Apparently they actually managed 45 minuites!

[AirCop]

You've exposed that chart as little moar than a cheap attempt to get a laugh on a very serious issue.

Rest assured I shall track down the author and see that he is punished.

I should have suspected it was a hack job when, under Battery hens, it listed 'pain experienced when laying the square ones you use in radios and torches' as the reason it's cruel.

[pollaxe]

I reckon we should eliminate the worst problems first. If you abuse an animal before you kill it, what does it matter? You still killed it and ate it. To me, whether an animal is force-fed before being turned into food or not is a distinction between shades of grey. On the other hand, whether people suffer and die unnecessarily is a pretty black and white issue. Fix the important stuff, then bring this to the table.

I would respectfully disagree. Frankly, if I lived in a world where animal welfare was ensured, but human welfare was not, I would start throwing newborn kittens into rivers as a protest.

I also respectfully disagree with you. There is a world of difference between humane treatment before slaughter than there is before. Would it matter if you'd burned the kittens with a soldering iron before you started drowning them? I put it to you that it would.

Of course there are many problems in our society but to the best of my knowledge we are not one that encourages suffering and death amongst our own population. There is work to be done on all levels but animal welfare and cruelty also has a part to play.

[AirCop]

Well, on the one hand, you can see how people can wonder how, with a global financial crisis, war in Iraq, Afghanistan, the AIDS pandemic, starvation and disease in Africa, global food shortages, especially in the 3rd world, peak oil, peak Sunny D, looming nuclear war, volcanoes, scorpians, the civil war in Sri Lanka, and the price of gas these days, why people are overly concerned with the treatment of a goose.

On the other hand, it is the mark of a civilized society to treat it's animals well. It is the mark of a civilized person to treat animals well.

Serial killers often mistreat animals in their youth, it is one of the warning signs.

So yeah, whilst AIDS and starving Africans is more important than over feeding a goose, it is the correct and civilized thing to do, to object to all animal cruelty.

I'm an animal lover - not a vegan, or a member of ALF, or a rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbish like that, just an animal lover. Always had pets, always treated them well.

My dad, literally, will not harm a fly. He will let it out a window rather than swat that fool as most would, me included.

I think sometimes, with their actions, PETA and ALF, and Alf from Home and Away, let themselves down with their actions, and simply drive the normal, animal loving peeps, like me, away from ever supporting them.

We all remember the animal rights peeps who dug up that old woman's grave and removed her body - apparently in order to protect animals you must behave like one.

I don't eat Foie Grais, without checking up, I can't even spell it, but I will not eat more or less because some bird, in her knickers and high heels (niiiiiiiiiiiice) stands outside a shop for a bit.

This is England, we are the most civilized people on Earth, we invented it. We have hats to wear just to be civilized in.

Educate the masses on what Foie Grais is, how it is made, and why it is cruel, and the people will stop eating it.

[Salazaar]

I don't eat Foie Grais, without checking up, I can't even spell it, but I will not eat more or less because some bird, in her knickers and high heels (niiiiiiiiiiiice) stands outside a shop for a bit.

Educate the masses on what Foie Grais is, how it is made, and why it is cruel, and the people will stop eating it.

But a group of women standing around a busy street for fourty-five minutes in nothing but their knickers did get you, and presumably many others, thinking and talking about the issue and if even a few people decide not to eat Foie Gras, let alone if the managed to stop Selfridges stocking it, then it was something of a success.

Sometimes education the masses just means grabbing their attention. Job well done.

[AirCop]

It got me talking about how I wouldn't stop eating Foie Grais because of this stunt.

I'm not sure that was the intended result.

I wasn't even aware that this stunt had happened until the OPs post - it didn't make the lead story on the News At Ten, alas.

[Funkstar]

It got me thinking that I really must try it sometime

If it causes this amount of hoo ha and people are still buying it, it must be good!

[MadduckUK]

iv never tried Foie gras, i may have to try it now just to see

edit: funkstar

[AirCop]

It has made me curious about what it tastes like, I will admit.

I bet it's all buttery, and creamy, and that.

