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The Foie Gras Fracas: Sumptuary Law as Animal Welfare?
Cathy K. Kaufman
No foodstuff has provoked angrier debate than the extraordinarily fattened livers
of certain breeds of geese and ducks known by the French label “foie gras.”
Animal rights activists, farmers, scientists, veterinarians, ethicists, legislators,
chefs, and the general public all have opined on the appropriateness of raising
these waterfowl in controlled conditions to produce an expensive delicacy
enjoyed by only a tiny fraction of the world’s diners. The main, but not sole,
objection to the rearing of animals for foie gras is the gavage technique that
takes place during the last nine days to three weeks of the animal’s life, by which
a tube is inserted down the animal’s esophagus and a mixture of corn mush, fat,
and water is pumped into the animal’s gullet. The high carbohydrate mix allows
the animal to gain weight rapidly, with the fat stored primarily in the liver, although
other parts of the animal are similarly fattier than their non-gavage feed
counterparts and yield other specialized products such as magret, the meaty,
tender breast that is often prepared like steak, and plump legs that form the
bistro favorite, confit.1 Much of the public’s repulsion comes from the idea of
gavage and its gag-inducing reflex in humans: opponents often call the technique
by the tortuous-sounding label ‘force (or forced) feeding,’ while those tolerant of
gavage suggest ‘tube feeding.’2
Farm Sanctuary, an animal rights organization and major opponent of foie
gras production, pulls no punches in decrying foie gras produced by gavage as
immoral:
Nobody needs foie gras. It’s only eaten by a few people, and its production and
consumption represent egregious, gratuitous cruelty. Prohibiting the sale of this
inhumane product reflects and upholds our society’s values. It is sadly ironic that
in the face of vast hunger around our globe, foie gras producers force-feed
animals until the brink of death to produce an expensive delicacy for the few who
can afford it.3
2
Others have echoed this sentiment, calling foie gras a “frivolity,” the “delicacy of
despair,” “food for sadists,” and other emotionally and morally-charged epithets.4
Legislation has been enacted or proposed in many jurisdictions, including the
European Union, Israel, and various locales within the United States, to limit or
ban the rearing, sale, or consumption of foie gras on the sole ground of cruelty.
As an enthusiastic foie gras cook and conscientious eater who lives in New York,
where a ban is pending, the ethics of foie gras consumption is of personal and
practical interest.
This paper starts from the premise that killing animals for food is morally
acceptable provided that animals not suffer unnecessarily in their rearing or
slaughtering. Defining “unnecessary suffering” is, of course, the crux of the issue
and implicates questions of animal welfare. Animal welfare has no single
definition, but experts suggest assessing the subjective experience of the animal,
the biological functioning of the animal, and the extent to which the animal can
express its natural, instinctive behaviors.5 Putting aside the utopian dream of
animal husbandry where all food animals are happy, healthy, and live completely
natural lives and then die instantly and painlessly a moment before their life
expectancy, some impairment of animal welfare inevitably occurs. The animals’
mental and physical state and quality of life, however, need to come into play in
assessing whether the welfare of geese and ducks raised for foie gras is so
compromised as to constitute unnecessary suffering. Contrary to the conclusory
declarations of the animal rights activists, the fact that foie gras is an expensive,
elitist luxury alone does not render it morally objectionable. Nor is there any
intellectual justification why the techniques used to raise the birds for this rarified
delicacy should be scrutinized more rigorously than those used for any other food
animals.
