Banned foods (9)

Yellow cake mix. That should be banned too. :)

Why: you want it to make a comeback?

Ah, prohibition.... ain't nothing like it to make it sexy.

They should take shark fins off the list. It is misleading.

The article even admits that shark fins are not banned, only a particular practice in harvesting them.

The newer practice, it seems, involves killing it on board and then cutting the fins off. This is much more humane than the older, now banned practice of dumping it fin-less in the water where other animals kill it. Makes perfect sense. :lol:

Why not just harvest the meat and create a market for shark meat?

It's disgustingly wasteful to cut off a shark fin and dump the rest of it in the ocean!
Honestly, the lack of imagination in the business world astounds me sometimes!:confused:

Shark meat is good and I challenge anyone to distinguish between it and swordfish.
It's a nice meaty fish that performs especially well in seafood soups and chowders because it does not fall apart as many other types of fish do in such applications.

Few things in this life bother me as much as the "ban" on Foie Gras. Allowing a minute minority to create such large motions as to completely ban it and have other restaurants afraid of vandalism and harm to remove it just shows how low things have gone.

I personally drive over 1 1/2 hours plus tolls to the one restaurant which still serves it (in a Wellington) routinely, and make sure they know it is why I patronize their place. I have also made sure to inform the one other French restaurant near me of my displeasure in removing a quarter of their menu which featured it, and have explained that they have lost thousands of dollars of my business as a result.

Luckily I live in PA where Raw milk is very easily available. If you have never tried it, it is a must.

You must lead a very nice life indeed.

Heh, no it is just that to ignorantly attack others enjoyments and not only that but to go so far as vigilante actions and vandalism to create a state of fear over a delicacy that has been enjoyed since 2500 BC is outrageous to me. What is worse is that politicians somewhere, just as ignorant, can then pressure or ban something in the comparative blink of an eye.

I can understand not liking or partaking in something like Foie Gras if it is against your own particular beliefs or views, but when you then force it on others it does truly make me about as angry as anything in life. Eliminating over 4,000 years of history because a small fraction of individuals don't like something is just wrong.

O for the love of Mike & all his angles. This is totaly out of hand. Next it'll be coffee :mad:

One could say the same thing about marijuana, or smoking cigarettes indoors, or Crisco in biscuits.
Get over it an get some perspective. Foie gras is just not that important to get all worked up about whether you can eat it or not.

If you care that much about it, grow, torture and slaughter your own birds-then see if you still have the stomach for it.

Your analogy of smoking cigarettes -- anywhere -- is a very poor analogy.

If I eat foie gras in front of you, you may feel uncomfortable, because YOU don't care to eat it for PETA reasons. HOWEVER, if I smoke a cigarette in front of you (wouldn't happen, I quit 34 years ago) that exposure to my smoke could cause you to get lung cancer and die.

My eating foie gras would only aggravate your questionable moral standards.

and I'd be surprised if you ever saw ducks or geese being fed. They run to those who have the food and open their beaks to receive it. Hardly "force." :look:

Sure, you're right-the cigarette analogy doesn't really follow, but the others do.
And-
Actually, have seen it, both in France and here in NY

The only running the ducks do is AWAY from people, but they can't get very far because 20 of them are contained in an 8' x8' pen.

Look, I'm all for eating tasty food-well crafted and such.
I'm not a vegetarian, though lean in that direction for health reasons.
I eat meat.
I just don't believe you must torture animals to create lovely and delicate dishes.
Ducks and geese load up naturally on a seasonal basis and their livers naturally swell. This is the 4000 year old history that proponents are so fond of siting, not the forced feeding that is done today.
Why is it not possible to let this delicacy evolve naturally, harvest the birds when their livers are the largest and serve foie as a seasonal item-kind of like beaujolais neuveau?
You could then actually eat the meat of the bird as well. As foie is produced now, the muscles are so loaded with toxins that the liver can't process that the meat is inedible. The rest of the bird just goes to waste.

