“The forced feeding begins when the ducks are just three months old. From this point on, the ducks have a long metal pole repeatedly forced down their throats.” ~ GourmetCruelty.com
Hundreds of restaurants around the world have stopped serving foie gras because of its inherent and obvious animal cruelty. Nationwide, retailers such as Whole Foods, Costco.com and Aramark have also banned the sale of foie gras. Internationally, the foie gras ban has expanded as fast as general animal welfare laws have been interpreted to prohibit the practice. Countries that have banned the force-feeding of ducks and geese include: Argentina, Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Turkey, Holland, Israel, Switzerland, and the UK.
How Foie Gras is Made
Foie gras (French for “fatty liver”) is made by systematically force-feeding ducks and geese only three to six months old, using an unlubricated, cold, large metal pole that is forced down their throats straight into their stomachs depositing a large amount (one pound) of cornmeal and grain in seconds. The ducks and geese are forced to endure this horrific trauma multiple times every single day for three to four months, until their bodies are completely ravaged, and they would otherwise die from liver toxicity. The amount of food shoveled into their bodies with a metal tube is the equivalent of a tenth of their body weight delivered instantly in just one force feeding. Over the three months this makes their liver grow up to ten times its natural size in order to produce foie gras. They are then slaughtered at six months old, or 14-15 years younger than is natural for them. This repeated force-feeding results in a metabolic illness or disease called hepatic lipidosis, and by the time of slaughter, the ducks’ livers are essentially very diseased organs, grossly enlarged to six to 10 times their healthy size and yellow from saturated fat. The ducks and geese experience this from three months to six months of age, then are killed. An average duck or goose lives to 15 years.
The force-feeding of ducks and geese causes a number of injuries to them: bruising or perforation of the esophagus; hemorrhaging and inflammation of the neck resulting from the repeated insertion of the pipe to the throat; and asphyxia caused by food improperly forced into the trachea. Wounds of the esophagus may subsequently become infected. Force-feeding also results in numerous illnesses and diseases, including hepatic lipidosis, bacterial and fungal infections, malnourishment, and lameness. For these reasons, the mortality rates of force-feed ducks are 10 to 20 times higher than those of non-force fed ducks. Behavioral evidence shows that ducks and geese experience terrible fear and pain, as well as acute and chronic stress from the multiple daily force-feedings and the pain associated with them.
Over half a million ducks are confined, tortured, and slaughtered in factory farms every year in the United States to produce this “gourmet” cruelty. Just two companies are responsible in the U.S. for all of this suffering—Hudson Valley Foie Gras in New York and Sonoma Foie Gras in California, which closed due to California’s ban on foie gras. Confined in crowded pens and tiny isolation cages; force fed three times a day to fatten their livers; these ducks suffer behind closed doors 24/7 where their cries cannot be heard.
Foie Gras Bans in the U.S.
In addition to many bans in countries around the world, there is one ban in place in the U.S., with another recently introduced in New York.
State of California
A law banning the sale and production of foie gras was passed in California in 2004. To give producers time to find a more humane process than force feeding ducks and geese through a tube called a gavage, courts allowed producers until July 2012 for the ban to take legal affect. In response, non-California foie gras producers and sellers filed a legal motion to keep the law from being enacted. A district court ruled in California’s favor and a panel of three judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals voted to keep the ban in place in August 2013. But in 2015, the ban wasoverturned by the U.S. District Court for California’s Central District, after an appeal from plaintiffs (including the Association des Eleveurs de Canards et D’Oies du Quebec, Hudson Valley Foie Gras, and L.A.-based Hot’s Restaurant Group) who re-wrote their legal pleadings. Chefs immediately pulled all the foie they’d been hiding in their walk-ins and put it back onto menus across California. At this point, foie gras could be sold and purchased, but not produced, in the state. (The state’s sole producer, Sonoma Foie Gras, went out of business immediately after the law went into effect in 2012.) In 2017, the Ninth Circuit judges rejected the idea that the state’s law against the sale of foie gras should be preempted by federal law (the aforementioned Poultry Products Inspection Act), stating that California had a right to ban it on the basis of animal cruelty. The matter was sent back to the district for appeal,allowingthe sale of foie gras until the appeals process had been completed. On January 7, 2019, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case (the court’s decision not to hear a case is not solely based on merit; and sent it back to the Ninth Court of Appeals and then to the district court. The injunction was vacated, effectively reinstating the ban. The ban is now back in place. (~ Eater San Francisco, January 9, 2019)
New York City
Assemblyman Jack McEneny (D-Albany) in New York, just introduced a bill banning foie gras in New York City in January 2019. The bill would amend the state’s animal cruelty law to make it “unlawful to force feed a bird, by hand or machine, for the purpose of fatty enlargement of the bird’s liver.” The bill, though currently stalled in committee, has received more than 1,000 postcards of support from all over the country this year alone. Jim Van Alstine, campaign coordinator of the Mid-Hudson Vegetarian Society, also has a local campaign in the works.
Learn More About Foie Gras
Peer-reviewed scientific research study, Scientists and Experts on Force-Feeding for Foie Gras Production and Duck and Goose Welfare
WSPA, Compassion in World Farming, Humane Society, and Four Paws, Foie Gras: The Cruelty Behind the Delicacy
Force Feeding – An Inquiry into the Welfare of Ducks and Geese Kept for the Production of Foie Gras, produced by Advocates for Animals and World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA)
The Welfare of Animals in the Foie Gras Industry, the Humane Society of the U.S.
Peta Explains, The Pain Behind Foie Gras
Why foie gras is so inhumane
Watch the Mercy For Animals’ film, Behind the Closed Doors of the Foie Gras Industry
The Animal Health and Welfare Consequences of Foie Gras Production, U.S. National Library of Medicine 2013
What You Can Do
- Never buy foie gras – from a store, from a producer, from a restaurant – never
- Go Vegan – Choose not to support the inherent cruelty done to animals used for food by buying animal products or eating animal foods at a restaurant. When you do you are directly supporting and causing animal cruelty to individual animals
- For a free vegetarian starter guide, visit www.TryVeg.com or call 1-866-MEAT FREE
- Spread the Word! Share this page with friends and family and let others know about the deep cruelty of foie gras
