Foie Wha?

Some claim foie gras is heaven on toast, and some claim it’s animal cruelty. Who’s right?

By Ashley Thiry
Metroland
26 August 2004

http://www.metroland.net/back_issues/vol_27_no35/newsfront.html

Foie gras—a paté of the fattened liver of a duck or goose, often baked or sautéed—is considered one of the world’s greatest delicacies. It inspires passionate reactions from people, typically polarized into one of two camps: a swooning endorsement, or an angry tirade.

Foie gras (French for “fat liver”) has been the subject of controversy for many years. It is produced by force-feeding a duck or goose a pound of corn-rich food (a tenth of its healthy body weight) at least three times a day. The ducks are fed by being caught, pinned, and having an inflexible, unlubricated metal pole put down their throats, depositing the food directly into their stomachs. This repeated force-feeding results in a metabolic illness called hepatic lipidosis. By the time of slaughter, the ducks’ livers are essentially diseased organs, six to 10 times their healthy size, and yellow from fat.

(When filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, who ate nothing but McDonald’s for an entire month for the film Super Size Me, visited a doctor at the end of his quest, the doctor dryly informed him that his liver was “turning into paté.”)

Banned in many European nations, foie gras is produced in only two places in the United States—Sonoma Foie Gras in Sonoma, Calif., and Hudson Valley Foie Gras in Liberty, N.Y.

Recently, Sarahjane Blum, an activist associated with the anti-foie gras Web site GourmetCruelty.com, was arrested after helping liberate several birds from the Hudson Valley Foie Gras facility. She and others from GourmetCruelty.com and the Animal Protection and Rescue League spent a year undercover investigating and documenting the conditions of the factories, eventually producing the documentary Delicacy of Despair: Behind the Closed Doors of the Foie Gras Industry. Blum was taken into custody after screening the documentary at a conference at Syracuse University, and charged with felony burglary. She is awaiting trial.

“The conditions were filthy,” says Blum. “Every animal was sick or injured.” Because of the excessive force-feeding, the birds often have neurological problems, and regularly become so obese that they are unable to walk and must drag themselves along by their wings. During her investigation, Blum observed bloody wings and beaks, birds being literally eaten alive by rats, birds that had contracted pneumonia from being forced to inhale food, and birds that had exploded or choked to death on their own vomit. The pre-slaughter mortality rate of birds in foie gras production is more than 20 times higher than in other poultry- producing industries.

The producers of foie gras claim the force-feeding practices are not cruel and the ducks are healthy and happy. They claim that ducks in the wild will swallow whole fish and even lobsters, and that their necks are structured to stretch to accommodate large quantities of food.

Local veterinarian Holly Cheever disagrees. The arguments presented for why foie gras production is not cruel, she says, are laughable. Cheever, a Guilderland vet and vocal opponent of foie gras production, was allowed to tour the Hudson Valley Foie Gras facility in 1996 at the request of Whole Foods Market, which makes it a policy to inspect facilities of companies it considers doing business with. In her report to Whole Foods, Cheever rebuffed the company’s claims that the force-feeding is similar to the natural feeding process of migratory ducks, and that ducks have a cornified (hardened) esophagus. In fact, the birds used in foie gras production are Moulards, an artificial hybrid that do not exist in nature, and do not migrate. On the farms, the ducks are often kept in small isolation cages, making it impossible for them to get any type of exercise. Also, the claim of a cornified esophagus, she says, is completely false.

After reviewing her report, Whole Foods Market declined to carry products from Hudson Valley Foie Gras’ parent company, D’Artagnan Inc. (Hudson Valley Foie Gras declined to be interviewed for this story.)

For some local restaurants, however, foie gras is simply a matter of taste. Davis Britton, the head chef of the Springwater Bistro in Saratoga, says he averages 25 orders of foie gras appetizers an evening, and never receives complaints from patrons about the inclusion of foie gras on the menu. He says he visited the Hudson Valley Foie Gras farm, and found it satisfactory.

Both New York and California are considering bills outlawing the force-feeding of birds. The New York bill, introduced by Assemblyman Jack McEneny (D-Albany), 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, it 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.