In July 2012 a new California law will prohibit the production and sale of foie gras, a food that is made from the unnaturally fattened livers of force-fed ducks in a process that many animal welfare groups call cruel. But meanwhile two San Diego-area restaurants that serve it will be the subject of a protest march tonight organized by Animal Protection and Rescue League (APRL).
A media release from the group says it picked New Year’s Eve for the action since it is “the biggest night of the year for foie gras sales.”
Mille Fleurs’s menu posted on their website includes “California Squab and Seared 'Foie Gras'” served with “Red Wine Braised Cabbage, Chestnuts, Port Wine Reduction” for $35. The Delicias menu lists “Torchon of Foie Gras” including “pickled cherries, apricot puree, port poached figs” for $20.
Many animal welfare organizations condemn the production of foie gras because it involves “shoving pipes down ducks’ throats” to “force feed them far more than they would ever eat”—“so much that their livers become diseased and enlarged,” as described on The Humane Society of the United States’s (HSUS) website. “This causes a tremendous amount of suffering and can make it difficult for the birds to walk and breathe normally. The force feeding can cause bruises, lacerations, and sores. The duck’s livers may grow to ten times the normal size.”
According to the HSUS, more than a dozen countries have prohibited the production of what is calls the “delicacy of despair.”
Hudson Valley Foie Gras, billing itself as “the premier producer of foie gras in America,” says that the animals it uses to make the traditional delicacy are treated humanely by “trained caretakers” in a “stress-free, comfortable environment.”
The company’s website states that “small numbers of specially bred ducks are individually hand fed to produce our unique, signature foie gras.” It cites the birds’ physiology in defense of its methods, for example arguing that “unlike that of mammals, the throat of waterfowl is lined with tissue similar to the palm of our hand, permitting them to eat live, wriggling fish, spines and all, without harm, or to accept the feeding tube.”
However APRL says those methods are so inhumane that city governments including those of San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco have passed resolutions applauding dining establishments for removing the item from menus in advance of the July 2012 ban. The group reports that it has convinced 100 restaurants in the state to stop serving foie gras, and it is targeting the 300 other ones that still do so.
The APRL protest march is scheduled to begin at 7:00 p.m. tonight outside Mille Fleurs, 6009 Paseo Delicias in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Then at 8pm, the group plans to march one block to Delicias (6106 Paseo Delicias).
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