Traditional Husbandry: the Origins of Foie Gras
Gavage may be the oldest agricultural technique designed specifically to
fatten animals for the diner’s gourmet pleasure. The preference for unctuous
foods has continued, uninterrupted, since early history. Egyptian tomb paintings
from 2500 BCE clearly illustrate workers hand-cramming geese and waterfowl; it
is believed that the practice resulted from the observation that geese in the wild
would gorge themselves before migrating. Egyptians are credited with this first
interference with natural eating patterns to obtain fattier birds. The written and
artistic record is silent about whether the Egyptians consumed the livers, but it
stretches credulity that only the fatty meat was consumed and that the rich organ
was overlooked. Excerpts from Athenaeus’s Deipnosophists refer to fatted
geese and even to “sumptuous goose livers.”6 Roman agricultural treatises
offered detailed instruction for cramming geese and hens by pushing moist
barley mash into the mouths of the birds, or, alternatively, using chopped dried
figs as the food.7 The French word for liver, foie, derives from the Latin ficus, or
fig, and the Latin phrase iecur ficatum, literally liver stuffed with figs, is a lasting
memorial to the Romans’ preferred fattening agent and linguistically reflects the
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historic practice. Jewish slaves within the Roman Empire are thought to have
performed much of the cramming of geese for wealthy Roman tables.8 Martial,
Juvenal, Horace, and Statius all lampooned fatted liver in ways that suggested
the gourmands’ depravity.9
The historical record becomes skimpy after the fall of the Roman West. It
is possible that an unrecorded cottage industry continued in Frankish Gaul and
medieval France, particularly in the Southwest, which claims foie gras as a
particular item of its culinary patrimony. The best written evidence for the
medieval production of foie gras—and its ambiguous moral status—is found
among the writings of the Ashkenazi Jews who spread throughout Europe.
Rabbi Rashi (1040-1105) spent most of his life in Troyes, France, save for a brief
sojourn in Germany. His Talmudic commentaries warned that those who
crammed geese and made them suffer would have to answer to God: to this day,
gavaged birds have their esophagi examined to check for any damage before the
birds can be certified as kosher. This is to meet the dual requirements of
avoiding unnecessary cruelty and avoiding torn, and thus defiled, flesh. The
fourteenth century urban Jewish writer, Eleazar of Mainz, disdained foie gras on
the grounds of gluttony, but cramming nonetheless was practiced in European
Jewish communities, especially rural farmers, through the nineteenth century to
provide a source of cooking fat in place of always-treyf pig lard or butter, which
could never be used with meat.10
By the sixteenth century, foie gras spread from the ghetto and shtetl to the
elite tables of France, Germany, and Italy. The French especially brought foie
gras into the pantheon of ingredients necessary to the emerging haute cuisine;
indeed, well before the La Varenne’s 1651 Le Cuisinier françois, with its first
French recipes for foie gras, agricultural treatises such as Charles Estienne’s
L’Agriculture et la maison rustique (1564) and Olivier de Serre’s Le Thêatre
d’agriculture (1600) gave instructions for fattening geese, although it is believed
that the livers would not have reached the size, color, and consistency of modern
foie gras. The process took two months to fatten the birds, and did not involve
gavage, but instead encouraged the birds to eat freely but copiously. The
husbandry included instructions to blind the birds, and later, to nail their feet in
place to minimize their movement. These directions leave modern farmers
mystified, as both techniques would likely have induced high levels of stress in
the birds and a disinclination to eat. Both recommendations fell from favor in the
early nineteenth century. 11 At that time, the modern gavage technique was
invented in Alsace, by which funnels were used to cram the birds’ gullets with
specific instructions to use “smoothly welded [funnels] to prevent any harmful
chafing to the animal.”12 The task of cramming the geese generally was
relegated to farm wives, helping to create the image of foie gras as a traditional,
artisanal food of France.13 Gavage-by-funnel has been the basis of foie gras
cultivation ever since.
The Industrialization of Foie Gras
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The mid-twentieth century brought several significant changes in foie gras
production. Historically, various fowl had been fattened, although two strains of
geese were most frequently chosen, the oie du Gers and the oie grise du sud-
ouest because of their outstanding ability to produce fatty livers. Although
generally believed to produce the most succulent livers, the geese had two
drawbacks for large-scale production: they were susceptible to disease and took
longer and more frequent feedings to reach optimum weight. In the 1950s,
French farmers began using the mule (also known as mulard) duck, the sterile
offspring of a Muscovy drake and Pekin duck. The mules are relatively disease-
resistant, have large, resilient esophagi and livers that fatten easily. They reach
slaughter size faster and with fewer daily feedings (two or three for ducks versus
four for geese), making them superior candidates for industrial production.
