• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

California foie gras fans scrambling, state ban to take effect July 1

Status
Not open for further replies.
Bullshit. I love Foie Gras. God I hate this states politics.

Yeah, regardless of how you feel about the force feeding or the meat industry in general, I think everyone can agree that we have more important issues that legislators could be focusing on instead of the ethical treatment of food geese.
 

Loofy

Member
Only one way to solve this.

Genetically modified ducks that have extreme appetites and really bad metabolism. They'll eat the barn.
 

pigeon

Banned
Honestly don't get the problem with veal. Is it the crates? Is free range veal okay? Or just that it's a little baby cow?
 

xbhaskarx

Member
Yeah, regardless of how you feel about the force feeding or the meat industry in general, I think everyone can agree that we have more important issues that legislators could be focusing on instead of the ethical treatment of food geese.

I remember hearing this same sort of thing when Congress was looking into steroid use in sports... do you people not know how politics works? Do you think everything that is fucked up in the world is only that way because legislators spent all their time on steroids and geese and didn't have time to get around to say averting economic disaster?
 

xbhaskarx

Member
This is like 80-year-old rich white men deciding birth-control legislation.

That makes... zero sense. In fact that is one of the dumbest statements I have seen on GAF in months.
First, eating or not eating foie gras is a choice, anyone can do it or not do it, it's nothing like men passing birth control legislation when only women can get pregnant.
More importantly, no one is banning foie gras because they tried it and they don't think it tastes good. They are banning it because they consider it to be a cruel practice. If it was based on deliciousness, perhaps foie gras would still be legal and they would have banned brussels sprouts instead.
Do you think legislators should only pass a law banning murder or kiddie porn if they have personally tried those things first?
 

Carcetti

Member
Produce monstrous animals to turn them into really greasy liverwurst? Good riddance. The torture-to-taste ratio is really skewed here as foie is not even very tasty. Someone made me try a serving in a fancy french restaurant before I heard how it was made, and it wasn't good even there.
 

Magni

Member
i'm not sure it matters whether it hurts them or not. you're forcing food down their throats. it feels perverse to me to rob the goose of any sort of providence over its own life, including when it eats. i'm sure the meat industry is full of far worse things, but this does have the particular stink of something obviously screwy.

Right, what about killing them?

That makes... zero sense. No one is banning foie gras because they tried it and they don't think it tastes good. They are banning it because they consider it to be a cruel practice.
Do you think legislators should only pass a law banning murder or kiddie porn if they have personally tried those things first?

Yup, same with genocide. (are you stupid or just playing stupid?)

Huh? Are you saying we should asks ducks what they think about this?

Same question goes for you. I clearly meant chefs and the people raising these ducks and geese. If the ducks or geese are stressed out, the liver tastes far worse. These animals actually have a far better life than factory poultry or cattle for example. Look at the video I posted, go read the EU report that someone mentioned earlier.

If you want to ban this, ban the food industry, and pharmaceutical/cosmetics animal testing as well. This is FAR from the worst that is being done to animals.

The fact that this law was passed at the height of Francophobia in the US also has me wondering if animal treatment was the only thing taken into consideration at the time..
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
Produce monstrous animals to turn them into really grasy liverwurst? Good riddance. The torture-to-taste ratio is really skewed here as foie is not even very tasty. Someone made me try a serving in a fancy french restaurant before I heard how it was made, and it wasn't good even there.

From this post I have to assume that you only buy chicken/beef/eggs/pork/everything else from the local farmers market.

If you buy anywhere else, I have disturbing news for you.
 

joe2187

Banned
We used to make sorbet foie gras popsicles at my old restaurant.

I dont like foie gras, dont really care where it comes from seems like most of it's appeal comes from that it is considered one of those "rare" delicacies, I have the same opinion of caviar, tastes like shit.
 

Carcetti

Member
From this post I have to assume that you only buy chicken/beef/eggs/pork/everything else from the local farmers market.

If you buy anywhere else, I have disturbing news for you.

Nah, I love eating animals and I can suppress my distaste at their treatment (disturbingly) easily. I try to buy ethical food when the finances allow it, but only then. Foie just goes over the line the same way as grilling fish alive on the plate or eating a live squid does and I hate the taste of it. The 'rare delicacy' argument doesn't fly.
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
Nah, I love eating animals and I can suppress my distaste at their treatment (disturbingly) easily. I try to buy ethical food when the finances allow it, but only then. Foie just goes over the line the same way as grilling fish alive on the plate or eating a live squid does and I hate the taste of it. The 'rare delicacy' argument doesn't fly.

Touche.
 

Magni

Member
To those who don't like it: it's a taste that needs to be acquired over time, like wine for example. And it's really really easy to fuck up foie gras, though I'd hope most of those high end restaurants don't. Please don't tell me you think it's gross if you enjoy Taco Bell for example.

Care to elaborate or do you only speak in O'Reilly one liners?

I just thought it was funny to equate gavage with "kiddie porn". Might as well go all out and equate it with genocide while we're at it.

