Banning foie gras in the US: Your questions answered

Hi everyone.
Thank you so much for joining this
interview, this call.
Um, I am Sharon Nunez and I am the
co-founder and president of Animal
Equality.
And here with me is Sarah Hanneken who
is Animal Equality's legal advocacy
counsel.
And today we're going to be discussing
and responding to some of the great
questions that our supporters and our
followers have sent us
about about foie gras, about this
incredibly cruel product. But I wanted
to start out
with everyone who's joined knowing a
little more about Sarah, about myself,
and about the work that Animal Equality
does. Uh, so my my first question is for
for you Sarah.
Yesterday you were at the Hawaii state
legislature
testifying against uh, against cages.
You've been behind some of the most
important legal efforts in the country,
supporting some of the most important
legal efforts in the country
to ban cages in the United States. Tell
us about yourself, tell us about your
work and and where what brings you
passion about what you do.
Thanks Sharon. I'm so happy to be here
chatting with everybody answering
questions about foie gras and Animal
Equality's legal advocacy work. Um, so
yes, yesterday I was testifying in
Hawaii so to speak, but I was virtual
sadly.
Um, but that went well. So as legal
advocacy counsel at Animal Equality, I
am in charge of overseeing all of our
programmatic legal work and that
includes both litigation and public
policy work with lawmakers.
Like the ban that we're working on in
Hawaii to try to get the use of battery
cages banned for hens and also the
banning the sale of eggs from caged
hens. So, we're working on those types
of initiatives across the country.
Um
we have some false advertising lawsuits
ongoing um to try to stop companies from
claiming that their products are humane
when they're in fact produced on very
cruel
industrial factory farms. Nothing humane
about them.
Um and yeah, we also um try to hold the
US government accountable for
um
for the laws that they're in in charge
of enforcing um related to humane
slaughter or at least rendering animals
insensitive to pain before they're
killed, which is too often uh not the
case. And so, yeah, we we have our hands
in a lot of things related to farmed
animal welfare and protection. So, um
yeah, it's always a busy day.
You do excellent work and
uh people might might might be hearing
my cat, Glenn, in the background.
There's he's
the door is closed and he he doesn't
like it. So, he will meow throughout the
uh the session. Um I live with two cats,
Linfae and Glenn. One of them actually,
Linfae, I brought over from Spain in
2012. Uh Sierra, do you have any
companion animals, any animals at home?
I do. In fact, my cat, who is also
excluded from my office right now, may
start doing the same thing. I don't know
what it is about cats and closed doors.
They do not like it.
Um but yes, I have a cat, Huxley, and a
dog, Lily. Um Huxley's a relatively new
uh
member of the family. She was abandoned
by a neighbor when they moved away and
she decided to um
be adopted by me. She kind of came and
knocked on the door. If she could not,
she would have just knocked on the door
and said, "Hi, can I live with you now?"
And I said, "Of course.
Of course you can. I think our our
animals are very happy, too, since
Animal Equality is a fully remote
organization, so they can be with us
with us all the time.
Except when the door is closed.
Except when the door when the door is
closed.
I'm I'm Sharon Núñez. I am, as I said at
the beginning, the co-founder and the
president of Animal Equality, and I
oversee Animal Equality's globally
Animal Equality's international work.
Animal Equality works currently in eight
countries, and we have a number of very
very successful legislative initiatives,
corporate initiatives,
and our our
values are compassion, effectiveness,
and determination. We're focused on
farmed animals, and all of the work that
we do really carries these values of
compassion, determination, and
effectiveness, as we as we'll see in in
the case of foie gras, the compassion
for the animals that are trapped in this
system, the determination to change
their lives, and making sure that we're
bringing about through our undercover
investigations, through our legislative
work, meaningful change for for these
animals. So, let's go let's go into the
let's go into the matter.
Before
we go into the questions, I have
actually a couple of reports here in
front of me that I'll be using
throughout the session, but I won't get
too technical. One from the University
of
Cambridge that I think was 2000 2015,
and it provides a lot of information
that I think people are going to find
interesting about just the exploitation
and the welfare problems that foie gras
production
has. But I think one of the most
important thing is that we frame this uh
uh before we go into the questions
talking about the animals, ducks and
geese. And ducks and geese are highly
intelligent, highly complex animals. And
uh they they have a series of of
behaviors that they need to carry out in
order for them to have high levels of
welfare, high levels of satisfaction
with their lives.
Um and one of them is preening, complex
preening behaviors. So cleaning
themselves, making sure they're able to
to to pull bacteria
and bugs out of their bodies. And this
behavior requires uh access to water.
And as we'll see throughout the the
presentation today, as we'll see it
throughout the discussion today,
um
throughout foie gras production, it is
incredibly difficult for these highly
complex, highly intelligent animals to
have even the minimum welfare
requirements uh covered and taken care
of, specially during
uh force feeding. So um I wanted to give
that frame. I think it's always very
very important to to talk about the
individuals and the the complexity of
these individuals that we're
uh that we're discussing and that we're
protecting. And with that um the the
first question is uh for you, Sarah. Uh
what is foie gras? And uh just talk to
us a little bit about the product. What
is foie gras?
Sure. So foie gras is an incredibly
cruel product that is often served as a
delicacy
um
at expensive restaurants um
among like very
elite classes. It's it's not a food that
anyone is using to feed their families.
Um
it's produced from the diseased enlarged
liver of a duck or a goose that is um
um, intentionally diseased. It's not
foie gras off, it doesn't get um,
diseased, become um,
fatty or um, the medical terminology for
it is hepatic lipidosis.
