Suddenly, someone grabs you and puts you in a tiny cell into which you barely fit. You can’t turn. The cell consists of bars only. There is no natural light. You have no idea what to expect, what is going to happen next. To say that you are not very comfortable is an understatement.
The following morning, someone comes in, grabs your head, clamps your mouth wide open and pushes a metal pipe down your throat to force-feed you. It hurts, and you want to gag, but you can’t. Tears spring into your eyes.
You’ve been fed a greasy mixture of grains and fat, and the remains are slobbered all over you. The cell you are in is so narrow you have to keep your arms along your body and can’t reach up to wipe the food off your face.
You’ve barely gotten over the shock of this, when again, someone comes in and repeats the procedure. Three times a day, this revolting greasy mixture is forced down your throat in large quantities.
You start feeling nauseous. You can feel your thighs widening as a result of overfeeding with this calorie-rich mixture. Your thoughts are becoming muddled. You look out at rows of similar cells and notice that some of the others are standing in dirty water.
Your eyes beg for mercy, but none is forthcoming. You remember what sunshine looked like and how the wind felt on your face when you were out on the water. You cling to this memory for hope. The pain is in your eyes, evident to anyone who dares take a look.
You don’t know it but can feel how your organs are becoming diseased. Your liver is becoming more and more enlarged, and maybe your kidneys are starting to fail too. You don’t even want to think about the condition of your heart and arteries.
You can’t walk, but you couldn’t anymore anyway, even if they’d let you out now. You feel so utterly miserable, dirty, filthy and wretched. And so incredibly nauseous! Your throat has hard patches, like bunions or tumors, from the repeated force-feeding.
The necks of some of the others have open wounds, the result of force-feeding gone wrong. Your eyes slowly grow shut because there is this thick layer of caked greasy mixture all over you now.
Your liver has grown to about ten times its normal size. Then someone opens your cell, slaughters you, and sells your liver and some of your other body parts as a delicacy. It’s a very unhealthy delicacy, extremely high in cholesterol and “bad” fat.
Does you find this an appalling story? Then consider the fact that you have just read how foie gras and associated products like duck confit and magret are produced. Only, it’s not you who is in the cell, it’s a duck or a goose.
Understandably, many countries do not allow the production of foie gras. Less understandably, the consumption of foie gras and associated products continues. Some towns have banned foie gras from their council functions, or have banned its sale altogether.
Do you like feeding the ducks? Then chances are that you feel very strongly about the above-described atrocities. Don’t run off to smash the windows of the local deli that sells foie gras or your favorite French restaurant that still has it on its menu.
Talk to the owners of these establishments. Talk to your friends. Talk to your city council and ask what policy it has regarding its lunches and dinners.
In 2004, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law California’s Senate Bill 1520, banning the sale of foie gras and any product that is the result of force-feeding animals. In 2008, the UK’s Prince Charles decided to ban foie gras from all royal menus he has any say over. In 2007, York became the first city in the UK to ban the sale of foie gras.
This is what Roger Moore has to say about it:
This is me in Florida in the mid 1990s, holding a happy duckling, surrounded by pelicans, herons, egrets and cormorants in hospital cages – cleaned daily – at Pinellas Seabird Rehabilitation Center in Tierra Verde, now Save Our Seabirds in Sarasota:
Here are three posters from http://www.gourmetcruelty.com/ that you can use:
Imagine that you sit down at your desk and start writing because you want to file a crime report for ID theft, stalking, harassment, as well as for unauthorized use of one of your credit cards, and a request for a restraining order with immediate effect. You have gotten to that point several times before but the tasks ahead are daunting and it all just seems too much to tackle for one human being.