Because of significant sexual dimorphism in the mules, only much-larger males
are reared for foie gras.14 Their livers grow larger and contain fewer veins than
those of females; the veins are considered a minor defect by chefs preparing
elegant dishes. Nowadays, well over 90% of foie gras is made from ducks, with
only a small and super elite market in goose liver.
Depending on the facility, the foie gras mule’s quality of life varies.
Surreptitiously-shot footage from unidentified factories in France has been
posted on several animal rights websites 15 and detailed descriptions of rearing
practices on American farms have been widely disseminated by both proponents
and opponents of gavage. There is little disagreement over the first three
months of the young duck’s life, which even critics in some of the films and other
literature concede is bucolic by the standards of modern farming practices.16
Ducklings have access to sunlight, adequate water and food, and grassy slopes
on which to waddle to strengthen their legs for the rapid weight gain that comes
with gavage. Feeding is divided into four phases. For the first six to nine weeks,
the ducklings are allowed to eat whenever they want and in whatever quantity
(ad libitum). Grass is usually included in the diet to help expand the esophagus,
which is very flexible (witness the ability of ducks to swallow fish whole, with the
fish visibly distending the esophagus on its way down). For the second phase,
the next three to five weeks, the ducks are feed on a restricted schedule using
one of two techniques: either large amounts of food are offered for limited
periods of time, or food is more frequently available, but in lesser quantities. The
third phase, the pre-gavage period, lasts from three to ten days. Food is offered
more frequently or in increasing quantities so that the birds, which “have a
spontaneous tendency to overfeed,” naturally exceed expected ad libitum levels.
The carefully crafted feeding regimen is designed to set the stage for gavage by
(1) increasing the bird’s underdeveloped crop 17, the area in which food is held
before passing to the stomach for digestion; (2) stimulating digestive secretions,
and (3) starting hepatic steatosis, or absorption of fat in the liver.18 More on
steatosis later, one of the most controversial points in determining the welfare of
the fowl.
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Gavage is the last, critical stage in the cultivation of foie gras. According to
regulations promulgated by the French government and generally agreed to by
the American producers, Sonoma Valley Foie Gras (California), Hudson Valley
Foie Gras (New York), and Au Bon Canard (Minnesota), there can be no true foie
gras without gavage. Four thousand years elapsed from the initial hand
cramming of birds to simple manual funnel feeding, aided by a stick to push the
grain mass down the funnel’s neck; over the last sixty years, as foie gras moved
from artisanal to factory production, gavage technology quickly evolved to permit
fewer feeders to cram larger flocks. Starting in the 1950s, a manual screw was
added to the funnels to speed the delivery of the corn mash; soon thereafter, the
screw was motorized, and delivery of the mash would take between thirty and
sixty seconds. By the 1980s, pneumatic and hydraulic pumps with computerized
dosing were introduced in some facilities, requiring only two to three seconds to
dispense the mash.
Depending on the size and location of the operation, the birds are housed
differently. In the largest French factories, the birds are confined to small,
individual cages that severely restrict their movement, minimizing caloric loss and
allowing the pneumatic or hydraulic feeding to take place with a small number of
human feeders moving the dispenser from bird to bird. In smaller operations in
France and at the three foie gras farms in the United States, the birds are placed
in a series of pens that allow them some ability to walk around, preen, and
engage in social behavior, although certainly not to the extent they would in the
wild. The feeder enters the pen, takes hold of each bird individually, and
performs the gavage, using motorized, but not pneumatic, pumps. After feeding
the birds drink water from troughs located just outside the pens, although they
never see the outdoors again. At the largest American foie gras producer,
Hudson Valley Foie Gras, the feedings are claimed to be calibrated for the
expressed purpose of minimizing stress to the birds: initial gavage introduces
only an ounce of food, increasing after a day or two as the birds become
acclimated to the procedure to reach large quantities of mash for the last few
days of the gavage cycle.19 Depending on the exact technique used and the
producer’s standards, gavage can last anywhere from nine days to three weeks
for mule ducks.
