for the three W's - warmth, wicking and waterproof! They also keep their loft better. If you're a camper or skier, or live where it's cold (I'm looking at you, Lake Tahoe), you're pretty much SOL, for warmth in the winter, unless you want to go with that other PETA evil - Fur!.
I can see we were lucky and got a pound and a half of local schmaltz - duck fat - at the Farmer's Market a month ago from a local rancher that free-ranges and organically feeds his animals and treats them all as cruelty free as possible.
If they're so concerned about cruelty to ducks for foi gras (and as there are no factory farms for foi gras - it's too "elite", so the small US farms that raise duck and geese for that tend to be as humane as any meat-raising farm can be), why don't they go after the Tyson chicken farmers or Smithfield ham pig farmers, too...
Oh, yeah. The "elite" factor - and the easy target factor. While Foi Gras is expensive, it has such a small market, the big corporations with their armies of lawyers don't factory farm ducks and geese for foi gras. No profit in it for them. It's a niche market for special events, foodies and the elite.
It's also an easy target because Americans don't eat a even a twentieth of duck or goose compared to chicken so it won't be noticeable to most people, and you can still "make a statement" instead of addressing the real evil and cruelty of factory farming. Or face the factory lawyers who are eager to sue for defamation or interfering with their business.
It's painless for activists - just make it harder for small, usually organic or free range farms to sell their produce on the market, because it's more important to make the statement safely than care about the real health of their food...
Yes, I'm miffed on a personal note, this means my favorite special occasion "expensive" treat, going to a fancy locovour restaurant for the chef's special rosemary-citrus Duck confit salad and duck fat-fried Pomme Fritts (with Parmesan dusting) on our anniversary is now going to be a thing of the past. My favorite meal is going to be illegal after July, and we didn't have the money this year to dine out on our anniversary.
But I guess saving up our hard-earned cash for months just to have a special taste treat on our anniversary night out is just way too elitist and I should be ashamed that we even let ourselves indulge in such evil frivolity.
Not to mention that abomination that must be goose-down comforter the kids have that's held up to their rough handling of it, and keeps them cool in the summer and warm in the winter...heaven forfend that we should ever want to replace it with an equivalent quality product.
What's next - well-made, quality coats, purses and satchels, belts, and shoes? Because they're made of animal products rather than petroleum by-products?
I'm tired of this pussy footing around lawyers and harming small family economies to make a moral statement. Go after the true cruelty - the cruelty of the factory farms.
Most of the small farms and family farms know they have to treat their animals well, because frankly, as an omnivore with an excellent sense of smell and taste, there is a significant difference in quality when it comes to a well-treated animal that has been humanely slaughtered, then there is of an animal that has spent it's entire life stressed and tortured.
Haele
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