Word: livered
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Most people in America have never heard of, let alone eaten, foie gras. To those who've feasted on fatty duck liver, it's the ultimate indulgence in taste and texture. But even fans of the delicacy can't help but think about how it came to be. To make foie gras, farmers force-feed their fowl via a metal tube inserted in the ducks' throats. Chicago Tribune entertainment reporter Mark Caro was thrust into this very dicey corner of haute cuisine when he wrote a 2005 story about a famous Chi-Town chef's sudden ban on foie gras...
...incredibly unpleasant. Imagine if somebody put a pipe down your throat and filled you up with food. You would be gagging, falling over. But ducks actually breathe through the center of their tongue. They're not gagging and being prevented from breathing. In fact, they store fat in their liver, which is unlike us. But it sounds awful and because most people don't have a stake in it, it's easier to have an opinion - like this is just decadent and mean and the ultimate example of our inhumanity. It's a safe way to say you're sticking...
...ducks that have just been fed and the ones about to be fed, there is not a perceptible difference between them. The counter-argument is that ducks are prey animals and are conditioned not to show you if they're suffering. And if you've got a liver that's 10 times its normal size, a duck is going to be uncomfortable. But a duck being uncomfortable in the last days before it's slaughtered, is that torture? I think of torture as a willful sadistic administration of pain and by that measure, I don't think it is. Torture...
...does not appear to develop an effective response to HIV simply by being exposed to a virus surface protein or two - an approach that has worked for many other vaccines in the past. A hepatitis B shot, for example, contains rearranged, nonpathogenic bits of the virus that causes the liver disease. The body produces antibodies in response to the vaccine, conferring immunity to the live virus...
...talk about our emotions coming from our hearts. If someone you know doesn't give up easily, you might say, "He's got a lot of heart." Not every culture would agree - for instance, when Italians want to say someone has heart, they say instead, "Ha fegato": "He has liver...