Editorial: All creatures great and gras

“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity”

– Arthur Schopenhauer, ?19th century philosopher

Yes, Art, but they taste so, so good.

And therein lies the essential dichotomy in the debate over the now-formerly imposed California foie gras ban. When news broke last week that a circuit court judge had struck down the ban – which forbade foie gras to be sold in California – as unconstitutional because it was at odds with federal guidelines over interstate commerce, it was deemed a victory for fatty-waterfowl-liver lovers, and the restaurants who serve them.

Not that any of this means much to the average Californian – prior to the ban, the result of a lawsuit against the Sonoma Foie Gras company, only a small percentage of people ate it with any regularity, and even fewer restaurants served it. And that’s why it is the perfect case study for food rights vs. animals rights – foie gras isn’t about any societal need for sustenance, or important cultural standard bearer. It’s a question of: What are we willing to do to animals for a tasty niblet?

Foie gras, of course, is infamously produced via a process known as “gavage,” in which a lengthy tube is forced down the bird’s throat and several meals worth of grain are pumped into its stomach, about four times a day. Within a few weeks, gavage renders the animal’s liver at more than 10 times its normal size and the unfortunate (and now largely immobilized) honker is ready for the chopping block.

Online videos depicting gavage are brutal to watch: ducks cramped in tiny cages panicking at the sight of their “feeder” approaching with his tube, dog piling over each other in a futile attempt to get away.

But it’s not so simple as that, say foie-gras supporters such as Baylen Linnekin, founder of the Keep Food Legal Foundation. He says that foie gras is not cruel – in fact, waterfowl are built to swallow large dinners of fish in a single gulp. He says American gavage practices are more humane – after the initial fears pass, our gavage finds the quackers happily queuing up for their turn at the neck pump.

Oddly, videos depicting this, how shall we say, Shangri-gras, are missing on YouTube.

The reality is, as one learns more about foie-gras processes, the arguments for a ban line up quicker than my kids at the Happy Meal counter.

And, yes, that last sentence exposes me as one of the hypocrites of all hypocrites when it comes to this debate. I’m one of the millions of guilt-ridden meat eaters of America – the dude who’s read “Fast Food Nation,” watched several documentaries on the horrors of the meat industry, and feels ethically superior for ordering filet mignon over veal cutlets. Philosophically, I know letting animals “bleed out” is so, so wrong; but carnivorously, it tastes so, so right.

Which is why I think it’s important to understand what the foie-gras debate is really about. It’s not about society taking a stand against unspeakable cruelty to animals – it’s about society drawing the line between what it deems acceptable cruelty to animals and unacceptable cruelty to animals. Because, let’s face it fellow meat eaters who stand aghast at gavage, it’s only a handful of forced feedings per day worse than the fates of most of the other cattle, sheep and future Thanksgiving turkeys who have a date with the bloody axe at some point in the near future.

So, while freedom-to-foie-gras champions and animals-rights activists won’t become fine-feathered friends anytime soon, and the meat-is-murder vs. meat-is-mouthwatering sides find little common ground, I’m guessing all parties who’ve had a glimpse at the gavages, slaughterhouses, and killing floors that feed much of America can agree on one thing.

There but for the grace of god go I.

– Jason Walsh