Actor-cum-activist Pamela Anderson has managed to persuade Playboy Club London to remove foie gras from its menu.
Anderson, a vegan, penned an open letterto venue director Steve Hight in which she slammed the club’s decision to include the controversial dish.
‘There’s nothing sexy about foie gras - which means “fatty liver”,’ she wrote.
‘In fact, it’s downright vile.
‘It’s produced by ramming metal tubes down the throats of gentle geese and ducks in order to force-freed them until their livers swell up, pressing against their lungs and making it hard for them to breathe.’
She pointed out that the ‘notoriously horrid food’ is so cruel, its production has been banned in a number of countries - including the UK.
The letter concluded: ‘Selling this abhorrent pâté is not in keeping with the Playboy brand I know and love, and I hope you’ll remove it from the menu right away. Better yet, replace it with vegan faux gras - a 100% humane and delicious dish that is bursting with bold flavors and doesn’t come at the expense of an animal’s life.’
The animal rights campaigner first shot to fame after being crowned Playmate of the Month back in February 1990 - going on to model for more Playboy covers than anyone else.
Foie gras is notoriously cruel. It’s made by force-feeding ducks and geese maize repeatedly via a metal tube when they were just 12 weeks old. Essentially, it’s a product made from a diseased liver (which when you think about it, is pretty grim). British farmers have been banned from producing it since 2000 but under EU free-market rules, restaurants and shops are allowed to import the pate-like stuff. We import up to 200 tonnes of the stuff each year from mainland Europe, meaning that the UK still plays a massive role in the sponsorship of an excessively cruel trade.
Last year, ministers mooted that after Brexit, imports of foie gras could be banned.
Back in 2015, the Michelin star chef Alexis Gauthier changed his vegetable menu to be fully plant based - including turning his foie gras vegan.
Having served up 20kg of foie gras every week at his London restaurant, Gauthier created an alternative ‘faux gras’ - a delicate mixture of lentils, mushrooms, beetroot, walnuts, shallots and Cognac that apparently taste just like the real deal.
You can find his faux gras recipe on the PETA website here.