foie gras = fucking gross !

that's pretty amazing. i never expected to hear anything like that being passed in an American city.

and of all cities, it's fucking CHICAGO that is the first to ban it.

i suppose they owe it to the animals.

So all things involving duck liver are to be banned? Like pate?

a shame- foie gras is delicious- i know this is a brooklyn vegan website but barring something from someone's plate is a bit extreme in my opinion (and i do know how it's made)

How about being less concerned with cruelty to ducks and more concerned with cruelty to human beings?

with all the worries about our rights being taken away from us and george bush creating a "big brother" fascist state, why is this being applauded?
so now we can't even choose to eat what we want? what is next?

That's good. I think it's important for governments to make eithical choices for their citizens. Perhaps they can tell us all what decisions to make about abortion, who we date and who we marry.

All obnoxious sarcasm aside, I have nothing but respect for someone who is bothered by foie gras, meat, leather, fur coats, etc., but I believe those are personal choices you should make for yourself. Feel free too to try to persuade the rest of us to your point of view. But that doesn't mean the government should make a law dictating that decision. And it's such a limited one. Why ban foie gras and not, say, baby lamb? After all, killing baby lambs seems like a particularly cruel thing to do.

Where do you draw the line and who draws it? Reasonable people can widely disagree on the ethics of eating meat and the level of cruelty that we as a society consider acceptable, which is why it should be individuals who make that decision, not governments. I apply the same logic to abortion and many other issues: You might think it's murder, I think it's critical to a woman's health and rights. As such, government should not be in the business of forcing one ethical viewpoint on everyone. We should have to make the decision ourselves, and, of course, passionately defend and promote our position to others, if we think it's important enough.

This is of course just my two cents. Back to music, please.

Oh, and I agree, foie gras is pretty nasty stuff. Bone marrow, too. Seriously, bone marrow?

Matt,

I dig your argument, but check the title of the blog you're reading. While BV may dedicate most of his entries to music, he has other interests and concerns as well. He built this soapbox so he can tell us whatever he wants (doesn't mean we have to agree, or even listen).

mmmmm...delicious fatty goose or duck liver!

Ethical issues aside, foie gras is delicious. if it's on the menu, i usually do order it, that is of course if it's not too expensive. it's just sooo rich yet velvety.

i really don't see the need though to ban it though. it's not like every restaurant is serving it. many chef's do have a problem with it and thus don't serve it. and likewise, most customers don't order it.

i'm surprised a city as liberal as chicago so overwhelming approved such a gross intrusion of personal rights. it's one thing if foie gras posses a health danger. but for a legislative body to tell individuals what they can and can't is violation of civil rights, and is a scary precedent.

I don't agree with the ban but let's be civil here. BV provides a great site and his views are obvious from his URL. You don't go to Willie Nelson's house and start bad-mouthing country music !

if bv wants to post it for us, we get to post it for him... freedom of speech. so come on bv, get back to that fun lovin' indie music and the rest of us will get back to eating all the delicious food that you silly vegans are missing out on.

I couldn't support that ban more strongly. If anyone tried to treat a dog, cat or person in the same way, they would be thrown in jail.

Go Chicago!

PS--California already passed a similar bill, but it has not gone in to effect yet.

fuck you people. it's a fuckin diseased fat liver from a duck. eat something else. eating foie gras is just completely unnecessary, but because you NEED to eat it these birds are tortured. tortured just to serve you their diseased organs, you fat nasty fucks.

Mmmmmmmm....Diseased fat duck liver....mmmmmm

Hey now---lots of THIN nasty fucks eat it too.

hey, i'm not fat! that's just uncalled for, unfounded and down right mean.

...and i don't NEED to eat it, i WANT to eat it.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, diseased organ. so rich, creamy and packed with flavor... oh, I'm sorry, u probably don't understand what those words mean. have fun with your tofu!

i called you people fat fucks as a figure of speech not because you are really fat. maybe you are, maybe not.

the fact that you WANT to eat it is uncalled for and down right mean. you know that the only way to get foie gras is from torture, but that doesnt matter to you?

it's just completely unnecessary and unresponsible. oh and i think tofu is nasty. i'm not vegan or vegetarian.

Another point to make: why is foie gras cruel but chicken not cruel? Stapling an animal's feet to the ground, clipping its beak, pumping it full of hormones and antibiotics is less cruel?

It's the same thing as fur. Why is fur worse than leather? If you are pro-animal rights, you want to start stripping away rights around the edges. What percentage of Americans eat foie gras vs. chicken. Ditto for fur vs leather.

