How to get your goose's liver perfect for making Foie Gras
I am assuming the following:
How to force-feed your goose for 23 days
You have to
force-feed your goose for 23 days. The mixture with which the goose will be fed is made by mixing
corn and water, half and half. Simply grind the corn and mix it with an equal amount of water.
The geese are fed 3 times a day. On the first day, feed it 200 grams of the mixture in each feeding. Gradually build it up, so that on the 23rd day, the goose receives 1000 grams in each meal. Feeding is done thus: insert the pipe all the way down the goose's throat, and pump the mixture into the stomach. During this time, you must also keep it in closed quarters so that it cannot move too much and waste energy.
On the 24th day, if it's still alive, you can mercifully kill it and take out it's liver.
Why does the liver become so big?
Foie Gras literally means
fatty liver in French. Because of the
incredible amounts the geese are fed, the
liver becomes diseased. The disease is called
Hepatic Lipidosis. A normal goose liver weighs about 100 grams. A 'good quality' liver for
foie gras weighs about 750-800 grams. That's 8 times the natural size!
Does the goose suffer?
Beside the diseased liver, the constant insertion of the metal or plastic pipe down the
esophagus causes
internal wounds. In addition the goose can hardly move and can hardly breathe, for many reasons, including the wounds in the neck which press on the
windpipe and pressure on the
lungs from the inside, due to the geese's obesity.
Don't be surprised if the goose dies prematurely from suffocation or from a burst stomach.
And let me just quote from some veterinarians:
I just hope you think about this next time you order foie gras.
I got most of my information from an article that was broadcast yesterday on Israeli Television. This is how it is done in Israel. I know for a fact that the method is very similar in other countries. Also, the method of force-feeding ducks is very similar.
Quotes are from www.all-creatures.org