Animal lovers in the city have come out strongly against the serving of French dish 'Foie Gras' in some of the big restaurants.
The inhuman ways used to fatten the ducks and geese have evoked strong reactions from activists
Animal lovers in the city have come out strongly against the serving of French dish 'Foie Gras' in some of the big restaurants on the grounds that the latest delicacy involves 'extreme cruelty' to innocent birds.
Foie gras means 'fatty liver' in French. To produce this, young ducks or geese have over four pounds of corn mush forced down their throats through a long metal pipe each day for two to three weeks until they can barely move and are on the verge of organ rupture and death.
"The force-feeding process causes the ducks' livers to swell up to ten times their normal size, inducing a disease that veterinarians call 'hepatic lipidosis'. These fattened, diseased livers are sold as foie gras," said Anuradha Sawhney, Chief Functionary, People for Ethical Treatment to Animals (PETA).
A duck's liver naturally weighs around 50 gram. However, to qualify as foie gras, the industry's own regulations require the bird's liver to weigh a minimum of 300 gram.
"The vast amount of feed pumped down the ducks' throats cause enormous internal pressure, and the pipe sometimes punctures the oesophagus, causing many to die from choking on the blood that fills their lungs. Some birds literally burst, choke to death on their own vomit, or become so weak that they are unable to fend off rats from eating them alive. Other ducks die a slow, painful, and premature death by suffocation from inhalation of regurgitated feed," Sawhney informed adding that the birds who survive the feedings suffer from a painful illness that causes their livers to swell to eight to ten times their normal size.
Many birds become too sick to walk and are reduced to pushing themselves across their cage floor with their wings. When the birds are slaughtered, their livers are sold for foie gras.
She further said that several countries in Europe and many states in the USA have banned the dish by enacting regular laws. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed an order to ban the production and sale of Foie Gras in California.
"The time has come to question at least the cruellest and most barbaric of food preparations, and that means foie gras is off the table," Swahney said.
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