Are Foie Gras Farms Cruel?

Packaged foie gras. Photo by Sara BonisteelBy Sara Bonisteel, Epicurious.com

Foie gras popped up in the news again this week for two reasons as officials at Anuga, a biennial food festival to be held this coming October in Cologne, Germany, decided to ban French foie gras producers from showing their controversial wares, and a Brooklyn restaurant got flak for serving foie gras-filled jelly doughnuts.

There's a lot of back and forth between animal rights activists and foie gras lovers when it comes to the delicacy--a goose or duck liver that's been fattened up to ten times its normal size because the producers force feed the waterfowl in the last few weeks of their lives, a process the French call gavage.

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Last month, I spent a week in southwest France, where much of the world's foie gras is produced. It is a place that I imagine must be the embodiment of hell on earth for animal-rights activists. Everywhere you look there are shops offering foie gras, in pâté, mousse, and raw liver form. It's one of the main industries here, with the few billboards dotting the picturesque countryside advertising this pride of the region.

Many of the farms raise waterfowl for foie gras. Some are open to the public for gavage demonstrations. I wanted to see it for myself. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, it's important to understand what happens in the process.

These geese are free to roam a large enclosure on the farm. Typically, they get about nine weeks to spend outdoors in their large grassy enclosures before they're taken indoors for the two- to three-week gavage process.

At the particular farm I visited, about 10 ducks were kept together in an indoor enclosure about 6 feet by 6 feet, lined with hay. The room was concrete and white with fluorescent lights that were turned on when the farmer entered.

For the feeding, the ducks are separated from the farmer with a wooden gate. One at a time, the farmer puts a duck in a wooden box with an opening for their head and neck. The box doubles as a bench for the farmer, who puts a cup full of corn into a funnel that's connected to a motor.

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The approximately 4-inch-long funnel is placed in the duck's throat and the farmer massages the grain down the duck's neck. The ducks didn't make any noises during or after the seconds-long feeding process and just ruffled their feathers and walked back to the other fowl.

About half a dozen grey geese are also kept in this room, but they are penned together in pairs in small cages that don't leave them much room to move.

For their feedings, the farmer places a leather harness on the body of the goose to keep it still and pulls the bird's neck between the bars to feed it with a larger funnel, tube, and motor contraption.

The geese are given water with their cup of corn to help move the food down their throat. Again the farmer massages the neck to help the grain travel down the esophagus.

The farm I visited was the furthest thing from factory farming as one could get. It was definitely a family affair--the patriarch of the family was sorting feathers in a barn when I walked up on a weekday evening to see the feeding. His wife demonstrated gavage, and in addition to the farming, their daughter ran a small gift shop across the driveway that sold foie gras products from the farm as well as stuffed ducks and geese and other waterfowl-related kitchen decorations.

In this region, foie gras is not abhorrent, it's a traditional farming technique that produces a delicacy prized by the French and many food lovers. Diners have to decide for themselves whether or not they feel comfortable eating it.


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