Evaluating Animal Welfare and Abuse: What the Birds Think, How Their Physical
Condition Compares, and How They Behave
Opponents of foie gras have a relatively easy time whipping up public
opinion, as both specialists and non-specialists tend to define animal welfare
through anthropomorphism.20 Well-meaning letters to the editors of major
newspapers assume that because humans don’t want to be force fed, neither
should waterfowl.21 Defenders of foie gras production cite scientific studies that
are claimed to show that the birds are treated humanely, or at least non-cruelly,
although most acknowledge that the studies have yet to address every issue
involved in foie gras husbandry.
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Advocates on both sides of the debate cite the 1998 European Union
Scientific Committee on Animal Welfare and Animal Health Report on Foie Gras
(“SCAHAW Report”). While refusing to recommend the banning of foie gras
production outright, the money quote for opponents of gavage is that “force
feeding, as currently practiced, is detrimental to the welfare of the birds.” 22 The
committee was composed of thirteen scientists and veterinarians from various
EU countries; one dissented from the report and concluded that foie gras
production as currently practiced should be banned.23 The committee viewed
animal welfare as a continuum in which “poor welfare should be minimized and
very poor welfare avoided.” The committee also urged that decisions be based
on “good scientific evidence,” taking into account the frequency, duration, and
severity of the poor welfare.24 Among the specific recommendations of the
committee were:
(1) No feeding procedure should be used that causes substantial discomfort
to the birds, as evidenced by aversion to the feeding; automatic feeding
devices need to be proven safe, and
(2) Individual cages for feeding should be eliminated to allow birds to walk,
preen, and engage in other social behaviors.25
This latter recommendation has been implemented in a 1999 resolution of the
European Council banning the introduction of new individual cages after
December 31, 2004, and requiring that individual cages be eliminated by
December 31, 2010.26
As part of the SCAHAW Report, a group of European scientists, including
one member of the SCAHAW Report committee, performed controlled
experiments to determine whether ducks and geese exhibited aversion to force
feeding. The purpose was “to understand how the force feeding procedure is
perceived by the animal to evaluate the welfare aspects of the
process” (emphasis added).27 The experimenters kept separate groups of mule
ducks and geese in pens, one for general rearing, and an adjacent pen eight
meters away solely for feeding. The birds were herded back and forth between
the pens for some days in a “training period”, during which time they ate ad
libitum from troughs in the feeding pen, in an attempt to acclimate them to
voluntarily moving into the feeding pen. To the experimenters’ surprise and
frustration, the ducks never fully mastered the movement during the training
period, unlike the geese, who entered the feeding pen with little hesitation by the
end of the training period. At the end of the training period, some groups of birds
of each species were force fed, while others continued to eat from troughs in
amounts comparable to the force fed birds.
A separate experiment by the same group measured the ducks’ tendency
to avoid the force feeder. Ducks were held in cramped individual cages like
those used in industrial production. They were force fed by the same individual
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twice a day for two weeks. Between feedings, on days 3, 7, 9, and 11, the force
feeder and a stranger separately walked by the ducks, and the amount of
withdrawal of the ducks was measured.
Building on previous studies that had shown that animals are frightened by
places where they suffer pain and by the people who inflict it, the scientists
hypothesized that if the birds found force feeding painful, they would not
voluntarily enter the feeding pens and would withdraw from the force feeders.
