Is foie gras cruel?

The objection

“Foie gras is a delicacy, and force-feeding ducks isn’t really that different from any other farming. People exaggerate it.”

The answer

Foie gras is made by deliberately enlarging a bird’s liver until the organ’s function is impaired, and the strongest case against it comes from the European Commission’s own scientific advisers. Its Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare noted in 1998 that these ducks and geese are the only farm animals that are force-fed, and concluded that “force feeding, as currently practised, is detrimental to the welfare of the birds” [1]. It also found evidence that the birds’ welfare had got worse as production was industrialised over the previous thirty years [1]. The majority still stopped short of a ban. Accepting that foie gras would go on being made to meet demand, it recommended that no process be used that enlarges the liver so much that its function is significantly modified or that causes more deaths, pain or distress, and called for group housing instead of small individual cages, official monitoring of deaths and illness, and research into ways of making foie gras without force-feeding [1]. One member, D.J. Alexander, argued in a minority opinion that the committee’s data supported only one recommendation, which was to stop force-feeding and prohibit the production, import and sale of foie gras [1].

How is foie gras made?

Foie gras is made by pushing a tube down a duck’s or goose’s throat and pumping in far more maize than it would eat by choice, until its liver swells to about six to ten times the normal size (1998) [1]. Most of it now comes from male mule ducks, a sterile cross of Muscovy and domestic ducks [2], which supplied 94% of France’s foie gras by 1995 [1]. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) described current practice in 2023: the ducks are force-fed twice a day, usually for 9 to 12 days, mostly in wire cages of four or five birds with about 1,250 square centimetres each, roughly a sheet of A3 paper [2]. Investigators filmed ducks and geese being force-fed on French farms in 2012.

Is a foie gras liver diseased?

The EU committee (1998) judged a foie gras liver to be pathological, because by the end of force-feeding liver function is seriously impaired and that much fat appeared unsustainable for many of the birds, though the summary of its report notes that some pathologists disagree [1]. Most of 25 pathologists asked in two informal, unpublished surveys (1994, 1996) called the liver pathological [1]. Wild geese and some wild ducks do store fat in the liver before migrating, and the committee accepted that force-feeding may partly use that mechanism, but it found that no normal animal has a fatty liver to the extent seen in every force-fed bird [1]. The livers can recover if feeding stops, though as the committee pointed out, so can many diseases. It knew of no study measuring how many birds would die if the liver were held at that size, but producers stop when they do because birds fed a few days longer can die in large numbers [1].

What does force-feeding do to the birds?

Force-feeding raises death rates, swells the abdomen and can injure the oesophagus: in surveys from France, Belgium and Spain that the EU committee reviewed in 1998, 2% to 4% of force-fed birds died during the two weeks of feeding [1]. The figures varied widely, from about 1% in each of seven years on one Spanish farm to anywhere between 0 and 15% across Belgian farms and batches [1]. Having found no figures for mule ducks that were not force-fed, the committee used a 1990 study of Muscovy ducks raised for meat to estimate about 0.2% over the two weeks before slaughter at a similar age, and judged that the force-fed figures “compare most unfavourably” with normal rearing [1]. The swollen liver expands the abdomen, which should push the legs outwards and make walking harder, as members of the committee’s working group saw, and force-fed birds pant more often than others [1]. The committee also heard that ducks can end force-feeding with damage to the oesophagus, sometimes serious, and judged it likely that this had been painful, though it did not know how often such injuries occur and a 1972 study had found no damage in force-fed geese [1]. The committee’s figures come from a time when about 80% of ducks were force-fed in individual cages (1998), since banned [1][2], and EFSA’s 2023 review of duck and goose welfare was not asked to assess force-feeding itself [2].

Where is foie gras banned?

Producing foie gras by force-feeding is banned in the UK and California, and the EU committee noted in 1998 that some countries already prohibited it; California and New York City have also banned sales, though New York’s ban is not yet enforced [1][3][4][8]. The UK government said in September 2026 that production by force-feeding has been banned for nearly 20 years as incompatible with animal welfare law, and when asked whether it would also ban imports, it made no commitment [3]. In the US, a California law passed in 2004 bans force-feeding birds to enlarge their livers and selling the resulting products in the state, though courts ruled in 2020 and 2022 that out-of-state sellers may still take orders online or by phone and ship foie gras to Californians [4]. The US Supreme Court refused to hear foie gras producers’ challenges to the sales ban in January 2019 and again in May 2023 [5][6]. New York City passed its sales ban in 2019 [8], and a state appeals court upheld it in March 2026 [7]. In July 2026 the state attorney general and a group of foie gras farmers asked New York’s highest court to take the case, and the city has said it will not enforce the ban until there is a final ruling that cannot be appealed [8].

What about ordinary duck meat?

Some duck meat comes from the foie gras trade itself, because the breasts (magrets) and thighs of force-fed birds are sold as meat: the EU committee (1998) estimated the meat from France’s foie gras production at nearly 28,000 tonnes, including 10,000 tonnes of magrets and 10,000 tonnes of thighs for roasting or confit [1]. Domestic ducks, mostly of the Pekin type, are not used for foie gras in the EU [2], but they are waterfowl, and EFSA (2023) describes most of those raised for meat spending their growing period in the indoor barn they started in, drinking mostly from nipple drinkers shared by six to ten birds [2]. Bathing keeps a duck’s plumage in good order and helps it regulate its temperature, and EFSA recommended giving ducks and geese open water deep enough at least to dip their heads in, and preferably to bathe [2]. Ducks and geese are also the source of the down in pillows and jackets.