The Pain and Suffering Fois Gras

Foie gras, French for "fatty liver," is made from the grotesquely enlarged livers of male ducks and geese. The birds are kept in tiny wire cages or packed into sheds. Pipes are repeatedly shoved down the birds' throats, and up to 4 pounds of grain and fat are pumped into their stomachs two or three times every day. The pipes puncture many birds' throats, sometimes causing the animals to bleed to death. This cruel procedure causes the birds' livers to become diseased and swell to up to 10 times their normal size. Many birds become too sick to stand up. The birds who survive the force-feeding are killed, and their livers are sold for foie gras. Learn more about investigations of foie gras factory farms.

People around the world have spoken out against the cruelty of foie gras. In 2004, California passed a law banning the sale and production of foie gras effective in 2012, and Chicago banned the sale of this cruel product in 2006. His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI denounced force-feeding as being in violation of Biblical principles, and foie gras production has been outlawed in the U.K., Germany, the Czech Republic, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, and Israel.