no, sorry. I'll pass on the foie gras, than you.

JayJay:
First: You think the AVMA is just another political group with vested interest and PETA isn’t?
Second: Going off topic? Meat, dairy, eggs? Let us throw in aquaculture and leave agriculture out of this; all of these industries concern the welfare of livestock foodstuffs. I’m not asking Mr. Avella to fight “a zillion different things”, his concern was the welfare of animals consumed for food. He did pick his battle and he choose a boutique issue that affects less than one percent of the City from an industry with microscopic state-wide gross sales that caters almost exclusively to the wealthy. Avella’s doing what he needs to do to get elected… Stir the class resentment pot, tenaciously tackle an issue that affects almost no one, and fight an industry who has little to no politically clout and doesn’t contribute to his political campaign. I can see he’ll be a wonderful mayor, if elected.

Wouldn't any animal raised for the sole purpose of being slaughtered and then eaten fit under a category of animal cruelty?

It is hard to determine which is not cruel:

(1) A duck raised in the most wonderful environment given food that is the best and then slaughtered and eaten; OR

(2) A duck forced fed through a tube and then slaughtered and eaten.

They are BOTH slaughtered!!!

Isn't cutting a life short cuelty? People who eat meat either accept this or choose to ignore it.

I accept it.

if you go to youtube and search for 'foie gras' you can see what is happening to these poor animals.

By going off topic, and bringing a zillion different "WHY DOESN'T AVELLA"...things into the mix is some kind of a ploy to diminish what he's talking about. It's a little unfair to expect him to fight EVERY injustice all at the same time. He has to pick his battles, a few at a time, like we all do. If he manages to end foie gras production in NYS, GREAT! Then we go on to the next thing...

The AVMA is just another political group. They have no credibility as far as I'm concerned. The have certain vested interests that have nothing to do with animal welfare. Money is a big interest.

Ok JayJay. Whether it’s the truth is arguable (see all of the above, especially #54s post), but I’ll give you that he is bringing to light an issue many people are ignorant of. Why are many people ignorant to it? Maybe it’s because (if #54 is correct, it’s only an $18 million industry, I assume she means in the state) a single retail location for medium sized mid-range retailer can make that in one year. I know that for a fact from retail stores I’ve worked with. It’s a paltry sum compared to the economy of this state. How many New Yorkers even eat the stuff? If Mr. Avella really wants to educate and serve his constituents, maybe he should talk about agribusiness, river and costal pollution, pesticides, hormones and antibiotics, animal feed, refined starches and sugars, etc? These issues touch the life of most New Yorkers and are more than just class-baiting.

Actually JayJay, no. I don't believe our elected officials should be responsible for "informing" us about foie gras (of all things!). The fact that there is ongoing child poverty in NY? Yes. Affordable housing? - Let me know what's going on.

By saying this is just a publicity stunt by Avella is so meaningless. Who cares? He's in a position to let people know what's going on, and he's telling the truth. Isn't that what we want from candidates?

With all due respect JayJay, PETAs hands are far from clean when it comes to informing the public and stating facts. Instead of making reasoned arguments (many of which they may actually win) of “this is standard operating procedure”, “this is what happens in 1st world nations”, “this is how animal products sold in America are produced” PETA chooses what will have the most impact. That is fair; however, looking only at worst case scenarios disingenuous.

I have studied the issue in depth and written a paper on the "morality" of producing and eating foie gras, to be published this summer by the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, which reviews the scientific literature and concludes that foie gras production is not cruel. Mr. Ginor (whose native language is not English, which may account for some of the seeming-awkwardness in his language)is correct: the AVMA has repeatedly inspected and investigated Ginor and others and concluded that his operation is well within acceptable practices (he uses flexible rubber hoses to feed the birds, not metal, and the birds' highly flexible esophagus is not scraped).

Moreover, the EU has concluded that the methods used by operations like Ginor’s with large pens are acceptable.(Some in Europe use individual cages to hold the birds that does not allow them to move naturally; these practices are cruel and have been banned.) No evidence of stress to the birds has been discovered, despite several experiments measuring the level of stress hormones in the birds while being force-fed.

