France, bovine blood, and you.

I’ve heard that congress is making a bill to put a warning label on products from France that “are clarified with bovine blood.” This would go on items like wine and bottled water.

What does this mean? How is this done? Is this even dangerous? Is this anything more than pathetic retribution against France for their anti-war stance? Any answers would be appreciated.

I don’t know the specifics, but I know that this is no longer done since the Mad Cow scare in europe. however, since Wine is aged for some time before it is sold, there is still plenty of wine out there that the process was used on.

I think it’s only some French wine produced before the Mad Cow Disease disaster that was clarified with bovine blood but never bottled water.

Dangerous is a relative term. I suppose Mad Cow Disease tainted blood wouldn’t be too healthy, but that’s just a UWAG.

I believe the US Congress has tried to make the reason for these proposed bans (not sure whether or not they are pathetic) as transparent as possible. Congress has offered no other explanation.

but how and why do they do this? How can cow blood clarify anything?

IIRC, the blood coagulates around the “lees” (I think I’m remembering that term correctly), or sediments they want to remove. The resulting clots then settle to the bottom of the cask/tank, and the clarified wine is carefully siphoned off, into another tank.

From 1999.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/377938.stm

Looks to me like Dennis Hastert’s worrying about something that’s basically been a non-issue since 1999.

Sounds like a lot of “hey, get on the Iraq bandwagon, you French persons” political grandstanding, IMO.