Five Ways To Get Your Foie Gras On (Legally) In California After July 1

By Dave Lieberman Tue., Jun. 19 2012 at 12:30 PM

On July 1, SB 1520 comes into force, which bans the production (including production-for-hire) and sale of products involving force-fed birds. Notice those words--you can't produce it, and you can't hire someone else to produce it, and you can't sell it to anyone.

That leaves all sorts of great legal ways to obtain your foie gras, if you're truly determined to have it. Read on for five loopholes that'll keep you swimming in salade gasconne.

5. Buy it in another state.

There's nothing in SB 1520 that prevents the purchase or possession of foie gras, so if you really want it, go to Nevada and buy it, or bring it with you on one of your trips to New York, where most of the stuff is produced. Don't buy it online, though--in one of their never-ending attempts to stick their grubby fingers into your pockets, Sacramento declared that online sales to Californians originate in California--which would get the producers in trouble.

4. Receive it as a gift.

Flickr user jfgornet

The distribution of foie gras is not prohibited, only its sale. Technically, your favorite restaurant could give you all the foie gras they wanted. They can even prepare it, because there's no rule against serving the stuff. They just can't charge you for it--but you don't mind paying $50 for brioche and cherry jam, right, with a lagniappe of a few ounces of foie gras?

3. Have it before the ban begins.

Because possession is legal, if you've got it before July 1, you can keep it. Fresh foie gras won't keep that long, but you can keep crocks of it preserved in duck fat as the French do, or you could go the more modern route and pressure can it in jars. Preserved foie gras ought to stay good long enough for the morons in Sacramento to get out of our mouths.

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Janet Conolly

So if laws are voted in we should find ways of getting round them is that what your article is saying. So don't come complainint when someone puts up a chemical plant next to you or your neighbour decides to keep deadly snakes etc. ... maybe they just found a way to get round the law.

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fork it

Dear Retroactivity, Forget foie gras. How about Blue Fin Tuna that is near extinction? How about shark finning that is ruining our ecosystems? Instead you want to focus your anger toward a bird there is plenty of out there.

Retroactivity

Humans have to eat something and are physiologically meant to consume plant protein. We do not have to enslave and mutilate 56 billion (that's BILLION) animals every year worldwide. If producing foie gras is your "right" then you need to reexamine your ethics.

casomorphins

::clapclapclap::

what

we can always ban you're eating of those poor poor veggies too but then we'd just be infringing on your rights wouldn't we?

casomorphins

"Poor poor veggies?" Yeah, the veggies that are sentient and scream in pain, quiver with fear and sign with despair? The veggies that bleed, cry and plead with desperate eyes not to torture them?