I would be happy to educate the councilman or others with a copy of my paper, but as it stands now, Vella has automatically disqualified himself from my vote because he has proven that he fails to do his homework before taking a political stance. Given the small size of the foie gras industry (about $18 million), this is hardly agribusiness and a poor use of legislators' time.

no

PETA sends undercover agents into factory farms and the video they have online on foie gras is horrible. Ducks have no reflex to vomit and it ends up with a fatty diseased liver, and that's what people love to eat. Like anything else, for the right price, you can get a veterinarian to swear to whatever you need. There was just a case where a farmer was hanging crippled pigs and a vet testified it was not inhumane. The pigs took like ten minutes to die.

I agree with #20 (Brian) that this seems to be nothing more than a publicity stunt. Listen to what was not said. Is the YouTube video from a NY state company; US company? Or is it from a third-world nation. What exactly will the bill say? Mr. Avella seemed to be implying any feeding above and beyond the animal putting the food in its own mouth is cruelty. If one feels that way, it’s a valid point, but regardless of how an animal is fed be it by a metal cone forced into its gullet attached to a pump or a tube where it slides down, both would be illegal. It would be a de facto ban on foie gras. What about injecting nutrition? Antibiotics? Animal based animal feed to herbivores? Caged egg production? The commercial production of foie gras is nowhere near the commercial production of meat, eggs, milk and fur; why doesn’t Mr. Avella speak out on those?

I trust the judgement of the AVMA about as much as I trust the AMA. Self-serving and supportive of the economic interests of agribusiness over animal welfare.

Something more relevant to NYers???

Food and animal cruelty is everyone's issue - city people and rural people alike.

How do you elite metro folks think you get your food everyday? Where do you think it comes from? Soho? Just because you eat (and eat and eat), does not mean you are somehow removed from the production of food.

Jeremiah

i talked to someone recently who lives in ex-urbia and raises her own chickens - feeds them table scraps and they give her beautiful, deep yellow-orange yolks - compared to the pale yellow yolks (nutrient sparse) you get in the supermarket. It is amazing how little we know about what goes into our bodies and why we ahve so much degenerative disease (I completely reversed bone loss bordering on osteoporosis by drinking raw milk for 15 months. No drugs to pay for or suffer through, and I trust what I consume.

Why not ban most full time jobs? Most of them are cruel and unusual punishment for humans, too. Ban crowded subways, while you're at it. Absolutely cruel.

That is how fois gras has been made for over a thousand years, and if you ask any small fois gras producer in France they'll tell you the same thing Mr. Ginor says. Ducks do not have the same anatomy as humans, and all scientific evidence suggests this feeding process is not painful or even remotely uncomfortable for them.

And on top of that, the animal is going to be killed and eaten anyway.

Is it true that AVMA has supported foie gras?
Their website isn't so black and white. Link below.
http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/jun07/070615f.asp

Avella is right- Hudson Valley Foie Gras has been hiding its production methods knowing most would find it grotesque, unnatural and absolutely cruel. Do away with it through legislation already!

Absolutely not. It's not cruel, as many veterinarians have contested. If it were, it WOULD be illegal already.

But this is not my problem with this show today -- FOIE GRAS? I mean really. Is this really a subject to tackle that touches the lives of many New Yorkers? You're kidding me. This is exactly why people think public radio is for snobs and not for them. Why don't you try to keep things at a nice decent populist level?

Please. I don't want to be called one of those snobby NPR people. Keep it real.

I wish our politicians would focus on improving our economy rather than ending more jobs and an industry.

Check the Wikipedia definition...it completely confirms the councilman.

I cannot believe that Mr. Avella's constituency, who probably eat Twinkies and Wing Dings, will be moved by this as a campaign issue.

the duckkiller was very vague about 'the process?'

It continues to mystify me that people continue to eat flesh at all. With all the land animal contamination scares, and how badly overfished our oceans are, I would think more people would just abandon the practice of eating flesh of any kind.

I think Mr. Ginor will come back as a duck in his next life.

Tony Avella, are you willing to require all NYC food establishments to serve certified, non-factory farm cruelty-free meats?

:)

bravo councilman! thank you for having the courage to point out this cruel practice. people will rationalize anything so they can have a "delicious" meal.

In teh words (paraphrase) of Ruth Reichl, you vote every time you put soemthing into your shopping cart.

