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Liver Let Die
A visit to the nation's largest foie gras farm sheds light on a growing debate.
; "FAIR OR FOWL: A Hudson Valley employee performs gavage, the process of tube-feeding ducks to produce foie gras.")
FAIR OR FOWL: A Hudson Valley employee performs gavage, the process of tube-feeding ducks to produce foie gras. Photo By: David Snyder (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION) |
Feathers are flying in the battle that will determine whether you can serve foie gras in Philadelphia. The bill Councilman Jack Kelly proposed last year that would ban the sale of foie gras — the fattened livers of ducks and geese — will reportedly not be addressed until at least January.
Regardless, animal rights activists are protesting restaurants in Center City, arguing that gavage, the tube-feeding process used to fatten the birds' livers, is inhumane. A local animal rights group, Hugs for Puppies, and its director, Nick Cooney, are fronting the crusade. The group's literature contains photographs of ducks in vomit-covered pens; other images feature what appears to be a dead bird with food caked in its mouth, along with a caption suggesting that the animal died by suffocating on regurgitated food.
But is that really how the ducks are treated? I wanted to find out for myself, firsthand. So I arranged a visit to Hudson Valley Foie Gras in Ferndale, New York, the largest of the three foie gras farms in the country.
Terry McNally, co-owner of Fairmount's London Grill, joined me on the trip. Last month, the only foie gras dish she served was a hanger steak with foie gras green peppercorn butter. It was enough to attract protesters. According to McNally, their tactics have ranged from chants and name-calling (addressing individuals as "duck rapists") to firing bullhorns directly in her face. Other restaurant owners have taken foie gras items off their menus, but so far, McNally hasn't backed down. "We don't believe that, overall, we should be told what to eat," she says.
As we talked on the drive, it became clear that there is more at issue than animal welfare — the way McNally sees it, her business is at stake as well. London has 70 outdoor seats that she needs to turn over at least twice a night to make payroll. "With the bullhorns and the screaming, you can't sit there and dine," she says. "That's taking money away from the waiter and from us."
McNally believes the protesters' tactics cross the line. On one occasion, she says, the protesters insulted a diner by calling her fat. And they're also rattling McNally's employees. She's installed video cameras at her restaurant and may seek an injunction to curtail protests. (I planned to ask Cooney to respond, but he failed to show up for our pre-arranged interview. He later contacted me to explain that he missed our appointment due to being in jail for an unrelated protest. The charge was later dropped.)
McNally and I arrived at the farm around noon and met Izzay Yanay, co-owner of Hudson Valley. A former member of the Israeli Defense Force, Yanay projects an intense, almost defiant pride when showing off his farm. "Make them come — all of them," he says. He's entertained roughly two tours a week for the past 20 years, hosting chefs and journalists alike. He promises unrestricted access and encourages me to take pictures.
Dr. Lawrence Bartholf, a practicing livestock veterinarian who operates independent of the farm, accompanies us. Bartholf often chaperones Hudson Valley tours to answer questions related to the birds' physiology "It's one thing to use facts to argue a point," he says. "But when [protesters] use outright lies and distortions and half-truths, that's where I draw the line."
Ducks and geese have a natural ability to store fat in their livers for use during migration. Since the time of the pharaohs, people have been tube-feeding birds to stimulate that ability and eventually harvest their livers for consumption. Hudson Valley uses only the male Moulard, the offspring of a female Pekin and a male Muscovy. Unlike geese and pure-bred ducks, the Moulard is disease-resistant, less fragile and less nervous around humans.
Our first stop is the nursery. Scores of hatchlings, barely one hour old, mill about. A small piece of plywood divides the room, separating us from the chicks. As soon as we walk in, they swarm toward us. "They're looking for any kind of guidance," Yanay says above their chirping. "They will lose that behavior in a couple of days." To illustrate this, Yanay takes us to another nursery room where the ducks are a week old. When he walks into the room, the ducks scurry away.
When McNally cradles one of the chicks, Yanay tells us what he explains to kids who pet the ducks on the head to show affection. "A mother duck doesn't pet her ducks on the head," he says. "If you really want to show affection, puke in his mouth." We all laugh at Yanay's rehearsed joke, but it's a lesson necessary to understanding gavage. "Why am I saying that?" he asks. "Because ducks are not people."
Bartholf echoes the point when we arrive at the next building. After four weeks in the nursery, the ducks arrive here, where they will stay until they are 12 weeks old. Inside, it's dark, cool and dry — but the ducks appear to be comfortable. Yanay says they prefer it. "People would like it to be lighter and warmer, but they don't understand duck management," Bartholf explains. "We make a big mistake when we transfer our preferences onto another species."
