California's Foie Gras Food Fight

>> >>: It's lunch time on a Thursday is a busy day in north park's Carnitas Shack.
Thursday is special, that's the day chef Gavin serves frawr.
>> >>: There it is, in all its beautiful glory. >> >>: The restaurant specializes in pork,
named after his pet pig, Carnitas: This diagram of meat cuts is accurate.
Kavin also lovers foie gras. Most of the time he SEARs it, but prepares
it differently this week. This day he's made a foie gras gravy.
>> >>: I want people to look forward to it, they're talk taking a risk to try it.
>> >>: When people come to this area for foie gras.
>> >>: Foie gras is delicacy and it's expensive. >> >>: That's ridiculous, we sell it for eight
dollars, which generally around 18 to 25 on most menus.
>> >>: Banning foie gras might not mean much to your average consumer who rarely eats such
pricey fair, the debate reminds us of something many of us deny on a regular basis.
We don't like to think about where our food comes from, because often where it dms from
isn't pretty. >> >>: People are allowed to eat food, you
just can't torture it before you kill it. That's real y what it comes down to.
>> >>: Brian peed has been fighting to ban foie gras for ten years.
He started the foie gras investigation, there are two main foie gras farms in the U.S.
He went to both with a video camera. >> >>: I just walk under to these farms, and
I've done it app at night when managers aren't around to tell me to leave.
>> >>: The state ban prohibits the force feeding of ducks to enlarge their liver.
As of now, this is the only way foie gras can be made.
Ducks Roam on a farm for 12 weeks, fattening the liver takes place in the last two or too
three weeks before slaughter. Ducks are moved to specific barns and kept
in four by six pens. They are fed two to three time as day, when
a footed long metal tube is inserted down the duck's throat injecting corn mash. The
goal is to fatten the liver six to ten times the normal size.
>> >>: I've seen ducks having difficulty standing, walking, breathing, ducks on the verge of
death from force feeding. >> >>: Reports on the conditions of the two
farms vary. Ducks don't have a gag reflex, they often
eat fish full. Some say the tube does not cause real injury.
>> >>: The real issue is the cumulative affect of force feeding over time and the massive
amounts of food being pump under to the ducks. >> >>: Owner Guillermo Gonzalez told KPBS
via e mail, our farm is being forced to shut down at the end of June.
Science has not been given a chance to play a role in this debate, dis spite the promise
of from our political leadership. The larger impact, however, is that a powerful
special interest group with a anti meat mandate was able to impose its agenda on all of us
through violent means and propaganda. But Guillermo grew up on a foie gras farm in southwestern
France watching his grand mother handle the ducks.
>> >>: I was in there, I saw that a lot, & and I never saw the sick roles they represent,
the disgusting pictures passed all around. >> >>: This is just one duck's liver.
As a result of the ban, sales of foie gras have shot up & in recent weeks.
>> >>: It's going to be an under ground business, I guess, you know, like do you have any foie
gras there? I'll tell no one. It will become extremely expensive, like drugs.
>> >>: Come July first, the sign for selling or pro douche foie gras will be 1,000 dollars.
For activists like Brian pees, winning the band is just the beginning.
>> >>: We know who is serving it still, and we're going to keep check to make sure they're
not serve tg any longer. >> >>: He may have his work cut out for him.
During the two year ban on foie gras in Chicago, some chefs served a 40 dollar glass of wine
to cover the cost of a free side of foie gras.