The study found that (1) while some ducks avoided the feeding pens where
gavage took place, other force fed ducks did not, and that a more important and
consistent factor in the ducks’ avoidance was the presence of a stranger in the
pen; (2) geese exhibited no avoidance of the pens where gavage took place; and
(3) ducks withdrew from strangers more than from the force feeders, although the
avoidance lessened as the ducks began to recognize the stranger. The
scientists concluded that “ducks do not perceive the force feeder as inflicting
pain.”28
Another study measured corticosterone levels in mule ducks before and
after force feeding. Corticosterones are released in response to adrenalin, so
that elevated levels would indicate stress. Ducks were force fed standard (i.e.,
ad libitum) and larger amounts of food (comparable to the later stages of
gavage). There were no significant variations in corticosterone levels or other
blood indicators of stress, leading to the conclusion that the ducks did not
perceive the experience as stressful.29
Critics dismiss these scientists as hacks for the foie gras industry and
claim that gavage is, by definition, cruel. The debate reached American shores
in 2004, when the American Veterinary Medical Association formally considered
whether officially to oppose force feeding. Based on a review of the scientific
literature, the AMVA’s Animal Welfare Committee recommended opposing
gavage, but tabled the vote for lack of direct information. In July 2005, two
veterinarians active in the AVMA visited Hudson Valley Foie Gras. Their report
was unexpected: according to one,
We’ve all seen the pictures. Seeing with your own eyes and penetrating the
issue is worth a thousand pictures. After being on the premises, my position
changed dramatically. I did not see animals I would consider distressed, and I
didn’t see pain and suffering.30
The other veterinarian was less impressed, but from the viewpoint that gavage
induced disease (he considered hepatic steatosis to be a disease) and that the
cultivation of foie gras was “not a good use of these animals.” His observations
of the birds were that they did not seem distressed, that their conditions were
better than most battery-raised broiler chickens, and that they seemed generally
well-cared for.31 These first hand observations led to the defeat of the AVMA
resolution opposing foie gras and to an anti-scientific backlash among some of
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the members. Specialists in animal pain complained that “clinical investigations
and scientific committees will not help us here ... [as] science is irrelevant,” while
others saw crass caving to “big industry.” 32 Scientists claiming science is
irrelevant is food for thought, as is the thought that the $17.5 million American
foie gras industry is “big.”33
The disease paradigm identified by the concerned AVMA veterinarian is
the second arrow in the animal welfare quiver of foie gras opponents and raises
concerns about first, the physical welfare of the ducks and second, the physical
welfare of diners who eat foie gras. Opponents of foie gras claim that foie gras is
a diseased organ and thus unwholesome to eat, playing on fears and prejudices;
it is simply a scare tactic, designed to inflame.
The question of whether gavage induces disease is more serious.
Everyone agrees that chemical changes take place during the final stage of
gavage, in which hepatic steatosis, or “fatty liver,” develops. Although the
medical term sounds ominous, the AVMA was split as to whether hepatic
steatosis actually is a disease.34 The SCAHAW Report similarly concluded that,
as long as the gavage did not continue beyond traditional time frames, there was
insignificant impact on the birds’ health. Hepatic steatosis occurs normally in
waterfowl preparing to migrate, albeit to a lesser degree. Although blood
circulation within the liver decreased, the livers functioned adequately to process
foods. Prolonging force feeding eventually would be lethal, but producers were
careful (admittedly in their economic self-interest) not to over-gorge the birds.
Finally, hepatic steatosis was found to be reversible; once gavage stopped, the
livers returned to normal size, leaving the question open as to whether this
indicated pathology.35 The SCAHAW Report found that gavaged birds had other
physical impairments, including panting, skeletal lesions, semi-liquid feces, and
foot injuries, although none of these were particular areas of concern. In
particular, they were not able to draw any conclusions about esophageal pain
resulting from gavage, other than that the bird feeders endeavored to avoid
injuring the esophagus.36 Other scientists have indicated that at least some of
these conditions occur naturally and without any animal abuse.37
The last aspect of animal welfare, the birds’ ability to engage in species-
appropriate behavior, was compromised for the period of gavage, especially
when birds were kept in individual cages. Because this led to a conclusion of
poor welfare, the SCAHAW Report advocated abolition of cages. For the three
months prior to gavage, the birds were generally reared in flocks with free access
to the outdoors. The report found no welfare problems other than a possible lack
of a swimming pool.38
Alternative Techniques for Foie Gras Cultivation
Scientists and farmers have attempted to develop alternative husbandry
techniques that will eliminate gavage. In France, scientists have injected birds
with dopamine to alter the brains’ chemical balance and have zapped the medio-
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ventral nucleus of the bird’s hypothalamus to encourage gorging; while the birds
ate more than unaltered birds, it was not enough to produce livers comparable to
gavage and would likely have raised new objections among critics.39
Farmers in Spain and the United States have very recently unveiled fatted
livers obtained without gavage, although it is unclear how these livers compare
with the traditional product. Patería de Sousa won the 2006 Coup de Coeur for
innovation at the Paris International Food Salon for its canned goose liver pâté
that was made from free-ranging geese who fed ad libitum. The birds were
slaughtered just prior to their instinctive migration time, and the company can
thus only have one crop per year.40 A similar approach has been independently
hit upon by the Schlitz Goose Farm in South Dakota. Owner Jim Schlitz noticed
in the early 1990s that geese slaughtered later had differently-colored livers, and
that the color, size, and consistency could be affected by changing the feed.41
The farm does not claim that its product is precisely equivalent to foie gras, but
rather that it is humane and delicious. The liver and resulting pâtés are tan,
rather than creamy beige, and differed in flavor and texture from traditional foie
gras, making them an imperfect substitute.42 These livers may be similar to
those produced before the nineteenth century’s introduction of the gavage funnel.