While I applaud a ban on the production of foie that utilizes auto-feeders, there are farms that produce foie gras humanely (actually there are only 3 farms in the US that produce foie. Hudson Valley Farms and Bobo Farms in upstate New York which both use auto feeders. And the humane farmers at Artesinal Farming Co-Op in northern Cali). Any ban on a food item seems a bit sketchy especially in a city with as much gastronomic clout as Chicago.Before freaking out about foie, or at least we should be looking at much larger food atrocities such as the beef industry or (especially) the poultry industry...

come on- foie gras has been around for centuries- it's a culinary art in france. in other cultures, they do eat animals like cats and dog as well- so what. the whole idea of domestication was to eat the animal. sure, exercise your right to not buy and eat this stuff, but don't cramp other peoples right to do so. what's next? veal, beef, pork? it's a slippery slope.

let's get something straight, if a chicken had the opportunity he would staple your feet to the ground, cut off your lips and pump you full of hormones the first chance he got! ...and don't you ever forget it!

ps- morrissey wears leather shoes.

let's get something straight, if a chicken had the opportunity he would staple your feet to the ground, cut off your lips and pump you full of hormones, he would! ...the first chance he got! ...and don't you ever forget it!

ps- morrissey wears leather shoes.

Well...I hope veal, beef and pork are next. Yes.
Eating animals is the ultimate in human arrogance. (Or maybe polluting the Earth is the ultimate....hmm...well, they are both high on the list.)

Keep in mind that just because something else is bad--stapling chicken feet, etc--doesn't mean that we should forget about cruelty in other areas. Things happen in baby steps. Someday people, even French people, will realize that it is not right to torture animals for human pleasure. In the mean time, I applaud forward thinking politicians.

veegs, yer not missing a thing. i love all things that come from animals, cept this one

and oh, microwaved tunafish

and yes, fishes are animals

and they suck

crabs are where its at

and my grundle

and lily allen's myspace page

"I apply the same logic to abortion and many other issues: You might think it's murder, I think it's critical to a woman's health and rights."

Banning foie gras cannot be compared to banning abortion. Banning abortion would mean taking away critical rights from women. Banning fois gras means providing rights to animals. Yes, it also takes away the right for humans to eat it, but humans not being able to eat duck liver is nothing like humans not being able to have abortions.

Also, to the person who criticized the ban on the grounds that other animal rights issues seem more important: animal rights activists are working on every possible issue, but generally it is products with smaller markets like fois gras and fur that are easier to make substantive progress on than more popular ones like chicken or leather.

I applaud Chicago for making this decision and BV for putting up with obnoxious anti-vegan comments whenever he posts something like this.

foie gras is delicious...so are sweetbreads...they taste like mushy fried chicken.

this will never pass in nyc...

i just hope someone get us this:

http://www.dennysbeerbarrelpub.com/IMAGES/burgerreplacements/images/burger93_JPG.jpg

I am in full support of this ban. And for all of you that are opposed to it, you clearly have no idea what it takes for the foie gras to get to your plate. Delicious or not is not the point, the process of producing foie gras is cruel and unnecessary. I also applaud BV for posting this. It's clearly a controversial debate, that seems to bring those less educated about the meat and animal products industry out from the woodwork. Rock on BV!

the abortion analogy is idiotic- you shoot yourself in the foot because then the argument then comes to fetal rights vs. women's rights. if arrogance about the earth is the issue- quit drving your car, flushing your toilet, buying any product that is manufactured- all of that damages the precious earth. it's an idealistic, but unreasonable viewpoint in the modern world.
besides- so few people that can afford foie gras even eat it. my view- we are all gonna die- let us enjoy something like foie gras if we want (the only people, oh wait, animals that are hurt are the geese). lighten up - the earth will end anyway - it's the nihilist in me- sorry.

sweetbreads are pretty awesome thought- mmm thymus glands. . .

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law that will ban the production or sale of foie gras from force fed birds in the state by 2012.

Why don't all the supporters of this ban keep it up! You'll have your republican induced fascist state before you know it!

If you keep eating my friends, I'm getting the Geese Union to shit all over your lawns.

go chicago!
my entire country may dissappoint me daily, but at least my city sucks a little less than most.

"a person is smart, people are dumb."

-Tommy Lee Jones (Men In Black 199something)

"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." - Immanuel Kant

Just so with a culture, a nation. All of you jaded indie fucks are too pomo-relativist and morally castrated by the fashion of indifference to get roused about anything.

