What a shocker this article is:
According to McNally, their tactics have ranged from chants and name-calling (addressing individuals as “duck rapists”) to firing bullhorns directly in her face. Other restaurant owners have taken foie gras items off their menus, but so far, McNally hasn’t backed down. “We don’t believe that, overall, we should be told what to eat,” she says.
As we talked on the drive, it became clear that there is more at issue than animal welfare — the way McNally sees it, her business is at stake as well. London has 70 outdoor seats that she needs to turn over at least twice a night to make payroll. “With the bullhorns and the screaming, you can’t sit there and dine,” she says. “That’s taking money away from the waiter and from us.”
Everyone has a right to free speech, but that doesn’t cross into disrupting your neighborhood such that your neighbors “quiet enjoyment” is disrupted. The Philadelphia Police should be allowed to arrest these people for disturbing the peace.
Turns out that maybe Foie Gras isn’t as cruel as the animal rights psychos are making it out to be:
McNally and I arrived at the farm around noon and met Izzay Yanay, co-owner of Hudson Valley. A former member of the Israeli Defense Force, Yanay projects an intense, almost defiant pride when showing off his farm. “Make them come — all of them,” he says. He’s entertained roughly two tours a week for the past 20 years, hosting chefs and journalists alike. He promises unrestricted access and encourages me to take pictures.
Dr. Lawrence Bartholf, a practicing livestock veterinarian who operates independent of the farm, accompanies us. Bartholf often chaperones Hudson Valley tours to answer questions related to the birds’ physiology “It’s one thing to use facts to argue a point,” he says. “But when [protesters] use outright lies and distortions and half-truths, that’s where I draw the line.”
Leftist activists using outright lies, distortions and half-truths? Nah…. you don’t say? What a pity Philadelphia City Council is buying this crap, instead of arresting these people.
Never had it, not sure I can afford it, but I will try it the next time the opportunity arises.
What’s funny are those who are attacking the article only have seen videos and not taken a tour themselves. I’d be willing to bet that these farms would gladly let any of them tour whenever they want.
Not that it would help. Radical activists, once they get into the emotional high of the fight, will rarely concede any point lest they damage the foundation of their beliefs.
As a gun rights activist, I must take care to not get into that mindset, that facts and truth are more important than being right. It just so happens that fact and truth are on my side (hence *why* I’m for it, not the other way around).
Looks pretty cruel to me. I can’t imagine that having a metal pipe jammed down your throat every day so that three pounds of grain can be shot into your stomach is a super pleasant experience.
Yeah, PETA are pretty far out there and a lot of animal rights activists are total loonies, but IMO it’s pretty difficult to argue that modern factory farming is anything but plainly cruel and miserable.
Are there smaller farms that aren’t totally barbaric that tret their animals as living beings? Of course—there’s tons of them. But the majority of the food we eat doesn’t come from them, unfortunately.
In any case, I always thought liver tasted vile :)
I’ve never had Foie Gras, and don’t plan on eating it. But that’s because I think liver is gross. I think it’s fine if animal rights activists want to try to convince people that Foie Gras is cruel and that people shouldn’t eat it, but they don’t have a right to disrupt their neighborhoods or use the law to force their beliefs on others.
I’m skeptical of any claim that Foie Gras is done using factory farming methods, because not that many people eat the stuff. If there’s low demand, you don’t need the economies of scale, especially if people are willing to pay a lot of money for it.
Also, City Paper is a pretty left-leaning publication. If even they are calling bullshit, I’m inclined to listen.
If I were trying to eat and enjoy a meal and these twits insisted on disrupting it, there would be an immediate need for EMT’s.
I imagine having a bullhorn removed from your ass would be almost as painful as when I put it up there.
Especially screwed up behavior since the majority of the diners there having their meals ruined aren’t eating Foie Gras.
Sebastian,
Charlie Palmers, a restaurant here in DC (next to the Monocle the closest good restaurant to the US Senate), has foie gras on the menu. Have never had it, but thats cause I usually order the Tuna Tartar, but saw the local farmer delivering it (and other game type meats) this morning.
Guav, using a pejorative like factory farm is about as accurate as calling my 10/22 an assault weapon because I’ve got a synthtic stock on it and a 30 round magazine. Its something the anti meat crowd has come up with to slander America’s farmers and stop people from eating meat. Its use has only been further enhanced by Whole Foods and their shady CEO (stock fraud anyone???) in order to better market his products (which are hardly any different than the ones he criticizes) and make him a billionaire.
Well, I’d say your opinion is shit. Or not well thought out.
What precisely is “plainly cruel and miserable?? The animals on the vast majority of farms are very well cared for. They are a significant investment for a farmer to make and to suggest that they aren’t cared for is plainly ludicrous (or shows you completely lack any understanding of farming).
They are housed not only for their comfort but also to protect them from disease, predation, and the inevitable attacks that one animal will launch on another in order to gain dominance and control within the herd.
Every step of the on farm process of raising an animal is intended to maximize the animals comfort and health and well being. Remember, if its not happy and healthy, its not going to grow and it will have a huge impact on the farmers bottom line.
But thats besides the point.
