Food: A Food Controversy

Ethical and moral arguments rarely reduce themselves to simple sayings and truisms. This is true when one strays from the simplistic extremes of the arguments and head towards the middle ground. When one moves off to a fringe area... watch out - flame wars are easy to start.

In the world of food one large ethical argument is whether we humans should eat meat. Should we be vegetarian (or even vegan)? Or should we remain omnivorous?

The arguments on each side range from moral (we do or do not have a right to eat animals) through to practical (meat eating for all humans alive isn't sustainable). Most of these arguments are based on the simplistic extremes. One either eats some meat or eats none. Once you head for middle ground it gets even more complicated. For example: If one feels it is okay to eat meat... how much should one eat and how much should one worry about how the animals are raised and looked after?

Once you move away from the simplistic (meat or no meat) into areas of discussion that aren't so clear cut complications emerge.

As for the fringe... well.. there are areas of discussion that seem to invite more passion and controversy.

Take foie gras for instance.

Fattening ducks or gooses beyond 'normal' bounds and limits? Feeding tubes? Forced feeding? It's not hard to see why foie gras is considered beyond the pale in some circles. People who will argue politely over the meat / non-meat debate will get very angry over foie gras.

Is it possible to look objectively at foie gras? Can one get past the idea of what foie gras represents and look at what's really happening and how it happens?

If you are dead set against the idea of foie gras then The Physiology of Foie Gras on Serious Eats won't do anything to change your mind. If you're all for the idea of foie gras then the article will only make you feel better about the production of foie gras.

And if you're not sure one way or the other? If you think you have an open mind and might by willing to let a pro-food website take a look at foie gras? In that case I'm not sure. I don't know if the article works well as a defence of foie gras or if it will turn people against the idea.

My best guess is that for those who aren't sure the article will be like making a coin toss to help with a difficult position. If you ever want to know what choice you want to make you simply assign one choice to heads, the other choice to tails, take a coin and flip it high into the air, and your choice is whatever you hope the coin lands on when it comes back down. Even if you don't know your position on foie gras the article will help. By the time you have read half of it you'll know which way you want the coin to land.

Science: Common Sense does not equal Science

It seems impossible at first. When you hear that it should be possible your brain tries to cope with an idea that seems contrary to common sense. The idea?

You can build a wind powered car (no batteries or hidden power sources) that can be pushed downwind by the wind and move faster than the wind.

or:

You can build a wind powered vehicle that can have a 10 mile per hour wind behind it and yet travel faster than 10 miles per hour.

It just seems wrong. It can't work... can it? The idea is known as downwind faster than the wind or DFTTW. Until this summer the debate ranged far and wide over whether or not the concept was feasible or possible.

If you think about it for a moment there are hints that it could be possible. For example let's take the example of a sailboat. Now I sailed quite a bit. Mainly in small one or two man sailboats. Sailing away from the wind is no faster than the wind.

If you are sailing south with a 10 knots per hour wind at your back and your sail is set 90 degrees to the wind then you can go no faster than the wind. The sail is acting like nothing more than a giant board sticking into the air and being pushed directly by the wind.

But if the wind is coming from the north at 10 knots per hour and you are sailing east... then the sail isn't just a giant obstacle for the wind. Then the sail is an airfoil or a wing. Then sailboats easily sail faster than the windspeed.

So it is possible for a sailboat to move faster than the wind. The trick is can there be a car or device that can move downwind faster than the wind?

The answer was put to rest (I hope) once and for all this summer when Blackbird set an official record by going 2.8 times faster than its tailwind.

The story of how Blackbird became to be built, and the story of the fights over whether DWFTTW is even possible, are detailed in A Long, Strange Trip Downwind Faster Than the Wind in Wired magazine. Rick Cavallaro's tale includes links to various discussion boards and forums where the issue was (and may still be) hotly debated. He also digs into the history of attempts to prove (with math and physics) and show (with models or cars) that the feat is possible.

It's a wonderful read. Of course now we know it can be done. During the discussions and arguments people were faced with something that didn't seem possible. It seemed wrong. It violated common sense. It didn't seem right.

The world around us doesn't operate based on our common sense notions. Nor does it have to do so. The universe is unexpectedly wonderful and many things that don't seem possible are actually quite simple. The hard part is convincing people of that.