Written by Michelle Kretzer
Google goes gaga for vegan food, learn how to show bunnies some love this Valentine's Day, and help us ask Florida not to change its slogan to "The Hoarder State." Here's everything in PETA's world that you might have missed this week.
Don't miss any breaking animal rights stories. Hop on over to PETA's Tumblr page for the latest:
Some folks made Christmas merry, while others are in need of making some serious New Year's resolutions to shape up:
Written by PETA
Jamie Oliver's mom, Sally, is a gourmet in her own right, with a restaurant, The Cricketers, in the U.K. After PETA U.K. learned that she was serving foie gras, they contacted "The Naked Chef's" mom and told her the naked truth about the suffering of ducks and geese who are slated to be killed to produce this gastronomical atrocity, and she quickly pledged never to serve it again.
People with rescued companion ducks say that the animals have a zest for life that rivals that of any puppy or toddler. Quackers and Crackers (pictured above), two such ducks whom PETA rescued from a life of deprivation and neglect, love to play in the sprinkler with their guardian's children, blow bubbles in the mud, and engage in mock hay-throwing battles. On foie gras farms, ducks like Quackers and Crackers are force-fed four times a day until their livers swell to as much as 10 to 12 times their normal size. They never, ever get to swim or splash in the water, something that ducks naturally desire to do every day.
Foie gras is so inhumane that its production has been banned in the U.K. and several other countries and in the state of California. Until the rest of the U.S. follows suit, it's up to us to speak out and ask restaurants and stores not to sell this delicacy of despair.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
San Francisco Giants outfielder Cody Ross just knocked one out of the ballpark. When the postseason hero learned that foie gras is made by shoving tubes down the throats of ducks and geese, often causing serious injuries, and force-feeding the birds until their livers become painfully engorged, Ross immediately decided to change ducks' luck and dump foie gras.
"Once I found out what it was, it kind of made it taste a little different," he said.
PETA is sending Ross a thank-you card for being a fine friend to the feathered. To learn more about why he stopped eating foie gras, watch the Kate Winslet-narrated video here.
Top contender for Most Disturbing Food of the Month: foie gras doughnuts from Do or Dine restaurant in Brooklyn. That's right—fried dough coupled with diseased, fatty duck liver. Want a stomach pump with that?
To produce foie gras, workers ram metal pipes down the throats of ducks and geese and force-feed them until their livers swell to up to 10 times their normal size. The animals commonly suffer ruptured organs, bruised and broken bills, and severe neck wounds. The cruel process is banned in many countries as well as in California. While it is legal in New York, an online petition against Do or Dine's disgusting doughnuts has already garnered hundreds of signatures.
New Yorkers aren't the only ones in a flap over duck abuse. A major food festival in Germany that has banned foie gras is catching flack from France, where most foie gras is produced. But festival organizers, backed by animal advocates, are holding firm.
Unfortunately, ducks and geese aren't faring so well on Royal Caribbean cruises, which continue to serve, and Gelson's Markets, which continues to sell, foie gras. Please take a moment to urge the cruise line to toss this epicurean atrocity overboard, and ask Gelson's Market to take foie gras off the shelves for good.
The Mentalist star Owain Yeoman investigated a "crime scene" outside Queen Elizabeth's favorite store, Fortnum & Mason, yesterday. Despite months of pressure from PETA U.K., the British retailer has so far refused to stop selling foie gras, the production of which is so cruel that it is illegal under U.K. law.
"In the UK, foie gras production is literally a criminal procedure – so why is a shop that prides itself on its British heritage still selling this cruel product?" asks Yeoman, an outspoken vegetarian and current Sexiest Vegetarian contender. "We're encouraging all compassionate people to shop elsewhere until Fortnum & Mason stops selling foie gras."
In foie gras production, young ducks and geese are confined to tiny cages or pens barely larger than their own bodies. Up to 4 pounds of grain and fat are pumped through pipes into the birds' stomachs each day. Investigations on foie gras farms have documented sick, dead, and dying birds, some with holes in their necks from pipe injuries.
