California AG Says No to Foie Gras

WELLNESS WATCH-Foi Gras is a food product made by the force feeding of a duck or goose. When in nature, these migratory birds have a natural capacity to store and hold more fat in their bodies and organs in order to prepare for long flights. As far back as 2500 BC people discovered that by force-feeding these animals more food than they would normally eat in the wild, their livers became a fatty delicatessen. 

Today, the usual practice is to force-feed these animals corn laced with fat. (Photo: force fed livers) 

There have been more than a dozen countries world-wide that have banned foie gras due to the cruelty these animals sustain in the production of foie gras, and the unhealthy nature of the food itself. 

Chicago banned Foie Gras in 2008 but the ban was reversed in 2010, and California is the only state to ban the production and sale of this food. 

In 2004 with the help of the California animal anti-cruelty law, a new law was signed banning the production and sale of foie gras, and this law was put into place in 2012 after a 7.5 year phase out period designed to help the producers of foie gras.  

The ban of the sale of foie gras was overturned this year in January, but the ban of production was not. What this means is restaurants and gourmet food shops are now able to sell it again, but it must be purchased from a producer outside of California. Because it is considered a delicacy, and there were many California farms making money from producing and selling foie gras to gourmet shops and restaurants, keeping the California production ban in place has proven difficult. 

On Wednesday, California Attorney General Kamala Harris came to the defense of the ban serving notice that the state will appeal a federal court decision that struck down the ban on selling Foie Gras. What she hopes to do is make it illegal once again to both produce and sell Foie Gras in our state.   

By simply taking a look at the images and documentaries of what they do to these animals in the foie gras production process, one can see it is a cruel and inhumane practice. 

John Burton was the senator that originally sponsored the bill outlawing foie gras in the state of California, and his words pretty much sum up this entire debacle; “I don’t think they ought to torture animals to give people some food that probably isn’t healthy for them in the first place.”   

I could not have said it better, and he is right about foie gras being unhealthy. It is loaded with saturated fat, and studies show that it contains microscopic infectious protein fibers that accelerate inflammatory diseases. 

California almost always leads US health trends, and hopefully we will maintain our leadership role and keep foie gras off our menus and out of our state.  

 

(Christian Cristiano is an acupuncturist, TV host and writes on wellness regularly for CityWatch. He is also editor of the CityWatch Wellness page.)

-cw

 

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 11

Pub: Feb 6, 2015