Comments on: You Can’t Eat This (Or That, Either)

By: Tatiana Covington

Tatiana Covington — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 22:47:44 +0000

How about requiring the state to eat shit?

By: Heaton

Heaton — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 21:10:43 +0000

What if instead of banning foods which are bad for you, or trying to mitigate the affects of harmful fool (like Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign in NYC with soft drinks) we just kicked the legs out from farm subsidies to sugar and corn? If you stopped corn subsidies alone, the price of high fructose corn syrup would rise sharply, it would become less ubiquitous, and public health would improve on its own– through the free market.

By: Anodyne

Anodyne — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 21:05:35 +0000

The raw liver ban in Japan is, if I remember correctly, specifically aimed at raw fugu liver – which is so incredibly toxic, most chefs won’t even try to prepare it. (You’d have a hard time finding someone willing to prepare fugu, too – it’s notoriously tricky to do right and getting it wrong can lead to death.)

By: Leon Wolfeson

Leon Wolfeson — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 23:13:14 +0000

@22 – “Animal Welfare”? Yea, ban standard slaughter first then get back to me on those.

By: Bill Poser

Bill Poser — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 17:52:44 +0000

What is strange about the ban on kibbeh nayeh and steak tartare is that they only pose a health risk if the ground meat is obtained from a mass supplier. There is very little risk if the restaurant buys the meat whole, washes it off carefully, grinds it itself and serves it within a reasonable time after grinding – bacteria such as E coli result from surface contamination.

By: Dwight Brown

Dwight Brown — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 14:54:56 +0000

"...but the NB ban is focused at the river tubbing, which is huge tourist attraction". This. It does not ban the sales of beverages in cans or bottles; it bans the use of disposable containers on the Comal and Guadalupe rivers inside New Braunfels city limits. You can still buy beer in cans or bottles; you just have to pour it into a "non-disposable" container before going on the river. The wisdom and economic impact of the law can be debated, but if we're going to talk about it, let's talk about it correctly.

By: Lefty

Lefty — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 14:51:09 +0000

Bans on Foie Gras here and similar bans on Kosher and Halal slaughter are coming from an animal treatment perspective. Bloomberg is just a nut. Different things altogether.

By: Swampy

Swampy — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 14:46:34 +0000

KP said “As for New Braunfels, I appreciate the banning of beverages in cans. OR, rather than banning the cans, I’d like to see a city or state or county demand that beverages be available in both cans and GLASS (not plastics).”

That’s a good idea, but the NB ban is focused at the river tubbing, which is huge tourist attraction. You do not want glass bottles littering the bottom of a shallow river which thousands of people visit almost year round. Could you image the EMS bill?

By: Furpo

Furpo — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 14:36:31 +0000

Canned beverages, Texas:

Yall should have voted for the bottle deposit law last year.
Up here in Michigan it was passed in late 70`s , early 80`s, seemed like a pain the butt at the time, but it sure cleaned up the roadsides. You no longer see beer cans tossed on the sides of roads, or rivers.

Even if your a litterbug and toss em, someone will stop and pick them up.
Thanks to this law we have had clean roadsides and rivers for over three decades now.

By: Juice

Juice — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:40:13 +0000

I’m surprised that people who want to ban foie gras don’t also want to ban veal. Or most pork, or most eggs, or most chicken.

By: Jonnelle

Jonnelle — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:29:52 +0000

In Tennessee, it is next to impossible to find raw milk. I buy it from the Amish at the Farmers’ Market. They label it as “pet food” to get around state law.

And it is delicious.

By: JMC

JMC — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:15:29 +0000

Although not a “ban”, per se, we’ve all seen idiotic local govt nannies closing kid’s lemonade stands.

By: Jason!

Jason! — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:02:46 +0000

The foie gras ban doesn’t really belong, as it’s (ostensibly) for the benefit of the geese’s health as opposed to the benefit of the consumer’s health.

By: Mario

Mario — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 12:59:38 +0000

It’s ironic that tomatoes are considered too “Christian,” since Christendom had no tomatoes until after Columbus came back from the New World.

By: KP

KP — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 06:59:05 +0000

I believe Foie Gras was banned 5 or so years ago in PDX…

As for New Braunfels, I appreciate the banning of beverages in cans. OR, rather than banning the cans, I’d like to see a city or state or county demand that beverages be available in both cans and GLASS (not plastics).

IMHO, drinks taste better in glass. As the insides of glass bottles are not treated as are most (all?) AL cans beverages in glass should be better for you, too.

By: Ornithorhynchus

Ornithorhynchus — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 04:47:45 +0000

I’ve read that some European countries ban Kosher and Halal slaughter. I think that most of them allow the importation of Kosher or Halal meat from other countries, but I seem to remember reading that Switzerland bans that as well.
I’m not certain, so you might want to look these up yourself.

By: Druggist

Druggist — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 00:34:47 +0000

Yeah you should correct the bit about Egypt in the post. That’s akin to saying that the USA bans zucchini bread because the Westboro Baptist Church declared it the most gay of all baked goods.

By: Andrew_M_Garland

Andrew_M_Garland — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 00:31:22 +0000

Goodbye to Locally Processed Meats 05/27/10 - Cato@Liberty by Walter Olson

Joe Cloud is a small meat processor in Virginia [edited]: Changes in national food regulation make it difficult for small plants to stay in business. In 2000, small USDA-inspected slaughter and processing plants were required to adopt the costly Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) food safety plan. There are estimates that more than 20% of those plants went out of business. Now, proposed changes to HACCP threaten to take down many of the ones that remain, making healthy, local meats a rare commodity.

Stop the Death from Quilts and Food

By: Xenocles

Xenocles — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 23:41:47 +0000

@1 You can buy raw milk cheese in the US. Organic Valley makes a decent cheddar at least. The FDA specifically recognizes aged hard raw milk cheese as safe, due mostly to the acidity.

By: Mairead

Mairead — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 22:55:08 +0000

The “ban” on tomatoes in Egypt isn’t a ban, except for those who want to obey that particular group of pseudo-Muslim hysterics.