It's a cruel business

By Paul Fulford on Mar 15, 08 03:53 PM

Foie gras, a current target for the animal rights movement, is much admired by gourmets. Small wonder for it's rich, creamy and gloriously flavoured.

But the force-feeding of geese and ducks to produce the enlarged livers that are foie gras is a nasty and brutal business. It's impossible to argue otherwise.

A small, inoffensive and not very noisy demonstration by a group opposed to the production and consumption of foie gras took place outside the restraurant at which I was eating yesterday evening. I admire that they were willing to give up their Friday night when most of the rest of Birmingham was unwinding with a beer or glass of wine.

I, personally, would argue there are more pressing causes - climate change, poverty in the developing world and human rights abuses, for instance. But two wrongs don't make a right and we all have a right to air our views so long as we do so peacefully and unthreateningly.

But I wonder where animal rights campaigners would stop should they succeed in preventing the sale of foie gras in Britain. The eating of veal? New season lamb? Intensively reared chicken? Any meat at all?

Truth is, all meat eating means a degree of cruelty to animals. The question is where a civilised nation draws the line. Perhaps the answer to this particulary issue is the humanely-produced foie gras pioneered in Spain using birds that naturally gorge before migration.

The taste and texture isn't quite as good, but I always feel a whole lot less uneasy when I see it on a menu.

It's a compromise - something we Brits are great at doing.