Anyone well versed in the matter knows that gavage is far from the worst practice in the industry. The politicians behind this law aren't well versed apparently. (and/or they're crooked of course)

There's also the fact as I mentioned above that foie gras production is predominantly French, and so has much weaker influence in the US than the American meat lobby does for example, so it's not surprising that foie gras is banned in California before shit like factory farming. (yes, I do realize there is probably some foie gras that comes from factory farms, it's the bad tasting one so good riddance to that one).
 

Mistouze

user-friendly man-cashews
I feel for you California
4aZuh.gif

Foie gras grilled on a skillet with paimpol beans.... OH MY!
 

Carcetti

Member

To elaborate: I guess everyone has their limits on where the morality line goes when it comes to food-producing animals. I try to be ethical but know I'm not in this. I just try not to be overly hypocritical about it. In foie's case I'm not seeing how the overtly cruel manner in which it's made helps any. The horrible meat factories at least produce masses of food to actual need, since I don't think everyone's ready to jump to vegetarianism. I know I'm not.

I guess the best case would be if they managed to develop some sort of a cloned meat without brains. That would be like the opposite of foie. Science, help out please!
 

xbhaskarx

Member
I just thought it was funny to equate gavage with "kiddie porn". Might as well go all out and equate it with genocide while we're at it.

Sure kiddie porn and genocide are worse than foie gras. But society outlaws things that it considers socially unacceptable. In most places that includes kiddie porn and genocide. In California that now includes foie gras, passed by the democratically elected state legislature and signed by the democratically elected governor. In Singapore that list of socially unacceptable practices may include spitting out your gum on the sidewalk. Of course none of this has any connection to your original absurd comment...

I guess the best case would be if they managed to develop some sort of a cloned meat without brains. That would be like the opposite of foie. Science, help out please!

Science: help is on the way
no brain
tissue culture
 

akira28

Member
Ok so if you pay by web, and I drive to your place and deliver freeze dried foie gras to your door, all the way from Arizona, is that still legal?
 

Magni

Member
Sure kiddie porn and genocide are worse than foie gras. But society outlaws things that it considers socially unacceptable. In most places that includes kiddie porn and genocide. In California that now includes foie gras, passed by the democratically elected state legislature and signed by the democratically elected governor. In Singapore that list of socially unacceptable practices may include spitting out your gum on the sidewalk. Of course none of this has any connection to your original absurd comment...

My turn to ask you to elaborate..

You started with an almost Godwin-like argument (equating something with child pornography is just under bringing up Hitler in my book), sorry for not taking it 100% seriously.

To elaborate: I guess everyone has their limits on where the morality line goes when it comes to food-producing animals. I try to be ethical but know I'm not in this. I just try not to be overly hypocritical about it. In foie's case I'm not seeing how the overtly cruel manner in which it's made helps any. The horrible meat factories at least produce masses of food to actual need, since I don't think everyone's ready to jump to vegetarianism. I know I'm not.

I guess the best case would be if they managed to develop some sort of a cloned meat without brains. That would be like the opposite of foie. Science, help out please!

a) overtly cruel - read up on it
b) how it helps? the TASTE! cause you know, some people in this world eat food for the taste.

I know factory farming can't disappear overnight cause we already have a food problem in the world as is, but not only is it, in my opinion, unethical, it also produces disgusting food. I'm a poor college student, but when I buy meat I buy organic and free range (real free range). I'd rather eat better meat less often than the opposite.
 
Sorry for you California. What a stupid piece of legislation. I kind of wish there were some ulterior motive because this justification is absolutely ridiculous. Eggs to be banned soon ?
 

Zaptruder

Banned
I'm with the - this doesn't seem all that much worse than other farm raised meats camp.

I mean yeah, it's a cruel shit life... and if we could have their meat without the cruelty, then I'd be all for it. But as long as we're breeding and eating our meat...
 

Carcetti

Member
b) how it helps? the TASTE! cause you know, some people in this world eat food for the taste.

Sure, but in this case it's like I'm getting messages from bizarro world. I like normal traditional liverwurst but foie tastes just like that except with huge globs of fat mixed in it... it's just disgustingly greasy. I really tried it in an expensive restaurant in France and hated it. I know taste is a personal thing but 'but with 300% added grease' is not a culinary argument for me.
 

Magni

Member
Sure, but in this case it's like I'm getting messages from bizarro world. I like normal traditional liverwurst but foie tastes just like that except with huge globs of fat mixed in it... it's just disgustingly greasy. I really tried it in an expensive restaurant in France and hated it.

Oh that's perfectly alright, not everyone likes it in France either. My younger brother doesn't like it. But understand that to some people it's among the most delicious thing there is. It's the same with oysters, godly amazing for some, horrible for others.

Oh, and do you know we eat oysters alive (either that or we cook them alive) ? Should that be banned? (somebody think of the oysters!)

Sorry for you California. What a stupid piece of legislation. I kind of wish there were some ulterior motive because this justification is absolutely ridiculous. Eggs to be banned soon ?