Is The Foie Gras Battle an Effort to Impose A Modern Sumptuary Law?
Sumptuary laws have historically been means of ordering societies to
maintain social distinctions (laws in medieval and Renaissance Europe limited
wearing certain colors, fabrics, furs and the like to members of identifiable social
classes) or to limit conspicuous consumption (Roman and various medieval and
Renaissance laws limited the number of dishes that could be served at
banquets). They typically have a moral component.43 While foie gras opponents
view its consumption as immoral, even among the most fervent supporters of foie
gras, the notion of sin lurks. Foie gras is called “the guilty pleasure,” with food
critics waxing rhapsodically that each bite of foie gras was “a little bit of sin.” 44 To
be fair, these food writers were describing the high fat content of foie gras in fat-
phobic times, rather than animal welfare, but others see the gavage process as
“contribut[ing] to the blasphemy of consuming it.”45
Banning foie gras is an inversion of the normal, class-reinforcing function
of sumptuary laws. Outside of France, the only country where foie gras is eaten
by a substantial part of the populace, foie gras is eaten only by a tiny minority of
wealthy diners. Banning foie gras in the guise of animal welfare is thus no
sacrifice to all but affluent gourmets who love its incomparable flavor and texture.
Activists exploit its elitist connotations and lack of familiarity. Farm
Sanctuary hired Zogby International to poll Americans in different states in
support of a foie gras ban. Not surprisingly, majorities of respondents in each of
the states polled had never even heard of foie gras when the polling started in
10
March 2005, including 51% of New Yorkers. Regardless of previous familiarity,
respondents were asked the following leading question:
Foie gras is an expensive food item served in some upscale restaurants. It is
produced by force-feeding geese and ducks large quantities of food, causing the
animals’ livers to swell up to ten times their normal size. A long metal pipe is
inserted into the animal’s esophagus several times a day. Often, this process
causes the animals’ internal organs to rupture. Several European countries and
the state of California have outlawed this practice as cruel. Do you agree or
disagree that force feeding geese and ducks to produce foie gras should be
banned by law in New York?
Given that the question focused on elitism, cruelty, and illegality, a remarkable
15% of the respondents disagreed that foie gras should be banned, and another
7% were unsure.46 The poll was repeated in May 2006; although New Yorkers’
awareness of foie gras had increased substantially (only 34% claimed never to
have heard of the product), presumably from the tremendous amounts of
publicity that the California and Chicago bans had received, the percentages
declining to ban foie gras held firm at 22%.47 These numbers are consistent with
survey results from other jurisdictions, regardless of whether there is a local foie
gras industry.
Animal rights activists view foie gras as the wedge issue that will allow
them to reach out to other perceived instances of animal abuse in the food chain.
