“Since I saw how it was produced, I stopped consuming it.” This is a phrase that I have heard many times and it is a common reaction when someone discovers what force-feeding to produce foie gras consists of: for two weeks, the ducks are force-fed by inserting a 30-centimeter metal tube through their esophagus, forcing them to eat up to 2 kilos of corn a day. It is as if we are forced to eat 12 kilos of food a day.
During this brutal process, many suffer injuries to the esophagus, infections and breathing difficulties, dying within two weeks. Force feeding turns the liver into a completely diseased organ, reaching up to ten times its natural weight.
If these animals were not sacrificed, they would die. The condition to which they bring their bodies is incompatible with life.
In research we have carried out for years on Spanish and French farms, we have documented the cruelty of this practice. We have recorded ducks with broken beaks, bloody, without receiving veterinary care. Dead ducks, which have not endured the process, and others with difficulty breathing. We even recorded the owner of a farm, which supplied Mugaritz – considered one of the best restaurants in the world – boasting that she slaughtered the ducks without stunning them because this way she obtained better quality foie.
The Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Welfare of the European Union considers that force-feeding these birds harms their well-being.
It is one of the cruelest practices in the livestock industry, and it is already banned in 18 countries. Denmark, Finland, Argentina, Sweden, Ireland, Norway, Germany and the United Kingdom have already left this animal abuse behind. The Government of India banned the import of this product in 2014 thanks to an Animal Equality campaign, becoming the first country to take this measure. In 2019 it was banned in California, and New York City banned both its production and sale.
On the other hand, Spain is one of the only five countries in Europe that still allows this cruelty. For years, we have wanted to make this problem visible with our research, bringing to the media the reality of abuse that more than a million ducks and geese experience every year in Spain to produce foie gras. And, as the Eurobarometer and all relevant surveys indicate, force-feeding is a practice that causes rejection in society.
The time has come to take the debate to the institutions, to the legislative sphere. For this reason, on October 8th we delivered more than 100,000 signatures in the Congress of Deputies, demanding that the Government put an end to forced feeding for the production of foie gras.
The debate continues and just a few days ago, the Sumar Parliamentary Group, through the deputy of Sumar Nahuel González and the representative of Verdes Equo in the Parliamentary Group in Congress, Mar González, has registered questions regarding prohibiting this cruel practice in Spain.
In the letter they ask the Government to clarify its position regarding force-feeding and whether it intends to address legislative reforms to prohibit it, and they ask if the Government has considered the exclusion of foie gras from official banquets and receptions, specifying it in public contracts. with catering companies.
This Government claims to be the most progressive in history, a claim that cannot coexist with allowing a practice as anachronistic and atrocious as force-feeding.
The time has come to demand progress and political will in the advancement of animal protection, which is the advance towards a more empathetic and less violent society.
#Cruelty #tube
