Article: Culinary cruelty

Monday July 27, 2009

Many gastronomic delicacies are produced in unethical ways and at great suffering to the animal.

Shark fin

ONE of the most horrific practices is the harvesting of shark fin, which is a process called finning.

After the sharks are captured, their fins are cut off and the live animal is tossed back into the sea. Unable to swim properly, the shark suffocates or is killed by predators.

This practice is also decimating the shark population. Fishermen want the valuable fin but don't want the rest of the shark, as its flesh fetches low prices at fish markets.

The good news is that wildlife conservationists are seeing a drop in the consumption of shark fin among young Asians who have become aware of finning and the environmental impact of this dish.

Frog legs

ANOTHER delicacy that involves the butchering of a live animal is frog legs.

Sometimes the frog is skinned before its legs are chopped off. Witnesses say that they can actually hear the frogs shrieking as they are butchered, and many of the amphibians are still alive long after their legs have been removed.

Wagyu beef

THIS meat is highly prized for its intense fat marbling and taste that enthusiasts say is not dissimilar to foie gras.

There are stories of wagyu cattle being massaged and fed beer as part of the fattening process, which while true, may have more sinister reasons than to just season the meat.

Australian cattle rancher David Blackmore, one of the few Westerners to have visited Japanese farms several times, told Gourmet magazine in a 2007 article: "They (the cattle) get bored and go off their feed. Their gut stops working. The best way to start their gut working again is to give them a bottle of beer.

"The steers have been lying in their own manure. ... Wagyu can also get a lot of joint swelling. I can imagine that the farmers would be massaging joints so they could get the animals off to market."

Blackmore was confirming what international acclaimed chef Raymond Blanc discovered when he visited such a farm in 1993.

"The animals were kept in some kind of crate, so there could be very little movement. They were very dirty from their own manure. It was disgusting," Blanc was quoted in the same article.

Large eggs

EVEN choosing large eggs is considered cruel. The British Free Range Producers Association told the British press early this year that it was painful for hens to lay larger eggs. The association recommended that consumers buy medium eggs instead, adding that they also taste better and are less "watery" than larger ones.

While no scientific studies have been conducted, the association has received support from academics involved in animal welfare who point out that large eggs often have blood spots on them.

Speaking of eggs, spare a thought for the egg-laying chicken in intensive farming. It spends its whole adult life with four other hens in a battery cage whose floor is the size of this open newspaper.

Eating babies

BOTH veal and suckling pig are meats from baby animals.

A suckling pig is an animal that has just been weaned from its mother and is usually around six weeks old or 12kg in weight, while calves used in the production of veal are taken away from their mothers immediately after birth.

In battery farming, the calves are confined to crates, usually measuring 60cm wide, in which they cannot turn around, stretch their limbs or even lie down comfortably.

They are fed with watery powdered milk to deliberately induce borderline anaemia and thus, tender white meat. – Compiled by Jane F. Ragavan

This article was taken from: The Star Online: Lifestyle: Focus 27 July 2009