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The Truth About Foie Gras

Written By: David Snyder on Friday, May 11, 2007

There has been a lot of feather ruffling the past year or so over foie gras. Tube feeding migratory birds to fatten their livers (a process now known as gavage) has been practiced for thousands years. Today, however, some argue that the process is animal cruelty.

Animal rights activists have slid a feather into their cap for getting Chicago to ban the sale of foie gras last year. As a result, other cities have also tentatively waded into the water by proposing to ban the sale and/or production of foie gras. But have all of the facts surrounding foie gras production been disclosed so a fully informed decision can be made? Or is the campaign to ban foie gras guilty of a little fowl play?

Here is some of the empirical science surrounding foie gras that you may not know:

1. A Duck's Throat Is Not the Same as Yours. Gavage is carried out by inserting a tube into a duck's throat for a few seconds a few times a day to feed it a specific amount of food. Opponents of foie gras get a lot of mileage out of anthropomorphizing the process, asking "How would you like it if someone shoved a tube down your throat?" The unspoken assumption in that argument is that a duck's throat and a human's throat are alike. The truth is that they are not. A duck's throat is naturally lined with a cornified epithelium, a material similar to that of the human fingernail. Moreover, their throats are flexible and expandable. In other words, the duck's throats are equipped to accommodate the tube; ours are not. Once it becomes clear that a duck's throat and a human's throat are nothing alike, the whole "how-would-you-like-it" argument doesn't really fly. Is the image a tube being inserted into a duck's throat visually disturbing? Sure it is; we're completely detached from how the meat we eat is processed. Personally, I would not want to float down a cold river on my belly in the middle of winter or sleep in a marsh. But that shouldn't be the measure as to whether it's cruel for a duck to do so.

2. The Livers Are Not Diseased. Another canard often posited by activists is that foie gras is actually a diseased liver. Dr. Daniel Guemene doesn't agree. And he’s no quack; Dr. Guemene is the world’s foremost authority on the physiological effects of tube feeding geese and ducks and his studies have been published in national and international peer-reviewed journals. According to Dr. Guemene, "[t]he tissue is not diseased, as the degenerative effects of necrosis and cirrhosis never occur." Moreover, the liver-fattening process is completely reversible "within two weeks after over feeding is interrupted." Again, ducks are not like humans. Unlike our livers, a duck's liver is genetically designed for gorging. And while foie gras production exploits this process to a degree that would not occur in the wild, Dr. Guemene notes that the genetic potential of a duck's liver would allow it to grow to over 800g, which is 250g larger than the average weight of a foie gras liver.

3. The Ducks Are Not Experiencing Stress or Fear. Activists claim that it’s apparent from the bird’s behavior that the gavage process causes the ducks to experience stress and fear. But the science doesn't support their claim. According to Dr. Guemene, "[s]tress levels in birds can be gauged through the measurement of corticosterone blood levels." Studies revealed that force feeding ducks that were kept in group pens did not result in any increased corticosterone levels except for the first instance of force feeding, which "strongly suggested that increased stress levels resulted from holding the ducks rather than from the actual force-feeding."

For some people, the evidence above will never convince them that foie gras production is not cruel. And that's OK; we should respect the ethical choices people make about what they eat. But when an attempt is made to impose that personal, ethical choice on others through legislation, something more empirical is required. Otherwise, the arguments you hear may be nothing more than decoys.

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2 Comments

 

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JS12
Philadelphia, PA
Posted on 5/16/07

agreed! Let them worry about REAL animal cruelty, not this


bmorse
Mays Landing, NJ
Posted on 5/14/07

Very true. Great article.

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