Chicago foie gras ban: restaurants and retail stores subject to a fine of $500

Today's big news in the animal advocacy world is Chicago's foie gras ban. It's covered in the Thursday, April 27, New York Times (pA16) headed, "Chicago Prohibits Foie Gras." The article tells us that the ban was adopted on a vote 48 to 1, that it makes "restaurants and retail stores -- subject to a fine of $500 for selling foie gras," and that it will take effect in 90 days.

We read, "California enacted a law in 2004 that will end the production and sale of foie gras there in 2012, and similar legislation has been proposed in a handful of other states. But Gene Bauston, president of Farm Sanctuary, an animal protection group that supports such bans, said Chicago would become the first place in the country to enforce one."

The New York Times article shares Mayor Daley's comments made in the Chicago Sun-Times:
''We have children getting killed by gang leaders and dope dealers. We have real issues here in this city. And we're dealing with foie gras? Let's get some priorities.''

You can read the full New York Times article on line at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/27/us/27foiegras.html

And you can send a letter to letters [at] nytimes.com. Always include your full name, address and telephone number.

The Chicago Tribune has the story on the front page, headed, "Sacre bleu! No foie gras for you."

It opens:

"Chalk up another first for Chicago, which on Wednesday became the nation's only combined nuclear- and foie gras-free zone.

We read:
"Foie gras isn't made in Chicago, only eaten here in a handful of posh restaurants and sold at gourmet food shops. But ban supporters claim its production is barbaric, with tubes jammed down the gullets of ducks and geese to force-feed them until their livers swell to 10 times normal size."

It quotes Mayor Richard Daley, a foie gras eater: "We have issues with children being killed."

But it also quotes Ald. Joe Moore (49th), sponsor of the ban, who said it sends "a powerful message that we uphold the value of a civilized society."

You can read the Chicago Tribune front page story on line at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/chi-060426foiegras,1,4839624.story?coll=chi-news-hed OR http://tinyurl.com/znma9

And you can post a letter to the Tribune editor at http://tinyurl.com/4lsug

The Chicago Tribune also has an interesting Web Log on the issue, by Mark Caro, headed, "The slippery slope of foie gras."

Caro notes that bill passed after "Ald. Joe Moore (49th), distributed to all members a video depicting the graphic mistreatment of ducks at a foie gras farm." He assumes that some of that video's footage was taken by Bryan Pease and writes, "Pease told me about taking volunteers on secret nighttime raids onto the property, where they got footage of, among other things, garbage cans of dead ducks and a defenseless, obese duck having his rear end munched on by a rat."

But Caro writes:

"Even in their gavage pens, the ducks appear to have more maneuvering room than your average cooped-up chicken. And it’s not like pig farms are known for their humane conditions.

"We’re getting into a tricky game of moral relativism here. How can you decry the treatment of foie gras ducks when more commonly eaten animals exist under conditions that may be arguably as bad or worse? But then, the flip side: If force-feeding ducks is cruel, then how could the lousy treatment of pigs, cows and chickens possibly justify it? Isn’t that like saying sniper attacks aren’t so bad because suicide bombings are worse?

"We all draw our own lines in regards to how kindly we believe the animals we eat should be treated before they’re slaughtered. For the most part, the anti-foie-gras animal rights groups support the most consistent position here: that no animal killing is humane and thus people should become vegans.

"But most of us aren’t that consistent. We generally choose not to question whether the chicken on our plate ever saw the light of day or could flap its wings without hitting five feathered coopmates.

"Yet we do expect consistency from the law. So if the City Council is taking a stand on foie gras, isn’t it also now on the hook to act against other cruel animal practices?

"Shouldn’t council members be assuring us that all of the chicken, pork, beef and veal served in Chicago restaurants comes from animals that have been humanely handled? And if they receive evidence that, say, veal calves are being dealt losing hands – or that most commercially bought chickens live shockingly unsatisfying lives – shouldn’t these items be forcibly removed from local menus as well?

"What about fur? Should it really be sold in Chicago? Have you seen those pictures?

"My guess is that Ald. Moore and his fellow council members have just signed themselves up for a Netflix-like plan of animal-cruelty videos."

You can read Caro's full piece on line at:
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_popmachine/2006/04/the_slippery_sl.html OR http://tinyurl.com/gwmmm

At the end of the piece you can comment. The comments are currently overwhelmingly against the ban, so I urge animal advocates to add some balance to the debate.

Also, Southern Florida's New Times has a lengthy piece on foie gras, headed, "Honk of you love foie gras." It is one of those odd pieces that acknowledges the immense suffering inherent in the delicacy and suggests that the appropriate response is to eat it with reverence. Gail Shepherd writes:
"There is only one, rather unfortunate, method for producing this luxury item; the polite term is 'gauvage,' and it involves pumping pounds of corn mush into the gullets of Moulard ducks three times a day for several weeks, until their livers swell to the size of a large man's fist, up to ten times their normal circumference (the fattened liver literally protrudes from beneath the animal's belly). It's a practice about as awful as many of the things we do to animals to make them taste good or to economize; the difference is that you can stop nailing a chicken's feet to its cage and still make a succulent bird, you can give a pregnant pig sufficient room to turn in her pen, but you can't produce foie gras without gauvage. Let your ducks range freely, build them a nice little pond to cavort in, but at the end of the day, you're still going to have to force-feed them, just like slaves and farmers did in ancient Egypt and Rome. After two weeks of this, the duck's liver is 80 perc ent delicious fat, which accounts for the gastronomic high you get from eating it, the way it seems to melt away to nothing but an intensely pleasurable memory on your tongue, the very flavor of yearning. You can't eat foie gras without admitting that it's one of the world's supremely beautiful foods (embattled Caspian caviar, dark chocolate, and the increasingly rare and expensive truffle being others). And you shouldn't eat it either without silently giving thanks to the miserable fowl that produced it."

You'll find the whole piece on line at http://www.newtimesbpb.com/Issues/2006-04-27/dining/dish.html
You can send a letter to the editor at http://www.newtimesbpb.com/feedback/index.php?author_email=feedback [at] newtimesbpb.com OR http://tinyurl.com/lcrly


(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)