Mmmmmmmmm... allllllllllllllllllllllllll butteryyyyyyy...

[kalniel]

I don't know about tasting foie grais, but is anyone else thinking of staking out their local Selfridges?

[Funkstar]

I wonder how it would go with a bacon explosion?

[MadduckUK]

I wonder how it would go with a bacon explosion?

oh god ill take two please sod the fake grass - that's what all dead animals should be like

so hungry, come on 12 o clock

[Funkstar]

just for you ducky

http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explosion/

[MadduckUK]

[pauldarkside]

just for you ducky

http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explosion/

Bacon explosion? That's a heart attack waiting to go off I can almost smell its meaty goodness. Hungry now.

[TheAnimus]

Having actually seen the geese been force fed in france (not a place noted for its animal loving), i can tell you its really not that bad at all, compared to battery conditions.

People need perspective, PETA use a frankly appauling tactic of taking one example of cruelty and painting it as the defacto norm.

There are, and probably always will be people who abuse animals. There are always some people in all professions who will get to the end of their teather and act in-appropriately. A gerbil once bit me, and had i not been on some serious painkillers (morphine based!) i doubt i would of very carmly grabbed some circlip plyers and gently perswaded the bugger to let go, over the bathroom sink, throw a towel over him and clean myself off in the other basin. No, i'd of slammed him against the wall until his jaw broke.

You get where i'm going, there will always be cases of people acting out of the ordinary often resulting in un required injury to the animal. This really dosen't mean the industry as a whole is like this.

The problem with the goose liver that isn't force fed is that it simply dosen't have as good a texture, this is obvious you can tell just by looking at it in the counter. Taste is more personal so harder to state as fact.

[Saracen]

Having actually seen the geese been force fed in france (not a place noted for its animal loving), i can tell you its really not that bad at all, compared to battery conditions.

People need perspective, PETA use a frankly appauling tactic of taking one example of cruelty and painting it as the defacto norm.

There are, and probably always will be people who abuse animals. There are always some people in all professions who will get to the end of their teather and act in-appropriately. A gerbil once bit me, and had i not been on some serious painkillers (morphine based!) i doubt i would of very carmly grabbed some circlip plyers and gently perswaded the bugger to let go, over the bathroom sink, throw a towel over him and clean myself off in the other basin. No, i'd of slammed him against the wall until his jaw broke.

You get where i'm going, there will always be cases of people acting out of the ordinary often resulting in un required injury to the animal. This really dosen't mean the industry as a whole is like this.

The problem with the goose liver that isn't force fed is that it simply dosen't have as good a texture, this is obvious you can tell just by looking at it in the counter. Taste is more personal so harder to state as fact.

All true.

However, when the methods used to produce some foodstuffs, this one being a case in point, are explained to me, I simply decline to eat that product in the future. I'm not extremist about it, and I will eat to live (obviously), and I'm not even vegetarian. But there are certain "luxury" foodstuffs that I just don't need, or even want, badly enough to put up with production techniques.

With foie gras, I don't find it hard to decline to eat it, as I wouldn't anyway. White veal, on the other hand, I acquired a taste for about 40 years ago in Germany. But since I found out how it's produced (also amany years ago) I wouldn't touch it, despite liking the taste.

At the end of the day, I'm a carnivore and, clearly, if I've got meat on my plate, something died to put it there. Oh well, that's the way of the world, as clearly demonstrated by so many wildlife shows on TV. The lion doesn't check out a food ethics policy before bringing down, and strangling, his lunch.

But I have more choices than the lion. I don't need foie gras to live, or white veal. So I choose to simply avoid them. Technically, I don't need a bacon sarnie or sweet and sour chicken ball either. That gives a hint as to where I, personally, draw the line, which is that there are things I won't eat, and things I will.

However trivial this protest seems, if it draws attention on what goes on to some who didn't know, then it's done it's job. It's a pretty inoffensive publicity stunt. If it works, it works, and if it doesn't, a few people spend a time shivering and looking like idiots. The more extreme animal rights people are, in my view, little if any different from terrorists. But this sort of protest is a good idea, and if they want to do it, good luck to them. And if it has some effect, so much the better.