I'd have absolutely no problem with it and my guess is that neither would other animal rights activists, except for the extreme ones who aren't happy unless everyone is a vegan.

geese around here eat too good.

every time i see them I think very bad things.....especially when they leave giant turds on my cadillac.

one time i came out of ruby tuesdays (that will teach me to go there) and I swear to god it looked like someone threw some hot black tar ALL OVER the hood of my car....not even the guy at the car wash could get it off.....if that fcuker survived THAT evacuation of epic proportions I'd be seriously surprised.

While I don't eat Fois, mainly because they don't serve it much around me or the restaurants I frequent....and there is always something id rather have instead.....I'm pro just eliminate the geese all together! :eek: haha. Around here we actually have companies that make a living off of just "chasing away" geese from places...company is called "the geese police"

here on our corporate campus, we actually have 2 dogs on the payroll for this reason.

(ok, off topic rant about geese over!, sorry had to vent)

Also for someone to complain about Fois, but not about how many other proteins are harvested is kind of hypocritical. Kind of like how it's ok to eat beef, veal, but not the bunny rabbit, because it's cute. And yes, I'm aware of what goes on in the production of fois.

and thats the beauty of being top of the food chain, we don't have to grow, raise them ourselves, we can just go to a restaurant and be served it ;)

fois gras is just not that important, I agree, but it amazes me WHY it IS so important to the peta folks. live and let be. If it wasn't fois, it would be some mis-directed college trust fund baby complaining about SOMETHING else I guess....

but....the PETA girls get naked from time to time...and I'm for that.

speak for yourself, the only time I ever got bit by an animal was on a nice summer day when I was 6 years old....the duck the Portuguese family at the end of the street got loose, and chased me down the sidewalk, I remember running as fast as I could and he still got me....drew blood.

thanks, now you've gone and brought up some repressed memories and I'll have nightmares! haha.

Call be a bad, evil, demented, person, but I could almost give a crap what went on with my perfectly cooked filet mignon before it hits my plate. You could tell me they dressed it in a tutu and force fed it mcdonalds until it bit the big one.

Take a look for yourselves:
Gavage on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Gavage on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

The gavage machine. Notice the tube is longer than the whole duck itself-
Izzy Demonstrates the Funnel on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

also notice that in the production pictures, the ducks are trying to get away and must be held down to have that thing shoved into their mouths.

I eat rabbit- a good coney stew is one of the world's best dishes. It's also one of the healthiest meats available.
Higher in protein, lowest in fat and cholesterol.

If their meat is inedible due to toxins then why are we allowed to get magret de canard, which is basically meat from foie gras raised ducks?

www.NoVeal.org is horrible too......

...but I love me some veal. Problem is, the reason PETA doesn't pick on it...is its something they have no chance with....most of PETA is a bunch of mis-directed college kids with no real direction in life, who don't live in the real, horrible, world, and they need justification of "something" so they pick easy targets to tackle rather than REAL issues....they could give a **** about the geese, they care about self gratification. (most)

I love foie gras, theres other things worse happening in this world right now( but that would be in the late nite thread ).

I didn't and don't mean to take this thread off-topic, I'm also new 'round here so I don't want to ruffle feathers (pun very much intended), but I do want to make a final point. I am perfectly fine with just a slightly larger liver produced not by force feeding but by slightly overfeeding, I am perfectly fine with a small one by totally normal means... it isn't the method of creating it which I enjoy, it is the end result.

I have seen them willfully be fed, sure it may just be a learned/trained response... who knows I can't ask them. The end result is that most meat raised for consumption isn't frollicking around all day with nary a care in the world. They are penned, fed (essentially force fed), and slaughtered. Same thing here. My gripe is that what is next? PETA thinks everyone should be vegan, so they start a terror campaign on all meat serving establishments and ignorant politicians ban it. The answer is simple, if you don't like it, don't eat it. Don't patronize restaurants that serve it, tell your friends and associates your view and to not go there. If they can't survive on the business from folks like myself, then they will naturally give in. To artificially create that decision for me though, and to damage property and spread fear is NOT OK.

dxt178, I see exactly where you're coming from. First it's foie gras, then it's chicken because they're kept in small enclosures, next is veal, then all beef, etc. Oh and let's not forget mass farming to feed the growing population because that takes away the natural habitat of some squirrel or insect. The list could go on and on.

