Dominic

And Ashlee...

"If you decide to ignore it and keep eating it, then you are selfish and ignorant."

Again, stating your opinion and trying to sway others is great, but shocking as it may seem, not everybody who disagrees with you is selfish and ignorant. Two people examining the same scientific evidence on the subject can (and frequently do... including members of the American Veterinary Medical Association) draw very different conclusions regarding whether gavage is or isn't torturous (or even painful).

Because somebody disagrees doesn't necessarily make them "selfish and ignorant". It often simply means that they don't find the available evidence compelling, much less conclusive.

Rikki...

You're absolutely entitled to state your opinion, but spreading misinformation isn't the way to go about it. This whole "bursting duck" phenomenon is a stupid myth that's completely unsubstantiated by any source that's remotely reliable... including the official EU panel that put out a massive and comprehensive report that actually supported a ban on gavage.

Get your facts straight before your make a fool of yourself, please.

Jessica...

To answer your questions directly, I believe foie is sometimes okay, depending on the farm producing it. I do NOT believe that gavage is an inherently torturous process, provided that it is done properly and with concern for the animals' welfare. I base this conclusion on a full reading of the EU Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare's report on Welfare Aspects of the Production of Foie Gras in Ducks and Geese (which actually supported a ban, but I felt their conclusions greatly overreached their data, often by their own admission) and the press releases of the American Veterinary Medical Association on the subject. I consider these reliable sources.

As for the hyperbole, while I absolutely agree that letting tastiness override morality or ethics is bad, this is the portion that I thought was out of line:

"you could have force fed it to them and then everyone could have understood even better how their dinner got to their plate"

No, they absolutely could not. Force feeding me isn't going to teach me about what it feels like to be a foie duck any more than lying naked in the snow in the arctic is going to teach me what it feels like to be a polar bear. This logic, frequently trotted out in soundbyte form, that we shouldn't do anything to animals that we don't do to ourselves has absolutely no basis in any logic whatsoever. There are things animals do naturally that would be horribly torturous to humans, and the converse is equally true. To draw a comparison between human and duck physiology in an illogical attempt to make a point that may or may not otherwise be valid is hyperbole.

Nice, Jessica!

Way to show people the merit of your position through intelligent, reasoned discussion and a willingness to engage an opposing view, rather than simply asserting the truth by resorting to righteousness and hyperbole!

Oh... wait...

Megan... so it's not people's responsibility to eat healthy foods, it's the government's responsibility to force them to.

And it's not parents' responsibility to feed their children healthy foods, it's the government's responsibility to ensure that unhealthy foods don't exist.

Support of the trans-fat ban is a rational and supportable position (even if I disagree with it), but you can ease up on the hyperbole. If you're given the choice between a slice of pie with Crisco crust and another slice of pie laced with rat poison, I'm pretty confident I know which one you'll be eating, so please don't equate the two.

Bob...

The single biggest problem with Sandra Lee, one made clearly evident by many of the comments here, and the one that makes her absolutely infuriating beyond any quirks/habits/etc., is that she perpetuates the horrible myth that cooking good food takes too much time.

Read through the comments above and see how many people defend her saying, "I love Sandra because I don't have time to make everything from scratch." The fact is that for every premade frankenstein dish she throws together, there are 20 similar recipes that are fresher, healthier, tastier AND quicker and easier to prepare.

Over the past ten years, home cooking has made remarkable strides as people have come to understand that delicious fresh food doesn't have to be difficult or time consuming. Sandra Lee is doing her utmost to undo a decade of progress. While the tablescapes and quirks are annoying, THAT'S why she should be reviled.

'During the episode my wife said "I hope one of chefs brings a shark, so they can cook it, then jump over it."'

Brilliant :-)

Regarding the talent of the chefs, I'm not sure. Through the first five or six episodes I absolutely agreed. But now I'm starting to wonder if it's a matter of the chefs' talent or simply the editing. It's like they take eight dishes, and blow through the descriptions in 15 seconds. I feel like I barely have enough time to register the ingredients, much less to actually consider the dish. I don't remember this being an issue with season one, but then my memory is pretty useless. So I'm curious. I wonder if there are some really great dishes being turned out, but we aren't getting a chance to see them.

Does anybody else think that this week's challenge was absurd to the point of being flat-out stupid? I understand the need to make good TV, and I completely understand (and love) that artificial restrictions can both test and bring out somebody's true creativity. But being asked to plan and shop for a dish without even the slightest hint of what, if any, equipment you'll have to work with? That's not restrictive... it's just crippling.

I'm getting frustrated with season two... the genuine contest vs. artifically created drama meter seems to be skewing way too heavily toward the latter.

Deepak...

Every single piece of meat or vegetable you buy has bacteria, and most will have trace amounts of types that can be harmful in large enough quantities. Bacteria-free food is a complete fantasy that has never existed. The question isn't whether or not there is bacteria present. The two relevant questions, when it comes to public health, are:

1) Are there types of bacteria present that can cause problems if consumed in high quantities, and...

2) Is there enough of said bacteria present to cause a problem.

If your goal is bacteria-free food, you're going to starve before you come up with anything.

Oh, please. I'm as angered by eBay scammers as anybody (more than most, probably), but for something to be a scam, there has to be intent to deceive. This guy is CLEARLY not trying to fool anybody. He's just selling his old PS and PS2, trying to do so in an amusing fashion, and succeeding nicely, I think.

The gem of the page is his answer towards the bottom when asked if he'll be offering a PS6 in the future:

"No, that's just ridiculous. I'm not made of duct tape."