Thread: Bishop of Monmouth : Don’t eat ‘cruel’ foie gras

Don’t eat ‘cruel’ foie gras, urges Bishop of Monmouth
Aled Blake
Mar 19 2011

A RELIGIOUS leader has urged people to give up one of the world’s most controversial culinary delicacies.

The Bishop of Monmouth, Dominic Walker, said foie gras was cruelly produced and said that Christians should refuse to eat it.

Even though the production of foie gras is prohibited in the UK, it is legal for shops and restaurants to sell it.

Foie gras – which means fatty liver in French – is produced by specially fattening a duck or goose which is achieved through gavage, effectively force-feeding the birds.

Anti-cruelty group Peta is among the organisations which stages protests and presses stores and restaurants to stop selling the food.

In a letter to the Western Mail, Bishop Walker argued that the practice amounts to animal cruelty.

He said: “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 – it is a practice so cruel that it is prohibited in the UK and many other countries, although foie gras is still imported and sold in some stores, and served in many restaurants.

“Foie gras is made from the grotesquely enlarged livers of male ducks and geese.

“The birds are kept in tiny wire cages or packed into pens. They are unable to have much movement and can certainly not fly or swim, or even clean themselves.

“Two or three times every day, up to 2kg of grain and fat are pumped into the birds’ stomachs through pipes shoved down their throats.

“This force-feeding causes the birds’ livers to become diseased and to swell up to ten times their normal size.”

Bishop Walker claimed that “many birds become too sick to stand or lift their heads”.

He said: “The pipes sometimes puncture birds’ throats, and the massive amount of food can rupture their internal organs.

“Female hatchlings, who are useless to foie gras producers, may be drowned in scalding water, suffocated in plastic bags or shredded alive in macerators.

“The Prince of Wales refuses to allow foie on menus at his royal residences, and stores like Selfridges, House of Fraser and Harvey Nicholls refuse to sell it.

“Unfortunately, other stores and restaurants continue to sell and serve foie gras in spite of the terrible animal cruelty that is involved in its production.

“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.”

James Sommerin, executive head chef at Crown at Whitebrook restaurant, near Monmouth, said the Michelin-starred restaurant does not use foie gras and has not used it for about 12 months.

He added: “We have no plans to use foie gras in the future.”

But Shaun Hill, the chef and owner at the Michelin-starred Walnut Tree in Llanddewi Skirrid, defended foie gras, saying the restaurant uses the ingredient “occasionally”.

He said: “The biggest source of unethical food is chicken mass produced in Thailand and Brazil and goes into outlets here, but you never see Peta picketing outside the local balti house.

“Foie gras is a mere nothing in the scheme of things, but it’s an easy target.

“If I need to use it, I will make sure it’s free range and properly brought up – the same as any meat I use.

“If you are careful how you buy it, then you are at least moving with integrity.”

walesonline.co.uk




youtube.com

I just got 2 can from France

PETA: "People who Eat Tasty Animals".

I'm with Ford Prefect on this

He said: “The biggest source of unethical food is chicken mass produced in Thailand ...

Is this the tenuous link to Thailand in that article?

Why is Thai chicken unethical?

Simon

Originally Posted by Simon43

Is this the tenuous link to Thailand in that article?

nope , World News .

Originally Posted by Simon43

He said: “The biggest source of unethical food is chicken mass produced in Thailand ...

Is this the tenuous link to Thailand in that article?

Why is Thai chicken unethical?

Simon

Seems as the article is quite reflective of little journalistic research and general knowledge, which then is promoted as to be expected. Thailand's domestic fowl "production" is almost quite civilised compared to numerous global practices.

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Thailand's domestic fowl "production" is almost quite civilised compared to numerous global practices.

https://teakdoor.com/food-and-drink/8...t-british.html (Thai chicken better than most British production)

Fascinating "World News". Right up there with Charlie Sheen. Japan? Nah. Libya? Nah. Let's talk about being mean to birds.

Originally Posted by Davis Knowlton

Fascinating "World News". Right up there with Charlie Sheen. Japan? Nah. Libya? Nah. Let's talk about being mean to birds.

PC shite. Mid is required through TD bylaws to slip in a meaningless tidbit now and again.

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Originally Posted by Davis Knowlton

Fascinating "World News". Right up there with Charlie Sheen. Japan? Nah. Libya? Nah. Let's talk about being mean to birds.

PC shite. Mid is required through TD bylaws to slip in a meaningless tidbit now and again.

Not meaningless, it's something disgusting that I never knew about. I agree Japan and Libya are more important but no one spends the entire day on those. Who cares about Charlie Sheen?

Most industrial agriculture is disgusting and cruel.

it's an interesting article, highlighting our willingness to inflict cruelty on animals in order to produce a ridiculous luxury food product to satisfy the jaded appetites of the ( mostly french ) "gourmet" scumbags who eat this nonsense.

it places the producers and the "connoissuers" who buy and eat this shit in the same foetid gutter as the reviled asian producers of dogmeat, whalemeat, shark fin and other rare species foodstuffs that the west are always getting so hypocritically wound up about.

for once the bishop is right.

^^I certainly don't care about Charlie. But, it certainly appears as if every Walmart shopper in your favorite country is glued to news of his drug-fueled insanity. There are more articles about this idiot in the US papers than there are about almost anything else. And, it's more than a bit hypocritical to whine about the fate of some birds while sitting there munching on Chicken McNuggets. And, given the source of the article, I would think the church would have a few larger problems on which to focus.

Originally Posted by Davis Knowlton

^^I certainly don't care about Charlie. But, it certainly appears as if every Walmart shopper in your favorite country is glued to news of his drug-fueled insanity. There are more articles about this idiot in the US papers than there are about almost anything else. And, it's more than a bit hypocritical to whine about the fate of some birds while sitting there munching on Chicken McNuggets. And, given the source of the article, I would think the church would have a few larger problems on which to focus.

Unfortunately, it's much too late to save the food supply in the good old USA - as it has completely been taken in by processed, homogenized, hybrid, GMOed, chemically & artificially induced, and engineered cultures. Usually under the guise something else.

^Very true. And, when you can find food that is natural, it is so expensive that it can only be afforded by the well-to-do.

anyone with any common sense should boycott it not just Christians. It's expensive and overrated and you could spend the money you save down Soi Yodsak..

Cheers

Originally Posted by Davis Knowlton

^Very true. And, when you can find food that is natural, it is so expensive that it can only be afforded by the well-to-do.

But when you consider that most people on welfare are fat fu*ks....
What I'am trying to say is most people are oveweight. If these people would eat less and invest in healthy food their budget would be on target.
Eating a piece of meat should not be like drinking a glass of water. (which might become a luxury too)

^If they were smart enough to eat less and invest in healthy foods, they probably wouldn't be so lazy and stupid that they were on welfare.

Originally Posted by Mid

The Bishop of Monmouth, Dominic Walker

Wasn't he the one that eats baby's? Oh no, that was Bath & Wells...