Will Chicago repeal foie gras ban?

[AngryAmish]

Source: Sun Times (all 13 pages of it)

Two years ago, Mayor Daley urged the City Council to repeal a foie gras ban that he said had made Chicago “the laughingstock of the nation.”

Today, aldermen might get around to doing just that, after plotting a legislative end-run that would set a new standard for violating City Council protocol and rolling over any opposition.


The foie gras ban was approved by the City Council in April 2006 by a vote of 48-to-1, after animal-rights activists made their cruelty case during a series of hearings before the council’s Health Committee.



Read more: http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/948992,foie051408.article

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Our stupid, lazy and corrupt city council passed this stupid law two years ago because some "celebrities" showed their support for this stupid ordinance. Now they are correcting their mistake. It is about time.

[jgraz]

1. A ban is much easier than doing something intelligent

Like requiring restaurants to only serve foie gras raised with humane farming techniques. That might lead to similar laws for other meat.

[barnel]

3. cant be done - foie gras is unnatural condition

no humane way to do it

we humans have a zillion other great things we can eat

[jgraz]

7. It's completely natural and many farms do it humanely

Geese are built to gorge themselves for migration. Why do you think it is even biologically possible for them to fatten their livers? That's where they store the extra calories for long flights.

The "force" feeding looks horrible to humans because we have a gag reflex. Birds don't, and they're very comfortable having food poured down their throats because that's how their parents fed them as babies. It's as natural as humans sucking on a nipple.

Here's a video showing the feeding process on a baby sun conure. http://youtube.com/watch?v=riHqChwoO_w Note how far back they put the feed tube and the "chugging" response from the baby. If you're not familiar with it, it looks like the bird is being tortured, but she's actually engaging in a natural feeding reflex to prompt her parents to regurgitate more food for her.

[Critters2]

10. Any animal's liver will fatten if they eat an unnatural amount of fat.

In the documentary "Supersize Me", as the guy's health deterioriates from eating McDonald's food exclusively, the condition he develops is fatty liver disease. It is a disease. Foie gras is a diseased liver, from animals forced to be ill by humans raising them under unnatural and inhumane conditions.

It ought to be a crime.

[jgraz]

13. Do you actually understand the avian migration process?

Did you ever wonder why we don't see pork foie gras, or beef foie gras or even foie gras from non-migratory birds like chickens? There's a reason the feeding technique only works on ducks and geese.

[Critters2]

14. Interesting use of the word "works". I would suggest it doesn't work. nt

[jgraz]

16. I would suggest you get a bit of science education. It may help you focus on what's important

Foie gras production is a red herring. The real issue is humane farming of all meat. Don't kid yourself that a ban on one product will cut down on cruelty one bit.

[Critters2]

18. Exactly, Which is why I'm vegan.

But this was a step in the right direction. And the argument that the production of foie gras is humane was the real red herring.

[jgraz]

23. Not everyone is going to be vegan. This kind of absolutism helps no one.

Trying to ban foie gras won't work, and will only generate a backlash against sensible reforms in the meat industry.

[Crunchy Frog]

8. Not necessarily the case.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6301715.stm

I've seen an interesting video on humane foie gras production, but wasn't able to find it to post.

[barnel]

2. I'm not a big animal rights guy or a vegetariam

but i read about how foie gras is created, and i think it's despicable

i think we have the right to eat animals, but we have the obligation to treat them decently

[truebrit71]

4. Until it can be made humanely it should remain banned...

...it is a despicable process and I for one am glad that Chicago had the sense to ban it.

[nam78_two]

21. Agreed.nt

[OhioArtist]

5. I'm not much of an animal rights activist

and I'm a meat eater, but when i saw video of how they "make" foie gras I almost lost my lunch. There's never a good reason to torture any living thing.

[KamaAina]

6. What I want to know is, are foie gras joints opening up

just across the line in Evanston or Oak Park? You know, like how the taverns in Kenosha, Wis. used to advertise "You only have to be 18 to drink in Wisconsin"? :eyes:

[Critters2]

11. There were restaurants in Chicago openly defying the ban.

Because wealthy assholes just can't live without diseased goose liver.

[AngryAmish]

25. Yup, Hot Doug's is filled to the brim with wealthy assholes...

[heliarc]

27. Yeah and stupid americans won't respect the animal...

and eat all of it... livers, glands, thighs...

