For quite some while now, foie gras has been under the limelight of controversy attracting both positive and negative opinions about the practice that goes into procuring them. This issue is being condemned most by the vegans and animal welfare organizations, who wholly term the fattening process of the geese and ducks as "torment and cruelty". There are several reports about this topic making rounds on the internet, including the unhygienic and painful living conditions of the ducks, illegal equipment put to use and even a few cases of "exploding livers". Furthermore, this concern is now being assigned a political angle, where the pieces of news that finally reach the audience have undergone mild to severe alterations depending upon the severity of the purpose needed to be fulfilled.
As a result of this, several countries and states including India and California have banned the production of foie gras altogether and New Jersey is treading on the path to resort to a similar conclusion. But, the most interesting portion of these decisions is that none of them have been based on solid factual proofs collected from the duck and goose foie gras farms which means that the cloud of doubt continues to linger around the common man.
However, the true picture reported by people who have witnessed the process of fattening ducks is a complete reverse of these claims. The ducks and geese that are meant to serve the purpose of foie gras move around freely in their breeding spaces whose dimensions are nothing less than that of a humungous football field. Also, far from being crowded and forced down on the floor to fix the funnel inside their throats, they were placed inside a huge wooden pen with six or seven of their contemporaries going through the process at the same time.
A common notion that most people are tricked into believing is the discomfort and anxiety that the ducks go through when they are being fed through the funnel; owing to their natural tendency of swallowing down fishes of decent size at one go, the apparatus should not be a cause of bothering to them. Realize, that the anatomy of ducks and geese differ from the other animals, their esophagus is located right in front of the food pipe making it impossible for the funnels to choke them. Additionally, the process of fattening doesn’t take place incessantly throughout the whole day or since their birth; rather, the boiled corns are only fed to them two weeks before their date of slaughter and the mechanism is conducted 3-4 times in a day.
The whole procedure lasts for around 10 to 20 seconds because every time the boiled corns are passed through their throats, the absence of teeth doesn't create clogging in the path, therefore, allowing a smooth passage to the system. Apart from foie gras, the reason cited by the farmers for fattening the ducks is to prepare them for the migration period and if, in any case, the ducks are not used for foie gras, they are left to roam about in the fields on their own, where the liver gains back their original size without any visible damage of the organ.
So, if somebody claims that consuming foie gras is participating in animal abuse, show them these facts and explain why it is time for the preconceived impression to change.
