Compassionate viewers, this is the Stop Animal Cruelty series on Supreme Master Television.
Foie gras, or duck liver, is regarded by some as a traditional delicacy, but do those who consume this horrific product really know how it is produced?

On today’s program we’ll present excerpts from the documentary film “Force Feeding Under Scrutiny” produced by Stop Gavage,also known as The French Citizen’s Initiative to Ban Force Feeding, a non-profit group dedicated to abolishing the production and consumption of foie gras.
In making the film Stop Gavage collaborated with the Animal Protection and Rescue League (USA) and Compassion in World Farming – France (PMAF).

Force feeding under Scrutinyan investigation in the southwest of France, land of the foie gras tradition
Narrator (f): More than 80 % of the global production of foie gras comes from France. Each year 17,000 tons of foie gras are sold in France, which amounts to the organs of 30-million birds every year.
This is more than the number of pigs and cattle slaughtered for food.

gender selection

Narrator (f): The ducklings start their lives in artificial hatcheries. They are the resulting offspring from breeding a common duck to a Barbary duck. Their species, called “Mule Duck,” is sterile and does not exist naturally.

Narrator (f): As soon as they are born, the ducklings are separated into males and females.  This allows the breeder to discard the females and keep the males only. The (male) liver is said to be of “superior quality.”

A: This one is a male. See the appendage?
B: He’s a male, (OK)
A: This one is a female. See? There’s nothing there.

Radio program hosted by food critic Jean-Pierre Coffe France Inter, November 2004

C:Only the male ducks are force-fed, (A: only the males) not the females, right?
A: That’s because the females’ liver is far more venous.
B(male):What becomes of the females, then?
A: The females, well let’s say they are discarded when they’re young.I mean, they are not used for duck production
C: But you don’t kill them, though? What do you do?
A: Well, I couldn’t exactly… I think we kill most of them.
C: Really?

Narrator (f):The female ducks are thrown onto the middle conveyor belts from where they fall into different boxes. French legislation allows for them to be ground up alive, slowly suffocated inside plastic bags, (or)gassed with carbon dioxide.