Other major U.K. retailers, including Selfridges and Harvey Nichols, have stopped selling foie gras, so what's holding up Fortnum & Mason? You can help convince the retailer by sending an e-mail and asking that it stop being a royal pain to geese.
Written by Alisa Mullins
British beauty Tamara Ecclestone's new ad for PETA U.K. is sure to get engines revving.
"All dogs deserve to be loved", says Ecclestone, who appears in the ad with her beloved mutt, Buster. "I encourage everyone to do what they can to help animals in need and to open their homes and their hearts to a dog only if they have the time, resources, and patience to care for the dog."
The Formula 1 Racing correspondent and daughter of racing magnate Bernie Ecclestone has used her pull to persuade racers and sponsors to swear off fur and shun foie gras.
Stateside, Ecclestone supports PETA's Community Animal Project (CAP), which helps provide veterinary care, shelter, disaster assistance, and spay/neuter surgeries to animals in Virginia and North Carolina. You can help CAP, too, by making a donation to SNIP, which is PETA's mobile low-cost spay/neuter clinic, or to PETA's Animal Emergency Fund.
St. George's Day is celebrated across England to honor one of the country's patron saints. PETA U.K. supporters illustrated that there is nothing saintly about using ducks and geese for foie gras when they converged on department store Fortnum & Mason, bodypainted to resemble St. George's Cross. The lovely ladies—including former Playboy model Victoria Eisermann—told Fortnum & Mason, which prides itself on being patriotic, that foie gras is anything but. England banned the production of foie gras, but cruel, greedy companies like Fortnum & Mason still import it from France.
Foie gras is the diseased liver of ducks or geese, made by jamming steel pipes down the birds' throats and pumping them full of grain and fat several times a day until their livers become grossly enlarged. If they survive force-feeding, the birds are slaughtered, and their liver is sold as a "delicacy."
If a restaurant near you serves foie gras, please give its managers a "Foie Gras Cruelty" leaflet and ask them to consider a more humane menu option.
When gourmets say something is "sinful," they usually mean "decadent." When Dominic Walker, the bishop of Monmouth in Wales, says foie gras is sinful, he means in the biblical sense. In a letter he sent on behalf of PETA U.K. to the Welsh Western Mail newspaper, Bishop Walker urges Christians to refuse to eat the deadly "delicacy":
Lent is a time when Christians are encouraged to think about what they eat, and to fast or abstain from their favourite foods. We are also encouraged to engage in some positive action, and I would ask your readers to give some thought to foie gras production which involves force-feeding ducks and geese until their livers become diseased and painfully enlarged to up to ten times their normal size .... I would urge Christians to refuse to eat foie gras and to write to those stores that stock it and to those restaurants that serve it and to help end this cruel trade.
Foie gras production, which involves pumping up to 4 pounds of mush into ducks' and geese's stomachs every day, is so cruel that it is illegal in the U.K.—although, paradoxically, it is still legal to sell the stuff. Both the production and sale of foie gras have been banned in California, a law that goes into effect next year.
If you see foie gras on a restaurant menu, take the bishop's advice and complain to the management. And please take a moment to urge Royal Caribbean to stop supporting the torture of ducks and geese by serving foie gras on its cruises.
Chef Martin Picard abruptly quit Ottawa's upcoming Winterlude festival after concerned citizens prompted organizers to ban foie gras from the menu of the festival's opening dinner. Activists won another victory over cruelty, and organizers of the Taste of Winterlude dinner, which will be held at the aptly named Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Québec, don't seem concerned about having to say "sayonara" to Picard over the gastronomical atrocity.
"We all agreed that we could present this menu without foie gras," said festival spokesperson Lucie Caron.
Leaping into the breach is celebrated Prince Edward Island chef Michael Smith, who is big enough to think outside the gaveuse and prepare any of the millions of dishes that don't include diseased duck livers.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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