Nicola Mclean Jumps Out Of ‘Unhappy’ Birthday Cake Outside Selfridges To Protest Against Foie Gras
For Immediate Release:
26 May 2009
Contact:
Sam Glover 020 7357 9229, ext 229; [email protected]
London – Nicola McLean, the sexy I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here jungle girl, Page 3 model and WAG jumped out of a giant yellow “unhappy” birthday cake wearing a sexy yellow bikini outside Selfridges in London today during the company’s centenary Big Yellow Festival celebration. McLean is upset about the suffering that birds who are killed to make foie gras endure, and she is urging Selfridges to drop the cruelly produced tinned food. The three tiers of the massive cake made up the message “Unhappy Birthday, Selfridges! Drop Cruel Foie Gras”. Other models in yellow bikinis held signs reading, “Selfridges: Stop Selling Foie Gras” and “unhappy” birthday balloons with a similar message and an image of a cute yellow duck on them:
To create foie gras (French for “fatty liver”), up to 2 kilograms of a grain, maize and fat mash are pumped into the stomachs of geese and ducks through a pipe two or three times a day. (This is roughly the equivalent of forcing 20 kilograms of pasta down a human throat each day.) As the birds’ livers expand to up to 10 times their normal size, the animals become sick and many become immobile. The pipes sometimes puncture the birds’ throats – which can cause the animals to bleed to death – and their internal organs sometimes rupture. Death rates of force-fed birds are as much as 1,000 to 2,000 per cent as high as those of birds raised for other purposes.
Nearly two-thirds of Britons believe that foie gras sales should be banned. Sir John Gielgud was the first famous voice behind PETA’s campaign against foie gras. More recently, Sir Roger Moore narrated this graphic video that shows exactly how cruel foie gras production is. Sir Roger Moore, Phil Collins, The Duke and Duchess of Hamilton and former Miss UK Brooke Johnston are all boycotting Selfridges until the company stops selling foie gras. Prince Charles has banned foie gras from royal menus, and Pope Benedict XVI has denounced its production as cruel.
“While Selfridges celebrates its centenary, ducks and geese who are force-fed for foie gras die before their first birthday and have nothing to celebrate”, says McLean. “I won’t be shopping at Selfridges until they stop selling foie gras.”
For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.