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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: September 2007

Chicago foie gras ban a year later

 

CHICAGO--Responding to a complaint that Cyrano's Bistrot, Wine Bar, & Cabaret was illegally selling foie gras, the Chicago Department of Public Health on September 5, 2007 closed the upscale restaurant after finding a cockroach-infested kitchen --but no foie gras.

The raid indicated that the Chicago ban on selling foie gras appears to be holding, a year after the city council approved it 48-1, and that Department of Public Health spokes-person Tim Haddac erred two weeks earlier when he alleged to Chicago Tribune restaurant critic Phil Vettel that "Every hour we spend on foie gras is an hour we don't spend protecting people against food-borne illnesses."

Vettel reported on the August 22, 2007 first anniversary of the passage of the foie gras ban that, "Aficionados can still dine on foie gras, if they know where to look."

For instance, Vettel wrote, a restaurant calle Bin 36 "from time to time offers a menu item of a salad 'and the foie gras is on us.' City inspectors dispatched to Bin 36 last year concluded that because the foie gras was complimentary, the ordinance hadn't been violated." Vettel also singled out Copperblue chef/owner Michael Tsonton for serving "a duck liver dish billed 'It Ain't Foie Gras No Moore,'" a menu pun on the name of alderman Joe Moore, author of the foie gras ban.

Only one restauranteur so far has been fined for a violation. Doug Sohn, owner of Hot Doug's, in February 2007 openly defied the ban by selling a foie gras and duck sausage sandwich he called the "Joe Moore." Sohn was fined $250.

The Illinois Restaurant Association and Allen's New American Caf De sued seeking to overturn the foie gras ban almost as soon as it took effect, claiming that Chicago has no constitutional right to regulate the sale of a legally produced substance. U.S. District Judge Blanche M. Manning on June 12, 2007 upheld the constitutionality of the ban in a 26-page written opinion.

Chicago Chefs for Choice, formed in opposition to the foie gras ban, has promoted two bills to repeal it, but neither has cleared city council committees.

Haddac told Vettel that, "We wouldn't shed any tears," if the ban was repealed. "From the get-go," Haddac elaborated, "we've said that the law, however noble in its intention, has nothing to do with our core mission, which is to protect public health."

Humane Society of the U.S. director of public health and animal agriculture Michael Greger, M.D. holds that banning foie gras protects public health, especially in light of research by amyloid-related disorders specialist Alan Solomon of the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine in Knoxville.

Made from the artificially enlarged livers of force-fed ducks and geese, foie gras has long been notoriously saturated in cholesterol. But that is not the only foie gras-related health risk. Solomon in June 2007 published evidence in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that a protein found in foie gras can cause the onset of amyloidosis, a disease which can culminate, summarized Greger, in "extensive organ damage, kidney failure, and even death."

"Eating foie gras probably won't cause disease in someone who is not genetically predisposed to it," Solomon told Agence France-Presse. But he noted that, "People with a family history of Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, or other amyloid-associated diseases should avoid consuming foie gras and other foods that may be contaminated with fibrils," the protein in question.

On July 30, 2007, HSUS incorporated the Solomon findings into a refiled and expanded edition of a lawsuit it originally filed in August 2006, seeking to prohibit raising ducks and geese to make foie gras in New York state. New York leads the U.S. in foie gras production.

The amended lawsuit asks the court to order the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets "to declare foie gras an adulterated food product under a state food safety law requiring that any food that is 'the product of a diseased animal' be deemed adulterated," explained an HSUS press reliease. "The suit cites extensive expert evidence that the poultry livers used to make foie gras are diseased, and that the birds become seriously ill in the production process."

The lawsuit was previously amended in March 2007 to take note of violations of the federal Clean Water Act. The New York state Department of Environmental Protection had fined Hudson Valley Foie Gras $30,000 for "discharge of manure-related pollutants and the installation of an unauthorized manure cesspool at the facility," HSUS alleged, but this was "less than one-tenth of one percent of the available penalties for the more than 800 violations identified in the enforcement order. In 2006, HSUS noted, "New York granted Hudson Valley Foie Gras more than $400,000 in taxpayer funds to expand its forced-feeding operations, and subsequently defended that decision by claiming that the factory farm is in compliance with all applicable federal and state laws."

Foie gras image

Struggling to defend the image of foie gras, Canada's largest producer, Elevages Perigord, on July 20, 2007 fired an employee who was videotaped by an informant for the Montreal-based Global Action Network in the act of abusing ducks.

"Only the employee who was fired was identifiable in the three-minute excerpt the network shared with the media," wrote Jasmin Legatos of the Montreal Gazette.

Legatos said the video showed "Elevages Perigord employees whacking small or sickly ducks against concrete blocks or metal grates. It also shows workers kicking ducks that are unable to move because of enlarged livers, the result of the force-feeding process that takes place before they are slaughtered. The video also depicts ducks kept in small, dirty cages allegedly covered in regurgitated food the animals could not keep down after being force-fed."

At least four British department store chains have discontinued selling foie gras during the past year under pressure from Viva!, the campaign name used by Vegetarian International Voice for Animals.