Prohibition ends again in Chicago

No longer limited to speakeasies in Chicago

Chicago has lifted its two-year old ban on fois gras, and the decision is a triumph of good sense. Bravo, Chicago, and bravo, Mayor Daley for seeing this as the ‘silliest ordinance we ever passed’.

It’s fitting, though, that this enlightened decision comes just a few months shy of the 75^th anniversary of America’s disastrous prohibition lesson, when we deemed the Volstead Act unconstitutional and brought the booze back. I thought we’d sorted this kind of legislation out already. California, are you listening? In 2012, we Californians are scheduled to have our right to support producers of this traditional and storied delicacy stripped away in the name of animal welfare, while the Smithfields of the world are allowed to continue torturing and overmedicating pork in far more obscene conditions.

In this country, it’s a tough task to gather support for a ban on CAFOs when the food in question is cheap KFC buckets, supermarket ham and eerily cheap beef. But fois gras? Expensive and ‘elitist’ food, made by small producers without any powerful corporate interests to pay lobbyists? PETA salivates at such an easy target. Ban away!

If we’re going to go around banning things in the name of public health and animal cruelty, we would gain more fitting historical inspiration by revisiting the original intentions of the Pure Food and Drug and the Meat Inspection Acts of 1906. This Act introduced regulation of meat processing and food production processes and ended horrendous sanitation transgressions made without conscience and thrust upon ignorant consumers. Are you enjoying your rot-free hotdogs, completely devoid of sawdust or chloroform? Thank the Meat Inspection Act!

Upton Sinclair would find Smithfield’s processing plants in North Carolina and elsewhere disturbingly familiar today. A word of warning – if you’d prefer to steer away from mental imagery invoked by phrases like “rivers of pig shit”, then wait until later to read this Rolling Stone article about Smithfield, which produces the majority of industrial-raised pork in the United States. But find some time, and read it. It’s important to understand what we’re up against, and how much more effective than legislated bans our consumer choices can be.

Your dollar is much better than a ‘silly ordinance’ for punishing bad practices while rewarding conscientious natural producers.