California Decides to Permanently Pull Foie Gras Off the Menu

October 8, 2004

Late this summer, when the California legislature forwarded a bill to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to ban the sale and production of foie gras, it was not exactly clear that the issue was even a tiny blip on the governor’s radar. In fact, press reports seemed to indicate that Schwarzenegger had lumped the foie gras legislation into a batch of bills he deemed silly and not worth his attention in this time of tough budget decisions.

But then on September 29, just one day before the deadline, Schwarzenegger surprised the animal welfare community by signing the foie gras bill into law. California instantly became the first state to adopt such a law—even though the law will allow the Golden State nearly eight years to implement it.

Schwarzenegger’s surprisingly strong support of the law echoed the backing that the bill has received during its passage through California’s legislature. The Assembly voted 46-28 in favor of the bill, and the Senate voted 21-12. The bill was championed by sponsor Senator John Burton (D-San Francisco), who stated, "We just shouldn't be cramming a tube down a duck's throat and forcing in food to make foie gras," and that foie gras production is "an inhumane process that other countries have sensibly banned. I'm pleased California will be next on the list."

This strong support reflects the large-scale disdain that the general public has for foie gras. A Zogby International poll found that more than three out of four voters (77%) agreed the process of force-feeding ducks and geese to produce foie gras should be banned in the United States. “All this is a testament to the indefensible and brutal nature of foie gras production, and the passage of the bill represents an unprecedented victory for animals,” says Michael Appleby, vice president of The HSUS’s Farm Animals and Sustainable Agriculture section.

What’s In a Name?

Translated from French, "foie gras" literally means “fat liver,” which tells you nothing about how a bird’s organ actually gets that way. The feeding procedure involves forcing a tube down a duck’s or goose’s throat two or three times each day in order to deliver substantially more food than the bird would voluntarily consume. The tubing can cause painful bruising, lesions, and even perforations of the esophagus. The massive increase in high energy food causes the liver to swell up to ten times its normal size.

This swelling is commonly considered a pathological state called hepatic lipidosis or fatty liver disease. The breakdown in liver function must cause the bird to feel very ill. The dramatic increase in liver size also makes walking and breathing difficult for the animal. Mortality levels increase, and all the birds would soon die if the butcher didn’t intervene first.

Even Guillermo Gonzalez, owner of Sonoma Foie Gras, California’s lone foie gras producer, admitted that force-feeding “would kill the ducks if he didn’t send them to slaughter first,” according to an interview with an ABC-TV affiliate in Los Angeles. In another interview with the San Jose Mercury News, Gonzalez admitted that “the image of using a tube to deliver the feed into a duck body is not a pretty picture,'' but claimed ducks were adapted to it.

Gonzalez’s California farm, near Stockton, is one of only three American companies that produce foie gras. The other two are Hudson Valley Foie Gras and La Belle Poultry, both located in New York.

Investigations of foie gras production facilities provide a rare glimpse into this ugly world. In 1992 a police raid on a New York state foie gras producer resulted in cruelty charges. Necropsies taken of the dead birds revealed many painful conditions: The force-fed birds had chronic heart disorders, ruptured liver cell membranes, cirrhosis, traumatic esophagitis, and lesions in their gizzards and intestines. Dead birds were found with food filling their throats and spilling out of their nostrils.

Eleven years later, in 2003, Farm Sanctuary, an animal advocacy organization, requested that the San Joaquin County California District Attorney investigate Sonoma Foie Gras for alleged violations of the state's animal cruelty statute. Farm Sanctuary provided the attorney with evidence that showed filthy ducks, bloodied ducks, ducks unable to stand or walk, ducks having difficulty breathing, and dead ducks lying in cages among those still clinging to life. This evidence added to the pressure that finally led to the bill being passed.

Force Feeding Their Opinions

As the fracas over California’s foie gras legislation erupted, everyone became an expert, forcing their opinion into the public forum, no matter how self-interested it was. For example, Alice Waters, the famous chef and owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, told Reuters, "There are a lot more important things to focus on. Ducks already feed themselves in a gorging way before they migrate."

This argument was echoed regularly by those who opposed the bill, even though, as The HSUS’s Appleby noted, it was self-evidently false. “If it was correct,” stated Appleby who testified before the California Senate in support of the bill, “foie gras could be produced by imitating the conditions that stimulate migration and simply feeding birds ad libitum. Instead, birds are fed considerably more than they would eat voluntarily. Under natural conditions the liver never increases by more than twice in size.”

Because of its inherent cruelty, foie gras production is losing favor worldwide. In 2003, Israel, the world’s forth-largest producer, banned the production method because of the animal suffering it causes. More than a dozen other countries— Denmark, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic among them—have also banned foie gras production, either explicitly or because its production contravenes their cruelty laws.

The Compromise

To help push the foie gras bill through the California legislature, lawmakers had to soften the blow to Guillermo Gonzalez’s Sonoma Foie Gras—a gesture that likely had as much to do with politics as with business, since closing down a Salvadorian immigrant’s business could have had ramifications among California’s large Hispanic voting bloc. That is no doubt the reason why the new law includes a 7 ½-year phase out period before it takes effect.

While the delay is unfortunate, the legislation would have likely gone down in flames had the grace period not been included. Yes, the ban on foie gras production and sales will take longer than animal advocates would like, but the end result will be the same: California will join an expanding humane community that wants to pull foie gras from the menu permanently.

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