Chicago repeals foie gras ban

With ALL the problems Chicago has, is this topic really worthy of so much time and effort?

Come on, guys!

Finally common sense prevails.

Thank you to our city government for resolving this critical problem that plagues our city.

I'm not rushing out to eat the stuff, but I don't like government telling me what I can or cannot eat either. If the issue is with the production of foie gras, that is where the debate should take place -- the places where it is produced. Makes no sense to deal with it on a local level because people in this area would just go to the suburbs for the stuff.

As for the crack about the way this was done being anti-democratic, I consider aldermen meddling in what goes on my dinner plate anti-democratic too.

The ban was absolutely ridiculous. It attracted significant attention to Chicago, and almost none of it was positive.(Excepting a few fringe elements)

I agree with the above post - there are far more important things that need to be dealt with in Chicago than the status of foie gras. I'm pretty sure they don't serve a side of foie gras with the bullets and glocks on the South Side.

The measure was also offensively paternalistic. Last I checked, I didn't need the government - any government - informing me of what was and was not permissible for me to eat. Stick to, at most, safety investigation and regulation in the food area. Stay away from my plate.

At long last, a victory for freedom and individual choice.

Kudos to Mayor Daley and Alderman Tunney for ending this embarassing and foolish ban. Let restraunt owners and diners choose.

Foie gras for everybody!!!

Make that restaurant owners...

strut2k wrote:

At long last, a victory for freedom and individual choice.
Kudos to Mayor Daley and Alderman Tunney for ending this embarassing and foolish ban. Let restraunt owners and diners choose.
Foie gras for everybody!!!

While we're at it, why not let the restaurant owners decide on the smoking issue too. I don't know of too many owners whose clientele went down because they couldn't order foie gras. Walks like a duck, talks like a duck ??

I just wonder who is going to make up for the revenue lost due to the smoking ban...

John J Coughlin wrote:

I just wonder who is going to make up for the revenue lost due to the smoking ban...

the smokers of course, in the form of higher cigarette taxes.

To the people likening this to the smoking ban...smokers need to understand that when they smoke, everyone smokes. If you want to smoke, smoke at home. Now nonsmokers can eat in peace. Besides, the impact on restaurants/bars is minimal last I checked. Good riddens.

I never ate this stuff, probably never would have. But I think I'm going to find some place that serves it and have some.

Who knows, I might like it and continue to eat it. And all because some screwball alderman doesn't want people to eat it.

How about someone shoves a tube down all the throats of all who eats it or wants to eat it and swells your livers, it's plain cruel. All because most people are cruel. The way most meat and poulty is "manufactured", animals do not need to suffer for the greedy people pleasure!

I'm no PETA person or vegan but shoving a tube down a ducks throat to force feed them so their liver gets bigger is pretty sick stuff.. Why is this so hard to understand? Can we at least not torture the animals before we kill them to eat and is this too much to ask?

Moore stated that he thought this was a democracy. It is, the votes have been counted, now sit down Joe.

Doesn't it worry you, the fois gras eaters, that you are eating a DISEASED liver?? Yuk! Because that is exactly what they are doing to those ducks/geese, they feed them so much fat/crap till their liver is dead/sick. But then there is nothing a gourmet won't eat. They walk over dead bodies to fill their stomachs, regardless of the cruelty involved, shame on you!

ebbs

The ducks and geese RUN to be fed. It is not torture.

There has been overwhelming public support in favor of the foie gras ban. In Zogby polls, more than 70 percent of Illinois residents supported the ban when told the details about the severe injuries these birds suffer. The fact that Daley kept trying to sneak this repeal into legislation, over and over and over again, until he finally succeeded, just shows that he's an arrogant man who has no regard for the will of the people.

Daley is in the pocket of the Illinois Restaurant Association. But that's Mayor Daley for you -- a George Bush Republican in sheep's clothing. Don't expect him ever to endorse legislation that's not in the interest of big business. He really doesn't give a rat's you-know-what about the public's opinion...only the money flowing into his pocket.

I don't see support as overwhelming here or anywhere else. Lawmakers can keep their noses out of my dinner plate.

In an interview, Pope Benedict XVI, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was asked by German journalist Peter Seewald about his views on animal welfare (Pope Benedict XVI. God and the world: a conversation with Peter Seewald. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002; 78). The future Pope called animals our "companions in creation." He went on to advise that, "we cannot just do whatever we want with them.... Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible."