Horror food is forbidden but many aristocrats hunt it

Foie gras was extremely expensive, usually only the nobility could afford it. Although this dish has been banned in many countries for the sake of humanity, there are still many people who want to enjoy it, so they buy it anyway.

To produce foie gras, workers have to use straws to pump up to 1-2 kg of grain and fat every day into their stomachs. This process is called “forced feeding”. The force-feeding caused the livers of these geese to swell to 10 times their normal size. Many have difficulty standing because the tight liver causes their abdomens to deform, and they can tear their own feathers and attack each other due to stress.

The geese are kept in small cages or crowded cages. They cannot bathe or groom themselves, but are coated with compost with oils that normally protect their fur from water.

A Newsweek reporter visited a foie gras factory farm, describing the geese as “listless” and “often crippled by foot infections from standing on metal grates in the barn”. Other common health problems include damage to the esophagus, fungal infections, diarrhea, impaired liver function, heat stress, and damage and fractures of the sternum. Some geese die from aspiration pneumonia, which occurs when seeds are forced into the goose’s lungs or when they choke on their own vomit.

In one study, geese that were force-fed had a 20 times higher mortality rate than the control group, which were not force-fed.

Since foie gras is made only from the livers of males, all female geese – 40 million a year in France alone – are useless to the industry and are therefore simply thrown in a blender to be processed. Their bodies can be processed into fertilizer or cat food.

A PETA investigation at Hudson Valley Foie Gras in New York found that a worker would force 500 geese to eat each day. That speed means that they often rough-and-tumble the geese and injure them. So many animals die from broken organs due to overfeeding. One worker told a PETA investigator that he could feel lumps that looked like tumors from being force-fed in the throats of some of the geese. Many of the maggots suffered a neck wound from a maggot bite that was so severe that water spilled out when it drank.

Another Hudson Valley PETA investigation in 2013 recorded that, prior to the forced feeding period, thousands of baby geese were crammed into giant barn-like cages. PETA investigators saw workers dragging goosenecks along the floor and clamping them between their legs before feeding metal conduits down their throats.

According to the Hudson Valley’s own calculations, about 15,000 geese on the farm die each year before they are slaughtered. Each week, this company sells foie gras made from 5,000 sick geese.

The production of foie gras was so cruel that California banned its production. Forced eating of animals is illegal in many countries, including Israel, Germany, Norway, and the United States. India has also banned the import of foie gras, which means it cannot legally be sold anywhere in the country.