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.
Geese living in parks near New York City airports are bound for the slaughterhouse. In a misguided attempt to keep geese away from planes, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plan to capture the wild geese, ship them to slaughter, and turn the dead animals over to food banks. PETA sent an urgent letter to both agencies as well as to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo offering to donate healthy and humane meals to the food banks if New York would call off the killing and instead exclusively employ tried and true nonlethal methods of goose control.
Killing geese will only exacerbate the problem by creating a spike in the food supply, which will prompt accelerated breeding among survivors and newcomers. That means an increase in geese populations and a vicious, endless, and expensive killing cycle. And imagine the horror of being a wild animal who is suddenly rounded up, packed into a truck, and shipped to a slaughterhouse.
PETA has not received a response to our letter, and we are asking our supporters to appeal to the Department of Environmental Protection, the Port Authority, and Gov. Cuomo to try PETA's easy suggestions for managing the geese humanely—or to at least consider painless euthanasia.
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.
Dozens of animals were rescued from a ramshackle farm in Arnsberg-Hüsten, Germany, after a whistleblower alerted PETA Germany that the animals were being kept in filthy, dilapidated sheds or were enclosed in broken wire fences—exposed to the elements, predators, and the beer-bottle-littered ground.
Upon investigation, staffers found 59 chickens, 34 rabbits, 25 ducks, and six geese, as well as the skins and heads of two dead rabbits and the carcasses of three dead and decaying animals, which were being eaten by rats. The whistleblower stated that the owner of the farm slaughtered animals and sold them to his neighbors.
PETA Germany staffers shot video footage, which they used to file a complaint with authorities, who ordered the farmer to surrender most of the animals. The church that owned the property also ordered the man out, and the city bulldozed the shacks. The man subsequently surrendered the rest of the animals, who were taken by PETA Germany and two other rescue groups and placed in sanctuaries. Not a bad weekend's work, PETA Germany!
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.
Award-winning chef Amanda Cohen can add another notch to her (cruelty-free) lipstick case: Her not-so-sinfully delicious Mushroom Mousse has won the top prize of $10,000 in PETA's Fine Faux Foie Gras Challenge. Cohen, who is a veteran of New York City vegan hot spots TeaNY, Angelica Kitchen, Pure Food and Wine, and Blossom Café, wowed the judges with her deceptively simple combination of puréed vegan margarine, onions, soy milk, portobello mushrooms, and truffle oil. "I really wanted to make something decadent," says Amanda. "I thought it would be fun to recreate that [foie gras] in a vegan version that didn't lose any flavor and could stand on its own."
Yes, I think you could say that it stands on its own. And so do the second- and third-place vegan delicacies created by Eric Lechasseur from Seed in Venice, California, and Vincent Moellman from 50 Forks at the Art Institute of California in Santa Ana. I only wish I could say the same for the ducks and geese who are force-fed to make real (bad) foie gras, many of whom become so sick and debilitated that they can't even walk or stand.
If you can't get to Amanda's New York restaurant, Dirt Candy, to taste-test her mind-blowing Mushroom Mousse for yourself, you can find the recipe at PETA Living.
New Yorkers, if you've already tried Amanda's prize-winning concoction, please feel free to post your reviews below.
Written by Alisa Mullins
Bravo to the good folks at CBS 5 in San Francisco for running with a chilling Swedish investigative report on the down industry.
In case you think that the down filling in coats and pillows is gathered by a kindly farmer who just follows molting birds around all day and fills a sack with their lost feathers, here's an eye-opener: An investigative team from the Swedish TV show Cold Facts went undercover on goose farms in Poland, Hungary, and China and videotaped workers yanking fistfuls of feathers out of live birds, a process that a veterinarian contacted by CBS 5 described as "torture." At one farm, a worker is shown using a needle and thread to sew a goose's skin back together after the skin had been ripped apart during plucking.
Makes that down comforter seem less comforting, doesn't it? Luckily for geese and the people who don't wish to hurt them, down-alternative comforters are just as cozy and cuddly as those made from down. I speak from personal experience—I happen to have one on my bed … along with three toasty kitties and a dog.
Tamara Ecclestone, daughter of Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, has the ideal formula for success: compassion, intelligence, and beauty. Tamara—who bared it all to reveal the naked truth behind foie gras for PETA U.K. last year—recently bought one of her father's favorite pubs. Her first order of business as restaurateur? Banning foie gras from the menu.
And the kindness doesn't stop there. Ecclestone has fired off letters to all Formula 1 team sponsors, urging them to ditch foie gras. Virgin Racing, Toro Rosso, Red Bull Racing, Allianz SE, and Michael Schumacher's team, Mercedes GP, all gave her assurance in record time that they wouldn't serve the cruel dish at their events. "I'm absolutely thrilled to be an ambassador for [PETA U.K.'s] campaign to stop the sale of foie gras – something I call 'torture in a tin' because of how ducks and geese are force-fed to produce it," says Tamara.
Written by Logan Scherer
Smell that? It's the savory scent of our Fine Faux Foie Gras Challenge permeating the blogosphere. Check out our fabulous future L.A. neighbors' attempt to win top honors:
With the stakes insanely high—$10,000 to be exact—compassionate chefs everywhere are making their ingredient lists and checking them twice. (Hey, soon-to-be-fellow Angelinos: You still have time to tweak your recipe so that it contains no animal products!) The only force-feeding in this contest will be when our judges stuff their own faces with international chefs' sure-to-be-succulent recipes.
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