Cigarettes was mentioned. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people complain about someone's cigarette smoke giving them a headache but tell that same person that their bottle of perfume they put on that morning, gives you a headache and makes you want to vomit and they get all worked up about it being their freedom of choice to wear that perfume....isn't it the smoker's choice to have a cigarette and expose them to second hand smoke?

The frightening part of banning anything is where do you draw the line? What goes next? What is the point of claiming to live in the land of the free when those personal freedoms are slowly being taken away one by one and people don't think about what may be next. The majority of people I talk to, only think about a freedom being taken away if it directly involves them. Sooner or later, something you love to eat or do in your own time will be taken away from you because of some well-meaning health police.

What a hypocrite. You don't like torture, but you are fine with killing the f***in thing? A "humane" way of killing is an oxymoron. I eat meat and love it. Enjoy the fruits of the earth will ya?

AHA! We can now change that list to 8 banned foods! Just today (of all crazy coincidences) Chicago has realized their mistake and has repealed the ban on Foie! I'm too new to be able to post URLs, so check the suntimes.

Now, as soon as Le Pommier brings it back to the menu I will be able to once again enjoy French food in Pittsburgh!

I do say the same thing about all of those (except for the smoking indoors without a separately ventilated room...for the obvious problems that it causes other peoples health)!!! I have a serious problem with how many things are banned, particularly when the rationale is that it is "for our own good." People are generally competent enough to make their own decisions about their health, and should be treated accordingly. I at least understand the bans that are comming from an animal rights perspective (ie-the shark fins and, while I am incredibly sad about the fois gras...but still at least get the reasoning behind it); though, I don't know how much I agree with them... but this is seriously out of hand and I am really annoyed.

Sorry for the rant. :)

What's wrong with yellow cake mix? How else you gonna make a lemon cake? Jeez, next you'll want to ban Jello, and then what will Minnesota do for a state salad? :D Seriously, I stopped listening to people tell me what I should and shouldn't eat back in the '80s when Harvard and Yale each released a study on coffee ON THE SAME DAY, one saying it caused cancer, the other saying it prevented it. The only thing either study proved as far as I'm concerned is that no one really knows what they're talking about. They used to say coconut oil was the worst oil there was, but now all the health food/organic food people are saying how great it is for you. Then everybody was on the low cholesterol bandwagon. No butter or animal fats, you should eat margarine and vegetable shortening. Now that trans fats are banned in certain places and vegetable shortening can't be used- guess what- they're going back to butter, coconut oil and lard. Not that I particularly see anything wrong with those products, I just find it amusing. And now that everyone is demonizing smokers, I would like to point out that you will sustain more lung damage hanging over a deep fryer inhaling the oil vapor or working a char broiler than you ever will from smoking cigarettes. And don't even get me started on inhaling the cajun seasoning everyone has to have caked on everything now. Can't imagine that's any good for you, but hey, it's politically correct so no one's out there banning that s**t so I don't have to inhale it. I just have to wear a sheetrocker's mask when I'm on the broiler. Not comfortable, but it sort of works.

Here's that foie gras ban lift article: Chicago Sun-times

The alderman whom Mayor Daley derisively calls Joe "Foie Gras" Moore (49th) now knows how the geese and ducks feel.
Two years after the City Council banned the liver delicacy made by jamming a steel pipe down a bird’s esophagus, Daley essentially did the same to Moore on the City Council floor.

By a vote of 37-6, the foie gras ban that Daley claims made Chicago an international laughingstock was repealed, thanks to a legislative end-run that set a new standard for violating protocol and rolling over the opposition...