At 2 p.m., the real show begins —Yanay takes us to watch the gavage process. The room houses four rows of pens. Each pen is 4 by 6 feet and contains 10 to 11 birds. There are approximately 350 ducks in the room and each one is at least 12 weeks old. The pens are remarkably clean; they sit above long troughs that channel away waste. Huge fans are churning, keeping the room cool.
Once the ducks arrive here, they're fed dry pellets made of corn and soy three times a day for the next 28 days, at which point they'll be slaughtered. During that period, the amount of food they are given will increase gradually from 80 grams to 400 grams.
More importantly, the ducks will be fed by the same person throughout the entire process. Stress in ducks can be assessed by measuring levels of corticosterone (a hormone produced in the adrenal gland) in their blood. Bartolf cites recent studies by Dr. Daniel Guémené, the leading expert on the physiological effects of gavage, showing that ducks with babies in the wild were under more stress than the ducks being fed through gavage. "Nature herself has a situation more stressed than we have here," he explains. Studies have also shown that as the ducks become more familiar with the human feeder, they become less stressed. To ensure that the workers will not miss a single feeding, Yanay provides free housing on the farm. Employees also have an incentive to treat the ducks with care — their bonuses are tied to the number and quality of the livers they deliver.
We watch as one of the workers climbs into a pen to begin the feeding. "The question you have to ask yourself," Yanay says, "is not what you would feel, but how do you see that these ducks feel." I was not sure what to expect. But what happened next, quite frankly, was anticlimactic.
The feeder sits down on a plastic stool and corrals the ducks behind a piece of plywood to segregate the ducks once he begins to feed them. He picks up a duck by the neck, places it between his legs and carefully slides a stainless steel funnel into the duck's esophagus, which is expandable and lined with cornified epithelium (layers of tough, callous skin). Unlike humans, ducks have no gag reflex.
The feeder then uses a cup to pour a calculated amount of food into the funnel. A small motor inside the funnel turns an auger to distribute the food quickly. Bartholf notes that the ducks can still breathe while the tube is in their mouths because, unlike humans, a duck's windpipe opens in the middle of the tongue. He then removes the tube, moves the duck aside and reaches behind the panel for another duck.
;)
: David Snyder (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION) |
The whole process lasts roughly 15 seconds.
I watched the process over and over — with different feeders and with ducks at various stages of the 28-day cycle — carefully inspecting every angle. It was the same each time: The ducks were unfazed, almost comfortable in the routine.
Was I missing something? The feeding looked nothing like the videos on the activists' web sites or the literature distributed at local protests. There was no regurgitation. No signs of mistreatment. No signs of suffering.
Were the feeders merely on company manners? Unlikely — feeding these ducks appears to be an acquired skill that is not easily faked.
Turns out we weren't the only ones enlightened by the tour. Two weeks earlier, restaurateur Danny Meyer — owner of New York City's Union Square Café and Gramercy Tavern, among other award-winning restaurants — visited Hudson Valley with two of his chefs and one of his general managers. "We felt ignorant having only read and heard things about foie gras production," Meyer shared via e-mail. "We wanted to see the farm for ourselves so that we would be able to intelligently inform ourselves on such a personal choice." After visiting, Meyer says he's comfortable with his restaurants serving foie gras. "Based on what they saw and felt, to a one, every person has chosen to continue to serve foie gras," he added. "Based on what I experienced, I am fully at peace with those choices."
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You Ask We Answer
It was pointed out that the ducks in Hudson Valley Foie Gras are all part of a wonderful tradition spanning through history all the way back to the ancient Egyptian times- Wild ducks and geese did, in fact, engorge themselves before heading out on long migrations.
The problems with this statement are:
1) The ducks imprisoned in HVFG are NON MIGRATORY BIRDS.
2) Wild ducks and geese never gorge themselves up until the point of death before migration. Such extreme behaviors would be physically incapacitating and would be antithetical to their survival. The livers of wild ducks and geese may expand up to twice their normal size, prior to migration, not a ten-fold expansion as found in forced-feeding production.
3) Even if the birds imprisoned at Hudson Valley WERE migratory, they only engorge themselves before long migrations where they need the food in reserves for their long travels: not to be force fed several times a day and have their movements hindered via intense confinement in cages.