I saw a farm in the Hudson Valley that makes Foie Gras on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. They totally force fed the geese, shoved a feeding tube down its throat, though they said the geese don't have a gag reflex, and the goose that got fed didn't really seem too shook up after it got fed, it pretty much just waddled away and rejoined the crowd. That being said, it did look a little disturbing. I don't know much about what needs to go into the process of making Foie Gras, but can't the geese or ducks just be fed a really high fat diet? Anyone know the specifics of why they are force fed? Will they simply not eat enough?

Yes, because it worked so well in Chicago...

Also, adult birds don't have their food fed to them in the same way as baby birds. Arguing that feeding an adult bird in the same way as a baby bird is natural is ridiculous.

I've had enough of this Mr. Ginor.

City Council Member needs to focus his energy on more important things. I wish i was a politician, so my whole day would be about taking on battles about useless things.

This guy has got to be kidding, comparing natural bird regurgitation to what's required for making foie gras.

How do ducks feed? Not like that!!

Michael Ginor is a very annoying and indirect speaker. It's a shame that he represents this industry. He keeps whining about what is not true without ever being clear or direct about what is true. Can he say in three sentences what he believes is the true process.

Do you make foie gras from penguins? If not, let's keep it to ducks and geese.

mr. Avella, please spend your council cred on something more relevant to new yorkers. some suggestions: schools, taxes, water supply, public safety, transportation.

Also, I feel this is an easy target to raise the ire of the general public. When councilpeople focus on the foie gras bans, they know that they can create the illusion of progress when this issue affects so few people.

They instigate a avalanche of outrage by pitting the "common folks" against the "elitists."

A penguin feeding the baby is nature, not a person shoving a tube down a duck's throw.

Leave the ducks alone!!

I don't particularly care about this issue, but this industry guy is being so annoying. Make him say what he actually does to the birds.

I second Liz's comment (#14)

Let's call this what it is, Mr. Avella -- a publicity stunt. People like me who understand the tradition of making fois gras and who appreciate food know better than to take you seriously.

let's try the process on this guy then ask him whether or not it's cruel.

What's this industry guy's problem? Brian made a good point. If the law bans cruel forced feedings and he's saying that cruel forced feedings are not used, then the legislation should have absolutely no effect on him. That he is arguing against the legislation essentially proves his guilt.

Then what does the process entail?

This is so cruel!!!

Too much nasty stuff for gourment food people, treat the animals with respect.

This guy keeps talking about what's false but he's not telling us what is true.

IS HE FORCE FEEDING ANIMALS OR NOT?

Please ask Mr. Ginor the exact process of producing Foie Gras. He's being vague.

Looks like I will have to start planting my own tomatoes and raising my own poultry so I can eat what I want to eat.

Illegalize the cruelty, not Foie Gras..we humans are omnivorous!

oh well it's A-sexual. Great! So none of those pesky cases of ringing ducknuts.

what about banning horse drawn carriages?

http://www.all-creatures.org/bhdc/

i'm with pp. until we can say we've stopped cruelty of all sorts that befalls the animal part of our food supply, why attack this one, very niche, cuisine?

take a clue or two from those in chicago, who repealed their ban this year. this is rather useless.

and yes, i have enjoyed fois gras milles fois! this is a culturally-based food practice, enjoyed over centuries.

Animal Cruelty? isn't eating any animal technically animal cruelty? What type of geese are we talking about? because if it is the ones that are out here in new jersey, I say start making it fast food. Just because i hate those geese.

"More seriously, I am not sure the chickens that end up at KFC received better treatment."

Exactly. Why not ban everything unless it's allowed to roam free? That's the only way I'd be able to tolerate a ban, if it's enforced consistently.

Maybe I should get my mom to ship me some from France and sell it illegally *profit*.

More seriously, I am not sure the chickens that end up at KFC received better treatment.

yes! with this recession who can afford it

I'm not wild about eating foie gras; however, a ban would ruin the absolutely best (high-end) hamburger in New York at DB Bistro on West 44th Street for approximately $30. Believe it or not, it is worth $30! You have to try it at least once.

Liver is traditionally a sacred food for its salutory value - even in ancient China - http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/liver.html

I agree, cruelty is not acceptable - was cruelty always part of the process?

Robert, then beef, pork, and chicken should all be banned as well. Cows, pigs, and chickens also experience cruel treatment at the slaughterhouse.

If only for the cruel treatment of the geese, yes. How would you like food stuffed down your throat! (Homer Simpson need not answer.) How about a little empathy here.