Tell Chef Curtis Stone That Foie Gras Is a Disease, Not a Delicacy!
Shortly before her death, Golden Girls actress Bea Arthur wrote to Australian celebrity chef Curtis Stone requesting that he "give the birds a break" and immediately stop using foie gras. It was Bea's last wish that this supposed man of good taste would come to his senses and follow the growing trend away from the cruelly produced delicacy. In a heartless response, Curtis has instead brushed off the letter, calling it "narrow-minded" and stating that he has no intention of leaving foie gras out of his future recipes.
The new guest chef for The Biggest Loser wants to help stop overeating—except when it comes to ducks. Foie gras (French for "fatty liver") is made from the enlarged livers of male ducks and geese. Birds used for foie gras are kept in tiny wire cages or packed into sheds. Two or three times a day, up to 2 kilograms of grain and fat are pumped into the birds' stomachs through pipes that are shoved down their throats.
This force-feeding causes the birds' livers to become diseased and to swell to up to 10 times their normal size. The pipes sometimes puncture birds' throats, and the massive amount of food sometimes ruptures their stomachs and other internal organs. Female hatchlings, who are useless to foie gras farmers, are often drowned in scalding-hot water or shredded alive in macerators.
Foie gras production is so cruel that it has been banned in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.K. In the U.S., California passed a law that will ban the production and sale of foie gras throughout the state by 2012. Please use the form below to send a letter to Chef Curtis Stone telling him to grant Bea's last wish and immediately stop selling foie gras.
Personalized letters always work best. Feel free to use the following text, but understand that your message will carry more weight if you write your own message and subject line.
