Michael Ruhlman, a writer and Culinary graduate, wrote a guest post at megnut.com about a proposed NJ ban on the sale (or production, it's not clear) of fois gras. Ruhlman nails it when he calls them out for trying to get publicity by attacking a small segment of animal producers. It's funny, from everything I've read and seen about the production of fois, it's always been seemingly incredibly more humane than how we produce the rest of our food...

But if the rumor is true, the foie brouhaha has reached New York in a serious way. And it's bad. The foie issue embodies the hypocrisy and corruption of so much of how our government operates. That our public officials continue to spend their time and our dollars on this is ludicrous. If they cared about their state and their country, they would address the catastrophe of how we're raising agri-hogs. That's truly inhumane. We're trashing our land and water, growing crappy food, contaminated chicken, feed lot beef and creating lakes of sewage polluted with e coli that gets on our spinach and kills our kids.

It’s a good rule to live by: don’t shit where you eat. But that’s exactly what we’re doing on a massive scale. So what do you do if you’re a local congressman? You outlaw a product that has little if any environmental impact, a product that few people buy, but that raises your stature and makes you look like a noble protector of all things cute and fuzzy.

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