I am a meat lover, but I do not love the way many animals are treated to provide me with the food I eat.

A lot of controversy has been playing out in the past few weeks over foie gras. Foie gras is a French delicacy. It is the liver of a duck or goose that has been fattened. The duck or geese are usually force fed until their liver is at full capacity. The fattier the liver is, the more delicious it is.

The ban was signed into law by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004, but there was an eight-year delay on its implementation so that producers could try and develop a more humane method for foie gras production. Unfortunately they weren’t able to come up with any viable alternatives in the eyes of the government, so California’s ban will go into effect on schedule in July of this year.

Being both a meat eater and an animal lover, I can see both sides of the story. I understand that chefs and food lovers consider foie gras a delicacy, and it is something that people have been eating for centuries. I also understand that animal rights activists don’t like the way the animals are being treated just to produce food.

But I think it is stupid to completely ban foie gras. I agree that the animals shouldn’t be harmed, but why ban a dish completely? I think instead California should start putting more laws in place to protect the way the animals are raised on farms and regulate where farmers distribute their food to. That would solve a lot more issues than just banning a kind of food that people eat.

For centuries people have eaten all sorts of parts of the animals. When the American Indians would kill and eat buffalo, they would eat everything inside the buffalo and use the skin to make the necessities that they needed to stay alive. It is nothing new. However, the unethical treatment of these animals needs to stop. The effort to promote humanity shouldn’t be confined to a ban on foie gras though. There should be legislation that ensures that other animals aren’t going through the same torture that these geese and ducks are going through.

Banning foie gras in California isn’t really going to stop the inhumane treatment of geese. The market for foie gras outside California will still exist.

I do agree to some extent that we shouldn’t be told what we can or cannot eat, but at the same time if it is harmful or inhumane to either the consumers or the animals, then it shouldn’t be served.