Mr. David Snyder tells you, as a matter of fact, that Hudson Valley Foie Gras only force feeds male ducks. Mr. Snyder, Hunter S. Thompson once said, "The basics of journalism is who, what, where, when, why..." Mr. Snyder, did you ask, "WHAT" happens to the female ducks so obviously vacant from the proceedings? Mr. Snyder, was that a female hatchling Ms. McNally was clutching lovingly to her bosom? If it was, it was either drowned or thrown in a dumpster later that day. You see, this is what happens to all female hatchlings on foie gras farms.
Mr. Snyder, did you ask "WHERE" the waste from these thousands of animals is being 'channeled away' to? Perhaps you can inquire with the state of New York- Perhaps you can seek answers from the Humane Society of the United States. Or, perhaps you can ask those who use the Mongaup River as a recreation site... it is quite popular I hear, or was, until Hudson Valley began pouring immense amounts of pollution into it. It also is used as a bald eagle forage site. I was interested to see that your 'unbiased' article left out the court battle between Hudson Valley Foie Gras and H.S.U.S and other environmental protection agencies which ended in this beautiful duck resort of a farm, being fined 30,000 dollars for hundreds upon hundreds of violations of their clean water act permit amongst others.
Mr. Snyder mentioned in the article, that the ducks seemed comfortable and happy and sarcastically stated that the ducks must have been on "company behavior." Well, Mr. Snyder, perhaps the ducks are good actors. Perhaps they were acting in the footage that was obtained of them choking on food, being eaten alive by rats and being unable to escape because their bodies were too diseased to move. Perhaps the article in the health and science section of the Philadelphia Inquirer which pointed out the disastrous effects on the human body from consuming foie gras, which stated that "force feeding makes animals sick," was also incorrect.
But Mr. Snyder and Ms. McNally would like for it to be believed that the 16 countries, who have outlawed foie gras, have it all wrong. Mr. Snyder and Ms. McNally would like for it to be believed that every Whole Foods in the country, who have banned foie gras from their stores, have it all wrong. Mr. Snyder and Ms. McNally would like for it to be believed that the cities that have introduced legislation to have foie gras banned have it all wrong. Apparently, everyone but Mr. Snyder and Ms. McNally are in the dark about foie gras...
Who do you believe. Learn the facts. Read about Hudson Valleys pollution violations. Watch footage of force feeding of ducks for foie gras. Educate yourself and then you decide...
Actually, I did ask Yanay about the female Moulards. They are not drowned or thrown in a dumpster. Yanay explained that he sends them to a client in Trinidad where they are raised for meat. Interestingly, Yanay also says that Hudson Valley sells almost every part of the male Moulard—virtually nothing is wasted. Even the feathers are sold to a company in Chicago to be processed into down.
I, too, have seen the videos and pictures you reference on anti-foie gras web sites. One of the videos I saw depicts a factory farm at which the birds lived in individual cages and were fed with a device that did not regulate the amount of food being delivered to the bird, causing their stomachs to overflow. Such videos and pictures are portrayed as representing the way birds are treated at all foie gras farms. My visit, however, shows that these broad, wholesale generalizations about foie gras production are not supportable. Hudson Valley is not a factory farm and does not feed or treat their ducks the way the video I saw depicts. Instead, it uses what Yanay calls artisanal farming techniques, which I described in my article.
In researching the article, I also interviewed Ariane Daugin, the founder of D’Artagnan—a foie gras purveyor in Newark, New Jersey. Daugin says that all of the foie gras D’Artagnan sells (most of which comes from Hudson Valley) is produced using these artisinal techniques. In other words, it’s fair to say that if the foie gras comes from Hudson Valley or D’Artagnan, it was farmed using the hands-on artisanal techniques I describe in my article.
I’m not familiar with the environmental concerns you raise. But I’m not sure how they inform the issue of whether the feeding techniques Hudson Valley uses are inhumane.
But you’re right, dez, that people should educate themselves on this issue and make their own choices.
Again, thank you for sharing your perspective and allowing these additional points to come to light.
Thank- you for so intelligently, and correctly, responding to this extremely one-sided and bias article. You made almost every point that I came to this website to make!
I would, however, now like to respond to a few of the, uhh points, that Mr. Snyder made in his response to you:
Mr. Snyder--
You mentioned in your response to Dez that the pictures/ videos on anti-foie gras websites were of some other foie gras farm, and that not all of them are the same. Mr. Snyder, there are only two foie Gras farms in the entire United States (Hudson Valley & Sonoma). Of these two, Hudson Valley had previously been raided by the FBI in regards to animal cruelty concerns. I also want to quickly note that in your article you mentioned seeing only 350 birds. Didn't you inquire as to seeing the other hundreds of thousands of birds that were not in the forefront of this pre- scheduled tour?