What, pray tell, would you propose instead? Do you really believe this Wendell Berry vision that the nuts espouse about “family farms” (and would you have the balls in person to tell a 5th generation farmer that him and his wise and their sons and daughters aren’t a family because you possess some ludicrous vision of the world??)???? DO you really think giving 40 acres to each person to grow grain, fruits and veggies and animals is going to feed America and the world???
You remember where we once were in this country Guav, don’t you??? Or have you never heard of the dust bowl??????
The reason America is so succsful is that we can concentrate all our resources (at a national and individual level) on activities other than producing food.
You want a nation of family farms???
Then you want poor people (heck, middle class people) to starve. But hey, thats not cruel, its just the typical crap a limosine liberal espouses.
You want “organic farms”???? Fine. But don’t complain when crops fail, cancer rates rise, soils erode, and the rivers die.
Think about this, right now the average consumer in the US spends under 10% of their income on food. If we were to adopt your model, that figure would quickly jump to well over 30% (and indeed some people think it could go as high as 40%).
Want to guess what the implications of that would be to the economy??? Are you really asking to send us into a depression and bankrupt the economy???? Do you really want to turn us into Africa?????
Luckily, smarter folks understand this which is why – every time the farm bill rolls around – the PETA nuts are laughed right out of Congress.
Countertop, The Oxford English Dictionary attributes the first recorded use of the term “Factory Farm” to an American journal of economics in 1890, and the term is also used within the agricultural industry.
I’m not sure why you blew one sentence of mine into a huge rant containing an enormous amount of assumptions and 43 questions marks, but if you were hoping for a lengthy battle I regret to inform you I do not have the time nor inclination to oblige you today.
In other news, I have a synthetic stock (bullpup though) and a hi-cap magazine on my 10/22 as well.
Guav,
Sorry for going so hard on you there. Just reread my comments.
This is one of those issues – where an entire sector has been libeled by asinine activists, dishonest marketers, and a worthless (and largely politically driven liberal) media.
I suspect like most others in the country you have little connection with ag anymore and are very susceptible to the PETA campaigns. Its not much different than the fight we gunnies are engaged in. As sebastian points out, these folks mostly use lies, distortions and half truths to confuse and misinform America.
I’ve had foie gras, and actually at one of the restaurants (Amada) that was protested in Fallujadelphia. I’m not a huge fan overall of the product, but if others like it, I lean toward countertop’s first post.
The whole problem is not so much foie gras, but foie gras gives radicals some traction in what is a war against non-vegetarian life.
Maybe you think I’m kidding, but I’m not. The end-game is an end to meat-eating.
My wife likes it; I don’t. I buy it for her whenever I can find it at a good price. F***’em anyway.
Thankfully, Philly Chefs for Choice are striking back against the crazed bunch of zealots who would love nothing more than to take away more and more of our choices. In an event called “Philly Foie For Five,” about 20 Philly restaurants will offer foie gras dishes for just $5. The event goes from October 1st to October 7th. (More info at http://www.artisanfarmers.org )
The event is designed to expose more people to foie gras. If no one speaks against the minority activists, we will lose the right to eat foie gras. And the slope is slippery. Veal may go next. Then chicken. These activists aren’t going to stop until they have us all eating legumes and liking it. The final strike, if it were up to these activists, truly would be an end to meat-eating.
There are only three foie gras farms in the United States. We aren’t talkig about “agri-business” here. We’re talking about small farms producing a small amount of product. But this is why foie gras has become an easy target for the minority zealots in Philadelphia, Chicago, Austin, and many states. In many situations, property owners have been targeted with vandalism and threats have been made against the lives of their families. Protesting is one thing, terrorism is quite another.
Ultimately, business owers are punished by these people for running their businesses legally, in the way they see fit. They lose customers to the screaming hoardes (who wants to walk through a screaming band of zealots for lunch?) and lose more when they are forced to give in and take foie gras off the menu. Business owners lose thousands of dollars just fighting these people off. Commerce suffers in cities where these activists attack.
Those who talk about the curelty of the foie gras process are sadly misinformed. They are putting humans in the place of the animals. By this logic, we should be horrified that the poor things stand around in the winter without shoes and socks.
That is the basic misconception exploited by animal rights organizations, that ducks are like people. Yes, a tube in the throat is not comfortable for humans. Neither is swallowing whole, spiny wriggling fish, which many species of ducks delight in.
In the same way, an enlarged liver in water fowl is a normal process, not a disease process. In fact, most birds have the same mechanism. Have you ever seen fat hummingbirds? Yet they sure take on a lot of sugar water before they migrate. The extra energy is stored in an enlarged liver.
For the activists and others not well-informed on the issue, foie gras production has been carefully examined by animal welfare advocates who have determined it to be humane. Unfortunately, these activists (or terrorists, if you will) are uneducated and ignorant of the truth. They may even know the facts but chose to ignore them out of zealotry for their cause.
Those who wish to know more about foie gras production, there are two articles at the bottom of the first page of http://www.artisanfarmers.org that discuss the animal welfare aspects of it. For some additional perspective, see: http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/sep05/050901q.asp