Etat de New York : foie gras = malade ?

De la part de Antoine Comiti
Envoyé : jeudi 22 juin 2006 8:07

Etat de New York : foie gras = malade ?

Des grosses associations américaines ont lancé hier une nouvelle offensive
légale contre le foie gras dans l'Etat de New York, en argumentant sur la
base de témoignage d'experts que le foie gras est un organe malade d'un
animal rendu volontairement malade. Le but est que si cela est reconnu par
la juridiction concernée, cela aboutirait à faire interdit le foie gras
là-bas en raison des lois qui interdisent la vente d'une viande d'un animal
malade. Les mêmes lois existent en France.
Un article du New York Times rapporte déjà l'info. Les articles aux USA font
très souvent le lien avec les autres viandes, genre "mais si on interdit le
foie gras, alors il faudrait aussi interdire les poulets, les veaux, les
poissons." Ben oui !
Stop Gavage a participé à la constitution de ce dossier d'expert.
Antoine


June 22, 2006
Animal Rights Groups Ask New York to Ban Foie Gras By ANTHONY
RAMIREZ


"Delicacy of despair," or one of the heights of fine dining?

In a novel legal strategy, animal rights advocates demanded yesterday that
state regulators in Albany help decide the fate of foie gras, made from the
engorged livers of ducks and geese. It is a buttery but costly staple of
four-star restaurants everywhere, especially those in New York City.

Advocates have long criticized the production of foie gras for pâté or
another use, calling it cruel to the fowl because they are force-fed,
usually with long plastic tubes, for four weeks before slaughter. Their
livers grow in size by at least six times.

In a 16-page petition, the Humane Society of the United States and others,
including New York residents, asked the state's Department of Agriculture
and Markets to use a law ordinarily applied to food like rotten or
mislabeled beef.

The groups want foie gras declared an "adulterated" food within the meaning
of Article 17, Section 200 of the Agriculture and Markets Law. The
agriculture commissioner would then have the option of banning foie gras.

New York State law, in part, defines adulterated food as "diseased,
contaminated, filthy, putrid or decomposed."

Carter Dillard, director of farm-animal litigation at the Humane Society,
based in Washington, said in a telephone interview that the petition
"doesn't speak to whether there's a health risk or not" in foie gras itself.

"We're going by the letter of the law," he said. "And the weird thing about
foie gras is we have three world experts, 10 veterinarians, 4 independent
studies and 12 published articles that will tell you this is a diseased
product."

Eric Ripert, executive chef and co-owner of Le Bernardin, the acclaimed
French restaurant in Manhattan, uttered a long sigh in an interview. "We can
criticize how foie gras is produced," he said, "and be concerned about the
health of the duck and blah, blah, blah, O.K., fine."

But many food processes are cruel, Mr. Ripert said, including the farming of
chicken and fish. "To me, it's more cruel to chew on an oyster, which is
live, because it must have feelings," he said. "Still, I am not ready to
become a vegan."

In California, where vandals have attacked restaurants serving pâté de foie
gras and declared it a "delicacy of despair," a 2004 law is set to eliminate
the production and sale of foie gras by 2012. In April, the Chicago City
Council banned foie gras within city limits. The ban began this month.

New York State is the largest producer of foie gras in North America (France
is the world's largest producer). Animal-rights activists have been
unsuccessful in persuading the Legislature to ban the sale and production of it.

The Humane Society argues that the production of foie gras results in
"hypertrophied livers" that are "pathological," citing, among others, a 1998
study by the European Union Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare.

A spokeswoman for the agriculture department in Albany, Jessica A.
Chittenden, said the department had not yet formally received the petition
and could not comment on it.

But as an example of one of the most common adulterated food products, she
cited misleadingly labeled hamburger that contained added soy or fat.
"Rodent-defiled" meat is another example, she said.

Ariane Daguin, owner of D'Artagnan, a leading distributor of foie gras
products based in Newark, reviewed the Humane Society's petition after it
was e-mailed to her. She said she was familiar with research criticizing
foie gras production, including research cited by the society. For example,
in one cited study hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver, is not a disease of
ducks but of cats, she argued.

"I am infuriated by such research," she said.

Like Ms. Daguin, Michael Ginor, founder of Hudson Valley Foie Gras, in
Ferndale, N.Y., argues that engorging the liver is a hastening of a natural
process whereby fowl store calories before a long migration. At 7,000 ducks
a week, Hudson Valley is the leading producer of foie gras products in North
America.

Mr. Ginor likened force-feeding to the treatment of confined cattle, which
reach 400 pounds after two years, he said, compared with grass-fed cattle,
which reach that weight after four years. He also said that foie gras ducks
were 16 weeks old at the time of slaughter, compared with 8 weeks or less
for ducks roasted or grilled in restaurants.

But Mr. Ginor acknowledged that it was unlikely that the liver of a duck in
the wild or on a free-range farm, which typically has a liver weighing three
ounces, would grow to restaurant-quality levels of 19 ounces or more without
force-feeding.

"To me, the issues are, one, are the ducks sick?" Mr. Ginor said. "And the
U.S.D.A. looks at every duck pre- and post-mortem, so it's not a diseased
product. And, two, can it make people sick? Foie gras has been eaten by
people for 5,000 years, and if it caused any disease we'd probably know it
by now."

The ancient Greeks mention fattened geese in the fifth century B.C.

Source

============

Humane Society seeks foie gras production ban

Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:58 AM BST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Animal rights groups on Wednesday sought to ban foie
gras production in New York, one of the leading U.S. producing states,
arguing that overfeeding birds to fatten their livers makes the animals
sick.

The Humane Society of the United States filed a formal action with the New
York U.S. State Department of Agriculture and Markets to stop the practice
under a state law that makes it illegal to produce food from diseased
animals.

"It's illegal for farmers to intentionally make their animals sick and then
sell them at market as if nothing were wrong," said Carter Dillard of the
Humane Society.

The Humane Society, with other animal rights groups, filed 900 pages of
documents arguing that ducks and geese are force-fed for weeks until their
livers become fattened.

Originally a French delicacy, foie gras means literally "fat liver."

According to the Humane Society, California and more than a dozen countries
have already banned the production of foie gras, and Chicago recently banned
its sale because of animal welfare concerns.

Source Reuters 2006