Although the public face of certain animal rights organizations asserts that the
ban on foie gras is not part of an effort to delegitimize meat consumption, at least
some factions in the animal rights movement admit that this is precisely the
agenda. In the words of one activist, it is attainable “baby steps” towards the
ultimate goal of imposing veganism or vegetarianism.48 In this sense, the foie
gras ban may be viewed as a sumptuary law, whereby those morally opposed to
eating animals will use the law to reshape society to their utopian vision.
Bibliography:
Blandford, David, Jean-Christophe Bureau, Linda Fulponi, and Spencer Henson,
Potential Implications of Animal Welfare Concerns and Public Policies in
Industrialized Countries for International Trade, in Global Food Trade and
Consumer Demand for Quality (Barry Krissoff, Mary Bohman, and Julie A.
Casswell, eds.), International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium, Regional
Research Project Ne-165, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002.
EU Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, Report on the
Welfare Aspects of the Production of Foie Gras in Ducks and Geese, 1998, http://
ec.europa.eu/food/fs/sc/scah/out17_en.pdf (“SCAHAW Report”)
11
Faure, Jean-Michel, Daniel Guémené and Gérard Guy, Is There Avoidance of the
Force Feeding Procedure in Ducks and Geese?, Animal Research 50(2):157-64
(2001).
Ginor, Michael A., Mitchell Davis, Andrew Coe, and Jane Ziegelman, Foie Gras:
A Passion, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999.
Glass, Juliet, Foie Gras Makers Struggle to Please Critics and Chefs, New York
Times, April 25, 2007; www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/dining/25foie.html
Guémené, Daniel and G. Guy, The Past, Present and Future of Force-Feeding
and “Foie Gras” Production, World’s Poultry Science Journal, 60:210-222 (June
2004).
Guémené, Daniel, G. Guy, J. Noirault, M. Garreau-Mills, P. Gouraud, and J.M.
Faure, Force-Feeding Procedure and Physiological Indicators of Stress in Male
Mule Ducks, British Poultry Science, 42:650-7 (2001).
Kahler, Susan C., Farm Visit Influences Foie Gras Vote, Journal of the American
Veterinary Medical Association, 227:688-9 (Sept. 1, 2005).
Lang, Christopher D., Matthew D. Lang, Maciej Witkos, and Michelle
Uttaburanont, Foie Gras: the Two Faces of Janus, Journal of the American
Veterinary Medicine Association, 230: 1624-1627 (June 1, 2007).
McKenna, Carol, Forced Feeding: An Inquiry into the Welfare of Ducks and
Geese Kept for the Production of Foie Gras, Edinburgh and London: Advocates
for Animals and World Society for the Protection of Animals, 2000.
Selected Websites (all accessible as of July 13, 2007):
Pro foie gras:
http://www.artisanfarmers.org/home.html
http://foieblog.blogspot.com
http://www.hometownsource.com/2005/october/20business.html
Anti foie gras:
http://www.farmsanctuary.org/
http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=97
http://www.avmahurtsanimals.com/foieGras.asp
http://www.banfoiegras.org.uk/
Alternatives to foie gras:
http://www.roastgoose.com/products/fatty_goose_liver.htm
12
1 Critics of gavage do not lobby against magret or confit de canard, even though they can only be
prepared as a by-product of gavage; there is something deeply symbolic about eating oversized
livers, rather than breast or leg, that grabs the public’s attention, reminiscent of pagan sacrifice or
more distasteful because of the generally low esteem in which organ meats are held. The
unforgettable line from the cannibal, Hannibal Lechter in the motion picture Silence of the Lambs
is that he ate his victim’s liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti, exploiting the American popular
aversion to organ meats.
2 Kahler, p. 689.
3 www.nofoiegras.org/FGabout.htm, accessed July 10, 2007.