"morally castrated by the fashion of indifference"

franklin - you know what's up - I'm not being an idiot either. however the same way we trick people into being meat greedy is and will be the same way we teach them to let go of that greed. propaganda - fashion - trends. remember people are dumb - they will follow their leader. In 40 years I bet people (American) will feel about meat the same way they feel about smoking. It just looks to be the direction of things. Human beings are animals and some of us display the comprehension of reason and thought. I think all humans should have to pass a test. If you fail then the other humans get to eat you. If I fail, I am totally cool with that. You can take off my toenails while I still breathe and then dip me into a pot. If tomorrow 30 ft donkeys come from Pluto and enslave the human population I am totally cool with that too. I am a human being and I take full responsibility for all the fucked up shit we have done. But until the donkeys come I am going to set the best example to being a human that I know how. And I learn something new everyday. Yes we are all going to die but I like cleaning up shit on this planet better than shitting all over it.

I don't think Chicago should have banned foie gras, instead I think they should have passed a law saying it should be prepared in the restaurant from start to finish - in kitchens with glass walls. I don't look down on anyone who eats foie gras. It's entirely too easy to disconnect yourself. It's a wild world we live in and I think shit is about to get a lot crazier than banning fatty duck livers. I've got my admission ticket.

So now opposition to foie gras is the acid test of morality, franklin?

you people keep talking about civil rights and what will they ban next? you're missing the point entirely. and really, come on. we're talking about someone's choice to eat a diseased bird liver. the civil rights debate doesn't blong here.

this is specifically about the topic that BV posted, and what is necessary for foie gras to be prepared for you. if I understand the video clip right, then these birds basically need to be tortured to pump up their livers to 10x their normal size. that's the point. no living thing should be tortured. especially just so you can pay someone a lot of money to serve you the damn thing on a plate.

really, you can't just get something else on the menu? will it really affect your life if you never have foie gras again?

Isn't this backwards logic? If you want to stop something don't you usually attack the cause and not the symptoms? So chicago is going to ban the end product of a legal act? Shouldn't they ban the production of delicious, creamy, smooth, salty foie gras? We all know what happens when you ban the sale of something that people want. The price of a dime of gras on the street is gonna skyrocket.

I just had a foi gras omellette with some mild fed veal bacon on the side. It really gets my energy up for long arduous days of clubbing baby seals.

last night I ate a porter house steak, goose fat potatoes and an appetizer of foie gras hash!
and it was all due to this silly blog.
thank you brooklyn vegan for being the wind beneath my wings!

please support your local steak house, last night i went to strip house, but nothing is better than peter luger!

I like steak, you like tofu, people are different!
can we all please get back to the music!

anyone find themself for the first time ever wanting to eat foie gras? i didnt want to before but the idea of being able to dine in a chicago speakeasy appeals to the traditionalist in me.

and banning its one thing in light of all the other atrocities being committed out there, but enforcing the ban will seem even more ridiculous.

its the latest illegal substance.

In a recent interview, the interviewer noted that Morrissey was wearing (expensive) artificial leather shoes.

honestly, fois gras is good enough that i would gavage the birds and butcher them myself. anyone see the tony bourdain show this week- he went to a restaurant and had 13 courses of food with fois gras. yummy.
we eaters/foodies respect the animals by eating them- all of them, their guts, their bodies, their livers - people who eat fois gras probably aren't like the mcdonald's consumers who are afraid of the rest of the animals that are culled for us (they eat probably only chicken breast and the steak cuts). we waste no parts.
thie idea that meat will become unfashionable- dream on- we have over a billion chinese emerging as an economic power who love meat - pork is cultural there. also, the US is going to become less white in a few decades with more hispanics and other minorities- guess what- hispanics love meat, too - menudo, steak, carnitas, tongue.
the commenter who holds him self up morally over those of us who disagree - please - its that kind of thinking that drives the pro-life movement.
if you see it scientifically with the law of thermodynamics, all goes to entropy anyways. humans will not exist forever, and the arrogance that we make a difference in the universe when actually we barely register a blip is a closed way to live a life especially when it comes to something as small as eating expensive goose livers.

jshgviwc

jshgviwc

jshgviwc

jshgviwc

jshgviwc

The people standing up for foi gras should be ASHAMED of themselves. You talk of your civil liberties being violated, so basically you're saying as long as you are happy any amount of harm can come to any other organism... you people are what's wrong with the earth.

If the laws said, "You can do anything you want as long as it doesn't harm another creature without it's explicit consent," the world would be just fine. Bush is an idiot, so are foi gras lovers.

can vegans eat their own boogers?

i think boogers are vegan if they are offered, but if someone is exploited for their boogers, then they are not vegan.

