Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

@BeerWeezil:

What do you mean by "fats are... the preferred fuel source"? Unless my understanding of metabolism is completely backwards, the body actually uses circulating glucose first (from dietary sugar or carbohydrates), then converts it from glycogen (primarily stored in the liver, from dietary sugar or carbohydrates), and only when it has used up readily available sources of glucose does it resort to fat metabolism and/or glucose production (gluconeogenesis). This is why it's hard to lose body fat -- it's low on the preference list.

@Lorenzo – Actually, bullet to the head is a very humane method of euthanasia, so long as you know where the brain is.

@Kenji – Lobsters do actually have a CNS. I'm looking at a textbook entitled "Biology of the Lobster" and there's a whole sub-chapter entitled "Central Nervous System". Not nearly as developed as a mammal (or even a frog, I'd guess), but certainly there is a central processing unit which tells the lobster what to do. Otherwise, putting a knife through its head wouldn't kill it.

Although lobsters (and other invertebrates) have very differently organized nervous systems, the functional units (neurons) are remarkably similar to mammalian neurons. For this reason, a great deal of scientific research has been performed on lobster neurons, which wouldn't be the case if the knowledge was not applicable to mammalian neurons.

I think it is also "dangerous" to put forth the argument that since lobsters lack a complex self-awareness, they do not experience pain. Doctors used to think that human babies couldn't feel pain, since they lacked the self-awareness and mental capacity to understand or articulate how they felt. I put dangerous in quotes because, I mean, it's a lobster. Who cares? It's a giant sea cockroach.

I am torn about the lobster killing thing. I've tried cutting through their head, but then the water gets all messy. Maybe I should try roasting. Seems too fussy. Usually I just drop them in the boiling water, with the understanding that they probably are suffering for a few seconds.

@piminnowcheez:

I'm not sure that Kenji is merely trying to make the debate fair, in the sense of being an unbiased arbiter. Particularly from his responses within the comment thread, it seems clear that he has chosen a side, and I think he does believe that foie gras is A-OK, so long as the ducks are not being tortured.

I think that for me the reason the "unnaturalness" is germane is that it is precisely the perversion of nature which makes me uneasy. It is not entirely clear how much medical harm we do to these birds. If we gavage feed them for a few days more than is the current protocol, mortality begins to rise. If we stop gavage feeding them and allow them to free-feed, their livers eventually return to normal size with no histopathologic evidence of permanent damage. My personal belief is that an act which leads to death if allowed to continue most likely is not a healthy act.

For me, the framework of ethical food animal production is that we take something which is naturally occurring (chickens lay eggs, cows produce milk, pigs grow bacon), we collect the animals and allow them to live their lives as normal happy and relatively stress-free creatures, we protect them from predation, prevent and treat diseases as needed, and in return we harvest their eggs and milk, and kill them as quickly and painlessly as possible when they are at their tastiest. One of the most common rationalizations among the pro-foie contingent is that fatty liver is "naturally occurring" among migratory birds. In reality, I believe that foie gras production is wholly unnatural, and in no way mimics what happens in nature.

If you are OK with that, then that's fine. But don't try to tell me that foie gras production should give me the warm and fuzzies. I am certainly somewhat hypocritical in that I eat fast food burgers and store-bought meat, but it makes me a little uneasy when I do. I also eat foie gras, because it is quite delicious, but it also makes me feel a little uneasy. But I prefer to be cautiously aware that some animals were unnecessarily harmed in the preparation of my meal than to pretend that nothing wrong has occurred.

Regarding the alcohol evaporating, I think your high school chemistry may be failing you. Since alcohol mixes with water, it decreases the boiling point and the resulting steam is a mixture of water and alcohol. Over time, the alcohol will boil off first since it has a lower boiling point, but it will not instantly (or near-instantly) vaporize.

According to this chart, only 15% of the alcohol added to your hot tea will evaporate off. That said, there's nothing wrong with a teaspoon of rosemary vodka if you need a little something extra!

I am a veterinarian, and I mainly feed my cat commercial cat food. It is damn near impossible to cook a balanced diet for your cat or dog, mainly because most people (including most vets) have no idea what they're talking about. And no, looking it up on the internets doesn't make you an expert on veterinary nutrition. And anyone who tells you to feed nothing but raw liver because "that's what wild cats eat" is clearly a quack.

