An exchange was had, a few days ago, between me and a famous chef who I used to admire quite a bit.  I’ve had two of his books on my shelf for years and have given them as gifts.  Will I remove the books from my shelf based on the conversation?  Probably not, but it does make me think twice, about “where his head is at,” and about the reason I finally became a vegetarian in 2002.

What was the point of his arguing with me?  Macho?  Stupidity?  Complete ignorance?  You tell me.

Chef– thank you animal restaurant for doing foie gras dinner. Underscore the fundamental hypocrisy of a CA foie ban //nyti.ms/pztR56

(Referring to an article titled “In California, Going all Out to Bid Adieu to Foie Gras.”)

Me– Hypocrisy? To torment a poor animal by force-feeding it for your gastronomical pleasure? Would you do that to your dog or cat?

Chef– the 400K ducks were treated like royalty compared with the billions of cows chix pigs of our industrial livestock system

Me– Exactly. That’s why I became a vegetarian.  Take a look at the last blog on my web www.PrettyVeggie.com

Chef– by their reasoning CA should mandate vegetarianism, that would not be hypocritical

Me–  Read through the pages, too. Interesting background and progression.

An hour goes by…..

Me– It would be fair to RT my Tweets to you so your followers get both sides of the conversation, don’t you think?

No response.

Two days later.

Chef– RT. NOOOO! Foie Gras Lovers in California Will Soon Become Victims to Rights of Ducks- /bloom.bg/mVt9RQ

Me– Good. Abusing animals is not acceptable.

Chef– foie ducks are treated as well as if not better than any of the animals we raise for food

Me– I noticed you didn’t RT my responses for the sake of fairness, even after I asked you to, so I will outline the sit in my blog

As far as I can tell, there have been no additional comments by this gentleman on Twitter on this subject.

In case you don’t know how the “delicacy” foie gras is made, you might want to look it up.  Its horrible.  “Foie duck”?  Do you know what veal actually is?  Suckling pig?

The way we treat our animals.  The way we make them live.  The way they die.  Would you do that to your dog or cat?  Then, why do we do it to other animals?  You tell me…..