Santa Maria Sun / Letter To The Editor

Why be 'fair' to such a repugnant thing?

Richard Schmidt

Being “fair and balanced” with animal torturers and their “respectable” clients is disgusting (“The last hurrah of foie gras,” 6/28). It is like giving Hitler’s rationale for killing human millions “balanced” coverage. It shows the amorality of American “objective” journalism. Some indecencies are repugnant, and must be treated as such by any decent person.

A duckherd for 40 years, I’ve found these creatures smart, sensitive, personable, charming. I’ve tube-fed sick ducks, to keep them going, and it terrifies them, even when done gently by someone they know. I cannot imagine what sort of person would use a tube to cram crops to the bursting point with grain twice a day just for the lucre of selling their fat livers, and claim this is “humane.”

Gonzales’ claims of humane treatment don’t fly. Besides tube-cramming, housing ducks in confinement that gives each 18-by-18 inches is abuse. Ducks need space—lots of it. They don’t thrive in coops like chickens. Even my nighttime confinement quarters (predator protection) offer five times the space they give their ducks 24/7.

Tube feeding ducks for foie gras is analogous to someone’s forcefully putting a tube down your throat and filling your stomach as full as it will stretch. Twice a day. Only, you have an advantage over ducks: Once the tube’s out, you can vomit. They can’t.

Fat livers—hugely distended—are pathological. Why eat pathological organ meat? Bottom line: Nobody needs foie gras. This is sick organ meat, not food. Its crybaby suppliers and purveyors care only about money made appealing to bored rich palates.

Foie gras is the 1 Percent’s warfare against ducks. Touting it’s like putting meringue on a merde pie. Can the Sun be equally “fair and balanced” about that delectable?