The production of foie gras, a fatty “delicacy” often used in French cuisine, is one of the cruellest practices of animal farming, and the only one that involves deliberately causing disease to birds
Foie gras, French for “fatty liver,” is a food ingredient made from the liver of fattened ducks or geese who had been force-fed until they became ill. The cruel production of foie gras involves force-feeding these birds large amounts of grain and fat to enlarge their livers to an unnatural size — causing them immense suffering — and then killing them when they are still young so their degassed livers can be extracted and used as ingredients of several expensive “luxury” dishes, such as Pan-Seared Foie Gras, Foie Gras Terrine, Foie Gras Bruschetta, or Duck Confit and Foie Gras.
The goose breeds used in foie gras production are primarily the grey Landes goose and the Toulouse goose. The Dewlap Toulouse was bred particularly for the production of foie gras, while the French Toulouse were bred for several purposes. These breeds were chosen because they are easier to handle (and handling is an important part of foie gras production as the geese are force-fed). Traditionally, foie gras was produced only from geese, but by 2004, geese accounted for less than 10% of the total global foie gras production (the rest were produced from livers of domestic ducks). The age of slaughter for geese used to produce foie gras varies depending on the country and the production method, but it is generally between 9 and 20 weeks.
China, the United States and Canada are foie gras producers, and in Europe, foie gras is produced in only five countries: France, Bulgaria, Spain, Hungary, and Belgium (only Wallonia, though). In 2008, these countries formed the European Foie Gras Federation. However, 75% of the world’s foie gras is produced by France, which is also the largest exporter of foie gras, with over 20,000 tons produced and approximately 700,000 geese and 37 million ducks slaughtered by the French foie gras industry each year. Between 2013 and 2021, the production of foie gras worldwide fluctuated slightly, with a significant drop in 2016, 2017, 2020 and 2021 (when the production volume dropped to around 21,640 tons).
Gavage
At the heart of foie gras production lies the cruel practice known as “gavage”, a brutal procedure that involves force-feeding male ducks or geese large amounts of food through a tube inserted into their oesophagus. This is done multiple times a day for several weeks, causing the birds’ livers to swell to about ten times their normal size. During gavage, workers ram pipes down the throats of male ducks twice each day, pumping up to 2.2 pounds of grain and fat into their stomachs, or geese three times a day, up to 4 pounds daily. This excessive feeding leads to a condition called hepatic steatosis, or fatty liver disease, which is what gives foie gras its buttery texture.
In modern gavage-based foie gras production, force feeding takes place between 10 and 15 days or more before slaughter, depending on the species of bird.
The use of gavage causes significant physical harm to the birds. The tube can cause injuries to the birds’ throats, and the sheer volume of food fed to them causes distress, pain, and even organ failure. As the liver expands, the birds experience severe difficulty in moving and breathing, leading to a state of constant suffering. Other common health problems include fungal infections, diarrhoea, heat stress, lesions, and fractures of the sternum. Some ducks die of aspiration pneumonia, which occurs when grain is forced into the ducks’ lungs or when birds choke on their vomit. The gavage process also inflicts psychological harm on the birds. who become terrified of their handlers, sometimes tearing out their feathers or attacking each other.
A PETA investigation at Hudson Valley Foie Gras in New York found that one worker was expected to force-feed 500 birds three times each day, which meant that they often treated the birds very roughly. So many ducks died from ruptured organs resulting from overfeeding that workers who killed fewer than 50 birds per month were given a bonus.
The animal rights organisation Animal Equality has undertaken several investigations into the foie gras industry in France. Each year more than 200 tonnes of foie gras are imported into the UK, so Animal Equality has a campaign trying to ban such imports. According to a 2023 YouGov poll commissioned, 86% of British residents are in favour of a ban on the importation of foie gras made by force-feeding.
Captive Hell
The birds used in the foie gras industry are kept in tiny cages or crowded sheds. Because they cannot bathe or groom themselves as free birds would do, they become coated with excrement mixed with the oils that would normally protect their feathers from water.
A 2013 PETA investigation, also at Hudson Valley, showed that before the force-feeding period, young ducks were crammed by the thousands into huge warehouse-like sheds in similar conditions factory-farmed broiler chickens are kept. While forced-fed, ducks were confined to a pen measuring just 4 feet by 6 feet, up to a dozen birds at a time. Approximately 15,000 ducks on this farm die every year before they are considered ready to be sent to be slaughtered.
In 2023, a report published by the Panel on Animal Welfare of the European Food and Safety Agency (EFSA) concluded that the current housing conditions in the European foie gras industry are unsuitable for ducks and geese. The report claimed that the cages and pens used during the force-feeding phase are typically 2-3 times too small for the birds to exhibit their natural behaviours.
As only male ducks are used in the foie gras production because they are bigger and their liver swallows more, all female ducklings (40 million a year in France) are considered surplus to requirement so are therefore killed by tossing them into grinders, as is the case of male chicks from the egg industry.
In 2003, the French organisation Stopgavage (“Citizens’ Initiative for the banning of force-feeding”) published the Proclamation for the Abolition of Force Feeding, calling for foie gras production practices to be banned because they claim to violate animal welfare laws.
Because of its obvious cruelty, the production of foie gras has already been abolished in Argentina, Austria, Denmark, Czech Republic, Finland, Flanders, Israel, Turkey, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and the UK. In India, they also banned the sale of foie gras, and in the state of California, the US city of Chicago, and the Brazilian city of São Paulo, they had bans that were eventually partially or totally overturned (in California, after many court cases, the production of foie gras continues to be banned, but not the trade anymore, although restaurants and retailers are still forbidden from selling it or giving it away). On 21st June 2024, the New York Supreme Court ruled against New York City’s ban on foie gras, so restaurants in New York City can continue to serve this infamous food made from diseased livers of force-fed ducks and geese.
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