Animal activists force foie gras off restaurant menu in Bath

A restaurant in Bath has taken foie gras off its menu after animal rights protesters demonstrated outside the eaterie.

Members of the Bath Activist Network (BAN) staged a protest outside the city’s Minibar in a bid to get the restaurant to remove the controversial delicacy from its menu.

Earlier this year, BAN protested outside Bath’s Beaujolais restaurant, prompting it to stop selling foie gras.

Literally French for “fat liver”, foie gras is produced by the process of force-feeding, during which a bird is administered its feed using a funnel fitted with a long tube.

This results in the bird’s liver becoming enlarged with an increased fat content which in medical terms is referred to as a disease called “hepatic lipidosis”.

While the method of foie gras production isn’t practised in Britain, the product is legally available. Last year the City of York Council was to consider a motion calling for a ban on the sale of foie gras but after a consultation took this off the political menu.

In Britain this has led to a range of threats to, and attacks on, restaurants serving foie gras, forcing many to stop selling the controversial delicacy altogether.

Restaurants including Midsummer House in Cambridge and Bearlands in Gloucester have been bullied into taking foie gras off their menus.

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By Kerstin Kühn

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