Also, you wrote,
"I’m not familiar with the environmental concerns you raise. But I’m not sure how they inform the issue of whether the feeding techniques Hudson Valley uses are inhumane."
I doubt that she was making this point to further her argument of animal cruelty. I would assume that she made this point to explain that they are guilty of things that harm both humans and animals. What kind of a reporter chooses not to look into a concern if he is "not familiar" with them? I decided to look into it, and within a day I received a response from the deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, who supplied me with a pretty extensive factsheet regarding HVFG's pollution problem. Did you know that there are more than 850 reported violations against them? http://www.delewareriverkeeper.org
And while I'm at it, "Bryant Amper" ..
I think you embarrassed yourself enough.
This is the face of the modern anti-meat movement: lies and deceit. Hudson Valley has NEVER been raided by the FBI in regards to animal cruelty. The only raids the FBI has made have been in the homes of the food-terrorists who threaten the lives and livelihoods of decent Americans.
"Mr. Snyder, there are only two foie Gras farms in the entire United States (Hudson Valley & Sonoma). "
Are you suggesting that because the US has only two foie gras farms then the videos must by default be from said farms? That seems like an incredible jump in logic. In fact there are hundreds of foie gras farms throughout the world. Judging an entire industry on the worst offender is no better than banning the sale of puppies because puppy mills exist.
"I also want to quickly note that in your article you mentioned seeing only 350 birds. Didn't you inquire as to seeing the other hundreds of thousands of birds that were not in the forefront of this pre- scheduled tour?"
This is of course simply ridiculous. Obviously you're suggesting that behind closed doors there exists a separate world where they treat ducks in a completely different manner, which is of course absurd. Why not address the fact that the mortality rate of ducks raised for foie gras is considerably lower than that of modernly raised chicken? That doesn't quite seem to fit your thesis that foie gras is inherently evil, does it?
The simple fact of the matter is that the anti-meat movement is going after a soft and easily divisive target: foie gras. Foie is essentially a luxury item consumed by a small number of people in the United States. Not many ordinary Joes will stand up in its defense because it's not something they're familiar with. If in fact the anti-meat crowd had any real balls, they'd go after the gigantic factory farms housing pigs and chickens in area such as North Carolina, but they don't. Why? Because if you threatened to remove pork chops and fried chicken from the menus of your average American, he would be incensed.
It's a slippery slope when we start anthropomorphisizing animals. Ducks are not humans. We humans do not routinely swallow moving spiny fish whole. We cannot "think" like a duck, but we can pretend to to erroneous conclusions.
It's time we Americans woke up and realized the true agenda of these food activists. Their goal is the elimination of all animal products from our tables. Foie gras is merely the first step. Pause for a moment to consider what the last step could be.
You ignorant, selfish a**hole (who can't write for shit, P.S.). I hope you get gavaged until your die.
That is certainly a nice idea, but veganism isn't the solution. Unless you can guarantee that all the food you buy is organic, that all imported food fair trade, and all the food that comes from the US is harvested by unionized farm workers or on small, socially conscious farms, you are still supporting environmental destruction and cruelty. As for the environment, the use of pesticides jeopardizes the health of surrounding flora and fauna and generally pollutes the earth. But if you want to talk suffering, just look at the farm workers who supply the agricultural food supply. In the US, 1 in 4 farm workers earn under $10,000 annually, and 3 in 5 families are below the poverty line. Additionally, the majority of these workers have no health care coverage, even in the case of work-related illness. This is especially terrible since farming is a dangerous occupation; the rate of on-the-job fatalities is over 7x higher than other industries. If that's not bad enough, in South America farm workers are paid about $4-$10 a day, and workers who try to organize for more rights will be fired, threatened with violence, or killed. Looking at these conditions makes eat a dollop of foie gras mousse seem much more compassionate than eating a Dole banana.
I'm not advocating that we all boycott produce and become strict carnivores; my point is that the energy spent protesting and legislating foie gras could be invested into much more critical issues.
By the way, I want to point out two more things: Please don't believe everything you hear~ a duck's esophagus isn't naturally callous (though there is a rumor it is!), but it does become callous due to so many force feedings. Also, I, as an animal welfarist, choose pictures to show others that are less gruesome than others I have available b/c I don't want them to think I'm just trying to shock them. And, believe it or not, many pictures on the sign animal protesters carry aren't nearly as bad as others I have seen.