Foie Gras: A Cruel Food
Yesterday after the PhD viva of a student, there was a party to celebrate. The only thing I could take was Orange Juice. While drinking juice, I was offered something called Foie Gras (read Fwah Grah). I asked what it was? And the response was a horrible story. Foie Gras literally means "big liver". A duck is forced to eat food against its will, so as to grow the size of the liver. There are special long metal feeders which are inserted in duck's throat several times a day. There are pressure pumps on the other end of the feeder! This process continues for several weeks. When the liver is big enough (more than 10 times its normal healthy size), the bird is killed and the liver is taken out! I was shocked! I was told that it is very tasty and a great French delicacy.
How cruel the person who discovered this delicacy would have been? And I wonder how this algorithm to "create a great taste" came to his mind? Chheeeee.....
How cruel the person who discovered this delicacy would have been? And I wonder how this algorithm to "create a great taste" came to his mind? Chheeeee.....
8 Comments:
you seem to have got so disturbed by the algorithm that you have made so many spelling errors :-p
May be. I was really angry while typing. BTW, I've corrected some typos, TY :)
My mother makes a sweet dish from the first milk that a cow gives after delivering a calf. This milk on heating(?) forms a jelly-like thing. I personally have problems with that. I mean it is by right the calf's. Why should we take it?
But among us the Maharashtrians it is considered a delicacy and people love to have it.
Different strokes for different folks/cultures... but foi gras beats it all. I have heard that there are people campaigning against it in the US.
Oh..the sweet dish is called "kharvas"..in case you are interested.
The first milk after cow gives birth is called colustrum. It is essential for the health of the calf. The more it has the more healthy it will be.
On the other hand, milk has a nuritive value. But for the calf the sooner it starts having roughage the better for its develpoment.
Anyways, now-a-days most of the milk is produced by making cows pseudo-preganant by hormone injection. So the argument that all milk is by right the calfs is not valid.
No more cruel than giving her a few injections. The cow *feels* that it is pregnant.A good diet can take care of the health issues.
New techniques to get milk from Cow make sure "minimum violence" on the Cow. It sounds like a one sided deal which humans have made with the Cows?
I agree Aditya - Milk can be totally removed from our diet after a certain age.
I am still confused about one thing - Isn't violence on other (weaker) species an inbuilt part of the nature? Fight, win by killing the other and decide who survives! Of course, I am not supporting violence by asking this question - just a query.
@aditya
I have no scientific reason for that. But logically I think that it makes a good base to get rid of the bitterness of tea and coffee...and of course almost all indian sweets are milk based.
Other than that no argument here.
@amit
That is how the ecosystem operates. The big fish eat the smaller fish. With humans the power we have is totally disproportinate of course. In that i agree with you.
Post a Comment
<< Home