US Food and Drug

for standard review by the US Food and Drug

"Banning foie gras cannot be compared to banning abortion. Banning abortion would mean taking away critical rights from women. Banning fois gras means providing rights to animals. Yes, it also takes away the right for humans to eat it, but humans not being able to eat duck liver is nothing like humans not being able to have abortions."

You seem to have things back to front - It is actually the issue of allowing abortions. Ask a Catholic - I'm sure you'll find there are actually many similarities between not being allowed to kill another living creature and not being allowed to kill another living creature.

And for all you vegans/vegos out there with similar opinions to this one : "Well...I hope veal, beef and pork are next. Yes...Eating animals is the ultimate in human arrogance....Someday people, even French people, will realize that it is not right to torture animals for human pleasure."
I suggest you go and find yourself a book called "SuperNature" which document the test done as far back as the 1930s on plants and the response in their energies to human interaction, like fruit picking and pruning. Very interesting if in fact you are interested in "torture" - ALL things feel "pain" or at least react to discomfort and destruction. So unless you are a Fruitarian or an Oxygenarian, you really have no claim to be so self-righteous.

But I digress. Basic point - if you want it, eat, if you don't , don't eat it - Its a really simple concept that most Americans don't seem to be able to grasp - THINK WHAT YOU LIKE JUST DO NOT TELL ME I HAVE TO THINK IT TOO.

(Wonder if anyone thought to apply that to Iraqi and the rest of the world for that matter.)

Then again - think what you like - thats the point!

"The people standing up for foi gras should be ASHAMED of themselves. You talk of your civil liberties being violated, so basically you're saying as long as you are happy any amount of harm can come to any other organism... you people are what's wrong with the earth."

HMMM...lets think about this for a moment shall we.

For example, a bear in the forrest - how does it eat? Does it "humanely" (or, "bearamely" as the case may be") inject the squirrel with a anesthetic agent and then calmly smother it in a relatively painless fashion. No. Its doesn't.
Or...does a Great White Shark give the seal the "gentlemanly" way out, but casually asking it if it would mind killing itself now that it was going to get eaten. No.

In every instance in the food chain, there is no negotiation, no "humane", no gently gently - why? BECAUSE THAT IS NOT HOW THE EARTH WORKS!

My point - YOU people are "wrong" with the world - not recognising or understanding the way in which the food chain works, the way in which the balance of the earth is created. It is people like you that don't understand that curing EVERY illness and human condition is NOT going to make a better world, but will in fact do the opposite - there will be too many humans, not enough food, and the problem grows exponentially.

So take your head out of your own arse and wake up to your own mortality - not everything you have to do to survive in the world will be able to be justified against your Martha Stewart morality.
Wake up, grow up and learn to understand the balance of the earth.

Your balance of earth and food chain is a bunch of garbage. A bear hunts for food he NEEDS to survive. Foie Gras is a manufactured delicacy which is an indulgence and not a necessity (one with much un-needed pain). Industrial farming is meant to maximize the bottom dollar - they are not killing cows and chickens so fast because people are lining up on the street about to die from a lack of meat. Get your facts straight.

You can sign a petition to ban foie gras in new york city by clicking the following link: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/ban-foie-gras-in-new-york-city

Foie gras is perhaps the least industrially farmed animal-based substance available. Traditional (hand-feeding) gavage produces very little, if any, pain, because of the duck/goose anatomy. Get YOUR facts straight, and move to Chicago. Leave the New York restaurants alone.

funnel fed fowl makes me howl.

moe is we.

I wasn't including foie gras in the industrial farming example - they were separate points, as if it matters. Foie Gras "produces very little, if any, pain, because of the duck/goose anatomy", right and I guess that's why so many ducks die before it's even time to slaughter them. Right, I need to get my facts straight.

This is really a non-topic. Foie Gras eaters are the minority and the production of foie gras has been and will continue to be outlawed, just as gestation crates are. You shouldn't really waste your time responding to people who are overly sarcastic or plain ridiculous in these discussions. Again, they are the minority and as more people learn about the state of American Agriculture they are choosing for themselves what to do and it's why all of this groundbreaking legislation is happening and will continue to happen.

Foie Gras ducks are served 30% of their body weight a day. For me that would be eating, oh I'm sorry, I mean being force fed about 50 pounds of food a day. Imagine what that would feel like?

I respect those who want to defend freedom of choice but I don't think this applies with foie gras and I don't even think most of the detractors even really know what is actually happening. Don't just talk about this topic - actually see what is going on by viewing the following clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s-23fHnnP0

yuk a duck.

moe is we.

moe - you're not contributing anything here and it's not even funny

you anti-mo-ite!!!???

stymie

never eat a filter.

go moe.

not too bad