Yeah I thought about it a for a second too. I'm far from being a conspiracy theorist, but this law was passed not too long after people where angrily pouring French wine in the streets (a year after France refused to support the Iraq clusterfuck). It seems weird for it to have passed in a liberal state like California, but then again I'm not sure how much foie gras you'd find in Oklahoma anyways.
 

xbhaskarx

Member
My turn to ask you to elaborate..

You started with an almost Godwin-like argument (equating something with child pornography is just under bringing up Hitler in my book), sorry for not taking it 100% seriously.

No, I didn't start in an almost Godwin-like argument.
I started by saying I thought foie gras should be banned, even though I had never tasted it.
You then compared that to men passing birth control legislation.
I explained why that was completely idiotic, and I think anyone who is rational would agree that eating / not eating foie gras is a choice, which makes it closer to kiddie porn (in that it is also a choice) than to birth control issues where only women can give birth.
 

xbhaskarx

Member
Good morning, France GAF

Sorry for you California. What a stupid piece of legislation. I kind of wish there were some ulterior motive because this justification is absolutely ridiculous. Eggs to be banned soon ?

Location:
Paris

Yeah I thought about it a for a second too. I'm far from being a conspiracy theorist, but this law was passed not too long after people where angrily pouring French wine in the streets (a year after France refused to support the Iraq clusterfuck). It seems weird for it to have passed in a liberal state like California, but then again I'm not sure how much foie gras you'd find in Oklahoma anyways.

Biography:
French-American college student enjoying life and the world.
Location:
Planet Earth (currently Belfort, France)
 

Monocle

Member
i can't understand people who wants to get rid of certain meat. Who cares if they get hurt. Or have to be killed 'humanely'.

They're animals. Meant for us to eat. Dominate. Rule over.

You think a cow would not have a human farm somewhere if they were on top of the food chain?

Back in the days, hunters would club the animals' head a few time before it died. OH GOSH the pain!

Thank God our ancestors weren't this pussy, or else we might have died as a specie
Just so we're clear, are you saying that it's OK to torture animals because we're naturally superior to them, or that it's not actually possible to torture animals because they don't experience suffering? I'm trying to interpret your post in a way that doesn't make you seem like a callous brute.
 

Magni

Member
Good morning, France GAF



Location:
Paris



Biography:
French-American college student enjoying life and the world.
Location:
Planet Earth (currently Belfort, France)

Good evening xbharskarx.

Honestly though, why do you think this was banned first when there is so much worse out there? I hope it isn't the case, but sometimes you can't help but wonder.
 
There is actually such a thing as "free range" foie gras, which doesn't require force feeding, relying instead upon their natural engorgement instincts:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2009/08/free_range_foie_gras.html

For myself, animal treatment is the main reason I don't eat much meat any more. There's nothing wrong with killing an animal for food, but the horrible conditions they have to endure their whole life isn't worth a few meals with meat.

I think if people had to actually personally interact with the animals they eat, there'd be a more ethical farming (eg: free range stuff). Would very many people really force feed a geese with a tube every day so they can have a little bit of fatty liver? Probably not.
 
Other types of meat can be 'farmed' without forcing the animal to a torturous life.
Just like some pens that kept cows without ever walking and those really small chick enclosures where they fill them up with hormones were banned. And the hit on productivity did not break any large company (we have numerous in Brazil).

Now for foie gras, to obtain the 'fat' liver, you must forcefeed the duck. There is no way to wait that a large number of ducks end up being gluttons enough. And it is a torturous process because not only the duck is being forcefed, it causes numerous health problems that destroy the duck.

There is the argument that in the end, they are all meant to die anyway, but if it is possible to let them live a healthy life while well, alive, why not? And if it is possible to kill the quickest way possible when it's due, why not? Slaughterhouses are closed too, due to malpractice.
 

Magni

Member
There is actually such a thing as "free range" foie gras, which doesn't require force feeding, relying instead upon their natural engorgement instincts:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2009/08/free_range_foie_gras.html

That's really interesting actually. I knew that's how it happened in the wild of course, but I didn't know there were farms trying to replicate it. Makes perfect sense though.

Other types of meat can be 'farmed' without forcing the animal to a torturous life.
Just like some pens that kept cows without ever walking and those really small chick enclosures where they fill them up with hormones were banned. And the hit on productivity did not break any large company (we have numerous in Brazil).

Now for foie gras, to obtain the 'fat' liver, you must forcefeed the duck. There is no way to wait that a large number of ducks end up being gluttons enough. And it is a torturous process because not only the duck is being forcefed, it causes numerous health problems that destroy the duck.

There is the argument that in the end, they are all meant to die anyway, but if it is possible to let them live a healthy life while well, alive, why not? And if it is possible to kill the quickest way possible when it's due, why not? Slaughterhouses are closed too, due to malpractice.

The force feeding happens for the last two to five weeks before they're killed. They're free-range animals up to that point. It's a natural process that happens in the wild (as the post I quoted above you shows), and it's reversible (the liver goes back to its original state), hence why you do it just before killing them.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom