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The Great Foie Gras Debate
What Foie Gras is,how it's produced and the proposed ban on Foie Gras in the United States

It is amazing to me that Foie Gras (in the last couple of years) is now one of the most controversial topics in the culinary world. Moreover how is it that a few loud politicians get to dictate what the rest of us Americans are and are not allowed to eat. These politicians and so- called animal rights activists have overreached their authority by self-appointing themselves as arbiters of gastronomy, deciding to ban the production of foie gras based on personal dislikes and ignorant assumptions that the raising and force-feeding of ducks and geese is cruel and inhumane. These are the same people who eat lobsters that are steamed live or who eat chicken three times a week. It is interesting that none of these people are complaining about how commercially raised chickens are kept in overly crowded pens, sleeping in feces, and slaughtered by the millions. That's because the foie gras industry is a less affluent target than the poultry, cattle and pork industries. There are very few commercial producers of this delicacy in the United States. These few and far between producers of foie gras don't raise these animal for their livers alone but also for the down pillows these anti-foie gras activist are sleeping on and the duck a l'orange they love so much. The usage of these animals for their feathers and holiday dinners isn't what is in question however, the consumption of their livers is though, so how is it that only now people are trying to ban a food that has a history dating back to 2,500 B.C.?

Foie Gras has one of the longest lasting and widespread traditions in history. In 2,500 B.C. the Egyptians discovered that the migratory geese in the Nile were able to store fat in their livers in preparation for long distance flights. They then discovered how succulent the livers of these birds were and started to replicate the natural phenomenon by fattening the geese with figs and cereals. The Hebrews adopted this tradition while being enslaved by the Egyptians and then when they were free they then brought this tradition with them everywhere they settled. The Jews then found that they could preserve meat in goose fat for their long journeys without compromising their religious beliefs. Due to Jewish influence the Greeks and Romans then made foie gras a gourmet dish and fattened the geese with figs and put their own twist on the dish by dipping

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