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Oh, Tempura, Oh, Morels!
Your idyllic description of foie gras production unfortunately bears no resemblance to modern foie gras production. Although restaurant industry insiders who are given tours of the Hudson Valley and Sonoma farms report humane conditions, individuals who take the liberty of showing themselves around the facilities report a vastly different reality. In these factory farming facilities, ducks are force-fed with a metal tube that often injures their esophagus. They frequently suffer organ rupture as a result of the force-feeding, leading a significant portion of them to die before slaughter. Your comparison of force-feeding to the weight gain of migratory birds is also flawed: duck and goose livers expand by two-fold in nature, but they expand by an astonishing ten-fold under foie gras production conditions. Veterinarians who have had the opportunity to examine fowl who have expired in foie gras facilities have observed that these creatures must have suffered enourmously with their fatty liver disease, esophagal injuries, and organ rupture. It is dishonest and transparently manipulative for you to hold up highly-controverisal Peta as the sole organization opposing foie gras production. The Humane Society of the United States also actively opposes foie gras production, as does our own local Animal Protection and Rescue League. Furthermore, your attempts to attribute fat-phobia, asceticism, and puritanism to those who seek to reduce the suffering of animals in order to discredit them is rather laughable. I invite you to consider the distinct possibility that they are motived, quite simply, by compassion.— July 13, 2009 6:15 p.m.