4Jack Markowitz, “Foie gras ban is one the protesters get right,” PittsburghTribune-Review,
8/20/06; www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/columnists/markowitz/s_466854.html
5 Blandford, p. 2
6 Athenaeus, Deipnosophists. IX:384b.
7 Cato, On Farming, 89; Columella, On Agriculture 8.7.5.
8 Guémené and Guy (2004), p. 211.
9 Ginor pp. 5-7.
10 Ginor, pp. 11-12.
11 Ginor, pp. 15-16; 26.
12 Quoted in Ginor, p. 27.
13Jeanne Strang, “Foie Gras as Seen from Southwest France,” Gastronomica 7(1):64-69 (Winter
2006) at 67; Isabelle Téchoueyres, “Development, Terroir and Welfare: A Case Study of Farm-
produced Foie Gras in South West France,” Anthropology of Food, S2, Mars 2007, http://
aof.revues.org/documents510.html. Accessed June 20, 2007.
14 Female mules apparently are raised for their meat, although certain animal rights organizations
claim that they are mutilated and suffocated after hatching. This would seem to be against the
farmers’ economic interest, especially in light of the greater demand for duck meat in Europe in
the 1990s, after the incidence of BSE. SCAHAW Foie Gras Report 16; Guémené and Guy (2004)
p. 213.
15 http://www.nofoiegras.org/discover-foie-gras.wmv; http://www.banfoiegras.org.uk/
16 McKenna, p.14.
17In comparison to other birds, foie gras waterfowl have very poorly developed or non-existent
crops, although there is some broadening of the esophagus at the entrance to the stomach.
There is no evidence whether expansion of this proto-crop causes any pain to the birds.
SCAHAW Report, p. 46.
18 SCAHAW Report, p.19; Guémené and Guy (2004), p. 214; Ginor, p.78.
19 SCAHAW Report, pp. 19-20; Guémené and Guy (2004), pp.213-14; Ginor, p.78-9.
20Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 227:1402 (Yost letter) (November 1,
2005).
21 Blandford, p. 6; New York Times,www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/dining/02lett.html
13
22 SCAHAW Report p. 65.
23 SCAHAW Report p. 69.
24 SCAHAW Report pp. 1, 5.
25 SCAHAW Report pp. 67-8.
26 Cited in Guémené and Guy (2004), p. 219.
27 Faure (2001), p. 158.
28 Faure (2001), p. 163.
29 Guémené (2001), p. 655.
30 Kahler p. 689.
31 Kahler p. 689.
32Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 227:1402, 1404 (Yost and Hansen/
Bowden letters) (November 1, 2005).
33 http://www.shepstone.net/economicreport.pdf
34 Kahler p. 689.
35SCAHAW Report, pp. 38-44; 48; 61. www.animalagalliance.org/images/ag_insert/
20060505_Foie_Gras.pdf, pp.17-21.
36 SCAHAW Report, p. 63.
37SCAHAW Report, pp. 45-6; http://www.artisanfarmers.org/images/
Dr._Bartholf_Letter_to_Chicago_City_Council.pdf
38 SCAHAW Report, pp. 63-4.
39 SCAHAW Report, p. 57; McKenna, p. 22
40 Glass, p. 1.
41 http://foieblog.blogspot/2007/03/interview-with-jim-schlitz-developer-of.html
42 Glass, p. 2.
43
Hunt, Alan, Governance of Consuming Passions: A History of Sumptuary Law, London:
MacMillan Press, 1996, pp. 5-7.
44 Ginor, pp. 73-4.
45
Davis, Mitchell, Love ’er or Liver – Foie Gras, an Unlikely Delicacy Gains F(l)avor in America
www.nyu.edu/classes/bkg/foie, p.5, accessed April 20, 2007.
46 http://www.nofoiegras.org/Zogby_NY.pdf; http://www.nofoiegras.org/zogby.htm;
47 http://www.nofoiegras.org/Zogby_NY5-06.pdf
14
48 www.nofoiegras.org; Stephen Hanson, “Utilitarianism, Animals, and the Problem of Numbers,”
Animal Liberation Philosophy and Policy Journal, 2:1-16 (2004), 6 (“The eventual aim of all
animal liberation efforts is a world in which animals are not treated as food. . ..”); Marshall Sella,
“Does a Duck Have a Soul? How Foie Gras Became the New Fur,” New York Magazine, 6/27/05;
http://nymag.com/nymetro/food/features/12071/
