Live Like a Silly Goose; Die Like a Silly Goose
Food Hazards in Animal Flesh and By-products from All-Creatures.org Vegan Health Articles

These are some of the reasons why we are vegans...

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From NotMilk.com

[Ed. Note: Watch Foie Gras Assembly Line]

"While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die."
- Leonardo da Vinci

The above should be inscribed upon the dead man's tombstone as testimony to a demise that should have been prevented by good sense.

Each morning, I drive down route 17 South to work out at my 24-hour gym, and pass the Satin Dolls topless bar, otherwise known as The Bada Bing of Sopranos television fame. I loved that show and never missed an episode. Everybody's favorite, and mine too was Tony Soprano played by James Gandolfini.

Two days ago, at the ripe young age of 51, Gandolfini died from a massive heart attack after eating dinner with his 13-year-old son in Italy.

I just learned the contents of his meal. Besides the four shots of rum, two beers, and two pina coladas made with sweetened coconut fat, Gandolfini ate two orders of giant deep-fried shrimp for his entrée, and two orders of pate foie gras for his appetizer.

In order to manufacture foie gras (liver terrine), geese are force-fed and as a result, grow fatty and diseased livers. When humans eat these damaged goose livers, they deliver massive amounts of diseased fatty tissues to their own cardiovascular systems.

When I attended America's premiere cooking school in 1976, the Culinary Institute of America (C.I.A.) in Hyde Park, New York, we made our pate foie gras with finely-minced fresh truffles. The one ingredient that we students regretted not having was the specially developed fatty livers removed from force-fed geese.

What we were not taught at the C.I.A. was how abusive was the process of force-feeding geese until they choked to near death, struggling to swallow those foods crammed down their throats into their stomachs by gavage. 

Livers from such geese grow to five or more times their normal size and by the time these organs end up in restaurant prep kitchens, they are in reality diseased innards from extremely abused birds living lives of pain.

Many gourmets or gourmands love and crave the resulting foie gras, a result of force-feeding the birds about 2-3 weeks before they are slaughtered. These force-fed geese have a mixture of ground corn and fat stuffed into them, a process which sometimes kills the birds. Their throats become scratched and mutilated during the feedings, exposing the animals to extreme discomfort. Three times each day in the weeks before death, a goose farm employee takes a long metal tube and forces it all the way down the goose's throat. In that manner, up to two pounds of the feeding formula at a shot are pumped into the bird's belly.

The relative volume of each meal is astonishing. If humans were compared to geese, assuming fatty and diseased human livers are equally prized by alien hunters from faraway planets, each meal fed to a human donor before slaughter would equal about thirty pounds of ground fat and corn mush. 

Force feeding any living creature results in extreme pain and post-feeding suffering. There continues a great controversy regarding the feeding of such sentient creatures in this manner. Some gastronomes claim that such a feeding method can be administered compassionately.

In order to make an informed and impartial decision, I once witnessed the process at a New York state goose farm and I was sickened by it. At the time, I was neither vegetarian nor vegan, but I believed that I could discriminate between right and wrong. This was clearly not right by a long shot. 

Ironically, a recurring theme on the Sopranos revolved around a duck which would visit the mafia head's home, bathing in his swimming pool. The repeated incidents were so disturbing to Tony Soprano that they became the subject of multiple therapy sessions.

Even more ironic is the fact that only hours before Gandolfini's fatal heart attack (June 18th, 2013), Mercy For Animals released undercover footage of a New York State foie gras factory.

See the video at http://www.amazoncruelty.com and watch Foie Gras Assembly Line

Of even greater irony is the fact that Gandolfini's final role (which will be seen on the big screen next year) is that of an animal rescue activist.

"We don't get angry. We get even." - The Cooked Goose (and other abused animals who get eaten and then deliver the revenge of heart disease and cancer in return to the human pig).

"Thinking to get at once all the gold that the goose could give, he killed it, and opened it only to find - nothing."
- Aesop


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All-Creatures.org Health Position and Disclaimer

We began this archive as a means of assisting our visitors in answering many of their health and diet questions, and in encouraging them to take a pro-active part in their own health. We believe the articles and information contained herein are true, but are not presenting them as advice. We, personally, have found that a whole food vegan diet has helped our own health, and simply wish to share with others the things we have found. Each of us must make our own decisions, for it's our own body. If you have a health problem, see your own physician.