Andrew F. Smith

A Brief Survey of Modern Food Bans: Legal Issues Raised by Food Bans

Appears in
Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America
Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America

By Andrew F. Smith

Published 2004

  • About
Food bans raise legal and constitutional issues. Penalties for violating food bans range from small civil fines to serious criminal charges. For example, violators of Chicago’s repealed foie gras ban faced a small fine for each violation. On the other hand, those who violate a federal ban—such as the FDA’s raw milk ban or the DEA’s hemp ban—can face considerable fines and jail time.

The Supreme Court, the nation’s highest court, has never explicitly held a food ban to be unconstitutional on its face. In fact, the Court has upheld food bans at times throughout its history. Perhaps the most famous instance occurred when the Court upheld an act of Congress banning “filled milk”—a dairy milk substitute made from evaporated milk mixed with vegetable oil—in the seminal, controversial case of United States v. Carolene Products Co.