A good general rule is that if it's bad for you, it's probably bad for your cat or dog as well. Fruits and vegetables good, fat and sugar bad. But good luck getting your cat to eat fruits and vegetables. It's not true that cats cannot process carbs. It is true that cats (domestic cats) have a genetic mutation in their "sweet" taste bud, so they probably can't taste sweet.

The most commonly encountered things that you don't want to feed are onions/garlic, grapes/raisins, and chocolate. Onions (really any member of the Allium family -- onions, shallots, leeks, scallions, garlic, chives, etc.) can cause anemia, more so in cats than dogs. I would generally avoid feeding things you've cooked for yourself that have onion or garlic (pasta sauce, beef stew, chicken stock, etc.). Grapes and raisins can cause acute kidney failure in dogs. This is an idiosyncratic reaction, meaning that for some (unknown) reason some dogs are susceptible while others are not. In those that are, even one grape or raisin can put them in kidney failure. If you've been feeding your dog grapes for years, chances are he's fine. Chocolate is bad, but generally "prepared" chocolate foods actually have a very small amount. I've seen dogs eat entire bags of Hershey's kisses or entire trays of brownies and be fine. But if they get a hold of some high % dark chocolate or some baker's chocolate, you should definitely take them to the ER.

Another thing to be aware of is that lilies cause kidney failure in cats. It always amazes me each year at Easter how many people bring their cats into the ER and didn't even know that lilies are toxic to cats.

I agree with the sentiment that the original Op-Ed piece was neither alarmist nor biased. I think the point of it was to highlight the fact that raising pigs outdoors will increase the prevalence of various pathogens they are likely to encounter in the environment, which is why they were moved indoors in the first place. The increased risk to the human consumer may be negliglible, but it is increased nonetheless.

Ultimately I think that it is much more important to look at how confined pork production (along with most industrial ag techniques) may be responsible for the rise of MRSA. It is, I think, also good to note that there are two fairly distinct strains of MRSA -- "community acquired" and "hospital acquired." The hospital acquired strain results from the rampant use of antibiotics in hospitals, and I suspect it is responsible for the vast majority of MRSA-associated deaths due to the high-risk population one finds in a hospital. But the community acquired strain is most likely much much more prevalent, with most carriers having no infection. Staph aureus (the SA in MRSA) is, after all, the most common type of bacteria found on human skin. It is far more likely that the spread of MRSA is due to human-human transmission, and it is very unlikely to be a food-borne pathogen (as opposed to Salmonella, E. coli, trichinosis, etc.).

So if I am worried about whether *this* piece of pork will make me sick if I eat it, chances are the pork from a pig raised outdoors will be "less safe" than the one raised indoors. The risk is probably less than that of me getting sick from eating raw egg, raw fish/shellfish, and medium-cooked burgers, but I do all of those with reckless abandon. If I am worried about the epidemiologic and public health consequences of raising pigs certain ways, then it is clear that confined, go go antibiotics, industrial methods are far, far riskier.

"I've never seen a square fish."

The logical response, of course, is that I've never seen a circular cow.

Somehow this sounds like a cross-contamination nightmare to me.

@jpschust:

Therefore it's ok to treat them poorly?

Wait, what does this entry have to do with cheese?

In my mind, there are actually two different issues. 1) Is foie gras production cruel or not? 2) Should foie gras production be banned?

I find it somewhat amazing how anybody could really think about the issue and not conclude that its humaneness is questionable at best. I agree that it should not be banned, since banning things is (clearly) polarizing and counter-productive. But the argument that there are many worse practices out there is in no way a point in favor of foie gras.

Also, people love to say that the AVMA and AAAP have concluded that foie gras production is not cruel. This is patently false. In fact, the AVMA has merely refused to take a stance one way or the other. I am not aware of an official stance taken by the AAAP (there is nothing on their web site). Anyone who is interested should read a recently released "backgrounder" on foie gras production on the AVMA website here: http://www.avma.org/reference/backgrounders/foie_gras_bgnd.asp.

They spend a good deal of time discussing the potential animal welfare problems associated with foie gras, including references to the majority of studies out there, although in their summary they conclude that more and better controlled studies are necessary. This is a convenient way to remain neutral on the issue, since nobody in their right minds will fund those studies.