Stop FOIE GRAS meals at The Test Kitchen in Cape Town!!!!

The production of foie gras (the liver of a duck or a goose that has been specially fattened) involves the controversial force-feeding of birds with more food than they would eat in the wild, and more than they would voluntarily eat domestically.

According to Peta.org this is what occurs:

"Foie gras is made from the grotesquely enlarged livers of ducks and geese who have been cruelly force-fed. Although France is the primary producer (and consumer) of this so-called “delicacy”—France produces more than 20,000 tons of foie gras each year—force-feeding takes place on a few duck farms in the U.S. too.

Although foie gras has historically come from force-fed geese, most foie gras farms now raise ducks—mule, Muscovy, and genetically manipulated, sterile birds called “moulards.”

Farmers have found that they can sell more than just the ducks’ fattened livers: Ducks’ legs, breasts, fat, and skin are all marketed for (mostly French) specialty foods. The bodies of geese, however, age too quickly to be used for some of these foods. Today, in France, only 4 percent of foie gras comes from geese. It is common, however, for geese to be raised for their down as well as for foie gras; birds with white feathers are preferred for this purpose.

Force-Feeding

Birds raised for foie gras spend the first four weeks of their lives eating and growing, sometimes in semi-darkness. For the next four weeks, they are confined to cages and fed a high-protein, high-starch diet that is designed to promote rapid growth. Force-feeding begins when the birds are between 8 and 10 weeks old. For 12 to 21 days, ducks and geese are subjected to gavage—every day, between 2 and 4 pounds of grain and fat are forced down the birds’ throats by means of an auger in a feeding tube.The Washington Post reported that the tube “is pushed 5 inches down their throats, and more food than they want is gunned into their stomachs. If the mushy corn sticks … a stick is sometimes used to force it down.”The birds’ livers, which become engorged from a carbohydrate-rich diet, can grow to be more than 10 times their normal size (a disease called “hepatic steatosis”).The mortality rate of birds raised for foie gras has been found to be as much as 20 times higher than that of birds raised normally, and carcasses show wing fractures and severe tissue damage to the throat muscles".