Foie Gras - the Real F-word

Foie gras (in English, fatty liver) is the liver of a duck or goose that has been specially fattened by a process called gavage. Foie gras is a popular french delicacy. Foie gras is sold whole, or prepared as a pâté.

Ancient Egyptians perfected the gavage technique around 2500 BCE, deliberately fattening birds through force-feeding. Today, France is the largest producer and consumer of foie gras, though it is produced and consumed worldwide, including in the United States. In foie gras production, geese are confined in tiny cages that prevent movement, then force fed enormous amounts of salty corn mash. Three or more times a day, their bills are forced open, a metal pipe jammed down their throats, and their stomachs pumped full of corn mash. After four weeks, the livers have become swollen with fat globules, and enlarged 4 to 12 times their regular size. More than 10% of the geese die from ruptured stomachs. The "survivors" are slaughtered for their livers. The force feeding process damages the geese's throats so badly that they are unable to eat on their own.

PETA, Farm Sanctuary, and The Humane Society of the United States agree that foie gras production is cruel and inhumane. In 2005, the Animal Protection and Rescue League, In Defense of Animals, and PETA released a video narrated by Sir Roger Moore, showing footage taken inside three U.S. foie gras farms, and several in France. Moore says, "Through the painful force-feeding process, birds have as much as 3 pounds of food pumped into their small bodies everyday - in human terms, that's roughly 45 pounds of pasta - until they develop a disease that causes their livers to enlarge up to 10 times their normal size."