You may have a problem with foie gras, but I have a problem with the way Americans shun parts of the animal and in doing so tons of it goes to waste (either that or they "hide" it in hot dogs or hamburger).

Just because you're vegan, or never eat food that is well cultivated and prepared doesn't mean you get to tell people what to eat.

As an amateur chef, I appreciate good technique and have a big problem with people like you with reductionist arguments. I purchase almost exclusively locally grown and nurtured foods, and I have high standards for the care of the animals I consume and prepare at home. You're not the only one who cares about animals.

I for one think it is a good thing that people who are well off are spending a little more for locally grown organic food and supporting small farms who grow diversified crops.

Why don't you save your expletives for the people who cage chickens and serve them to the stupid Americans who gobble it up at KFC? I'm sure that's a much higher percentage of the problem.

[Critters2]

29. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about...

and neither do you. This is not locally grown. There are no foie gras farms in Illinois. The legislature took up the issue in 2005, and the rest of the meat industry assured them that no such farms exist in the state, so outlawing them wasn't necessary (saw it as a slippery slope against other forms of cruelty upon which the industry depends).

This is still the case. No foie gras is raised in Illinois. Most of the expensive stuff is flown in from France. The domestic crap is raised in upstate New York and Pennsylvania mostly. So, your argument about local foods is irrelevant bullshit.

As to whether I support local foods, I belong to a CSA and am on the board of an organization that works to make locally grown, organic foods available to low-income people.

Oh, and I'm on a rotating list to demonstrate at my local KFC on a Saturday every 6 weeks or so. So, yeah, they get my expletives, too. I have plenty of expletives to go around.

[heliarc]

30. Ignoring you you potty mouthed buffoon...

I'd have more respect for your arguments if you weren't so insulting

[Critters2]

31. The torture of animals pisses me off.

Try making an actual argument...one that makes sense.

[heliarc]

32. Belligerent people piss me off. Try making your point

and quit shoving it down my throat (so to speak)

[Critters2]

34. But shoving things down animals' throat doesn't hurt them.

And your argument about local foods is still irrelevant. Really. It makes no sense.

[Robbien]

9. The Council hasn't even passed a budget and is stuck on all major issues

Everything is in limbo. So what do they do? They spend more time on this bill.

What nonsense.

[Critters2]

12. Rich people need their goose liver! nt

[Robbien]

15. Rich people will get their goose liver and no one would stop them

bill or no bill. This is Chicago for heaven's sake.

[Lance_Boyle]

17. *NO* people need a nanny-council telling them what food items

they can or can't eat.

[Critters2]

20. This is a dstraction from the real work of the council.

Someone upthread noted that this council hasn't passed a budget yet. They're wasting time undoing a law that promoted the humane treatment of animals, but can't pass a budget.

Yep, that sounds like Chicago.

[truebrit71]

24. "Yep, that sounds like Chicago. "....that would only be more true if Tod Stroger or one of his assoc

...was somehow making money from it... ;-)

[nam78_two]

19. Ugh-I recommended this by mistake

Not the sort of thing I would normally recommend. Oh well...

[IntravenousDemilo]

22. I have tasted vegetarian faux foie gras and have detected no diffference between that and the real

thing. If foie gras can be exactly duplicated using a vegetable paste, there is no reason to torture geese and ducks in that way just to feed rich swine.

Even worse than foie gras is shark fin soup. The world shark population has plummeted since the late 1980s, simply because some fat Shanghai businessmen want to seem more important to their corporate contacts by treating them to vast feasts including $150 bowls of shark fin soup. Meanwhile, after the fin has been cut off, the shark gets thrown back into the sea. Sharks have been around since before the dinosaurs, and it's taken us all of 20 years to practically annihilate them.

I'm starting to think that the whole human population is nothing better than mould growing on the surface of an orange, rendering it inedible before eventually destroying it.

[AngryAmish]

26. UPDATE: Foie Gras Ban reversed!!!!!!!!!!

<http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/chicago-overturns-foie-gras-ban/?hp>

[Critters2]

28. Another reason not to spend money in Chicago. nt

[Freddie Stubbs]

35. Wow. Now people will have to make a moral decision on their own without

the government telling them what to do.

[DU GrovelBot]

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