Um, and it's it gets this way by
severely overfeeding the the birds by
um, taking a rigid tube and shoving it
down their throats multiple times a day
for weeks on end until they consume so
many more calories than their bodies
actually need that the excess fat is
stored in their liver. And this has all
sorts of severe welfare implications
causing them a lot of suffering. Again,
it's incredibly cruel and it's a
completely unnecessary product. It's not
even it has no nutritional value. It's
um, it's it's just an abomination. It
shouldn't exist.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks so much. And the
fact that people uh, are consuming a
diseased liver and you mentioned it,
right? With hepatic steatosis.
Um, I actually just pulled out from from
this report from uh, the University of
of Cambridge because
it's it's really important that we
establish uh, Sarah's doing the cruelty
of of this product. It says uh, "Ducks
show a range of behavioral responses to
force-feeding, increased agitation uh,
for the first 3 days. Uh, so they're
agitated. Um,
uh, wing flapping, uh, head shaking,
uh, and of course as I was saying their
grooming and preening uh, preening
behavior specially when they're in cages
and that's something that Animal
Equality has documented in Spain how
during the force-feeding period ducks
are kept in in in cages.
Um, these animals are are are stuffing
in ways that are excruciating. And
actually uh, it's the enlargement of the
of the liver, but also this causes
expansion expansion, sorry, of the
abdomen,
making it difficult for the birds to
walk.
And of course, there's also and this is
something that we've documented in our
undercover investigations, there's the
scarring of the esophagus because of the
tube. And we've actually documented how
there is blood
because of this scarring of the of the
esophagus. So,
this this is established. It's
established by numerous by a
consensus that this is an incredibly
cool product. And I wanted to ask you a
Sierra Bears, we're going to go into
some of the questions that our
supporters
have sent, but I wanted to ask you to
clarify the difference between the ban
on production and the ban
on sale
because this is something that will help
throughout the discussion for
our followers and our supporters to
understand where where we're standing
exactly and what animal welfare quality
is working for.
Sure, happy to clarify. So, in the
various
cities, states, and countries that have
banned foie gras,
they've taken different approaches to
this ban. In some places, they have
banned the actual production of it. So,
focusing on the force-feeding process as
being inhumane, cruel, and outlining
that practice in and of itself. And so,
because it can be very difficult to
produce foie gras, if not impossible,
without this practice, that essentially
bans the production of foie gras by
banning the practice of force-feeding.
Other places, and some of the same
places that have banned the production,
have decided to ban the sale of foie
gras that comes from force-fed birds,
which again is pretty much all foie
gras.
So,
some places have banned the production
and the sale, some places have only
banned the sale, and then some places
like the UK have only banned the
production. Of course, we would like to
see both production and sale banned
everywhere, and that's why
um
the the focus on the the sales ban
component is so important because foie
gras is not produced in as many places
as it is sold, right? It's produced in
several places around the world, and
then it's shipped all over the world to
be sold. So, the sales ban component is
especially important in our mind.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I wanted to
also give an overview of what are some
of the countries that have banned
foie gras. So, we have a unique case
that is India. India has banned, and
it's the first country in the world to
ban the importation of foie gras. So,
I'll I'll go into a little bit of detail
about that when we speak about Animal
Equality's work and efforts because this
is a direct response, or this is a this
is directly related to Animal Equality's
work in our in our team
in India. The production of foie gras
is banned in Australia, Argentina, and
Israel.
And in Europe, instead of saying the
countries where the production of foie
gras is banned, I'll say the five
countries that are still producing foie
gras.
And that is Belgium, Bulgaria, France,
Hungary,
and Spain. And it's interesting because
90% of the production worldwide of foie
gras is produced in Europe, and of that
90% 75%
is is is produced is produced in France.
So, these are some of the these are some
of the the the the numbers and and the
countries where
foie gras has been has been banned and I
think in the next in the next few years
we'll see bans in more countries.
I did want to point out also that
unfortunately just very very recently
actually last month the European
Parliament
voted in favor of foie gras production
which is really outrageous taking into
account that so many countries within
within the European Union so many member
states of the European Union has banned
the production of foie gras. And and
this also talks about the necessity of
more awareness. I mean more
investigations
and as we're doing at Animal Equality
collecting signatures in the UK we've
already collected 260,000
signatures. Of course the UK isn't part
of
the the European Union at the moment but
we are petitioning the UK government to
ban the sale sorry the importation of
foie gras.
And here in the US we've already
collected over I think it's 15,000
signatures. So I just want to make sure
that anyone who's seeing this please go
and sign the petition. This is really
important for our efforts. So
another question that I'll go into one
of the questions that we've received
from from our audience and then we can
go
back and forth is
what what can people what can people do?
Right? I think that's what everyone's
thinking and then I'll read
a question specifically from Barbara.
She says how widespread is the terrible
force-feeding practice in the US? I
assume that the food products of this
practice are available in each state,
but does force-feeding itself occur
state by state or only in some?
I'm in Virginia and wondering about
locally. Sarah, how what would you
answer, Barbara?
Sure, thanks for that question, Barbara.
So,
you're correct that foie gras is sold
widely. I kind of mentioned this before,
right? It's produced in a couple places
around the world, but then it's sold
widely.
In the US, currently the only state that
has banned the sale of foie gras is
California, and then New York City has
also banned the sale. So, anywhere else
in the country, unfortunately, the sale
of foie gras is
continues to be legal. Within the US,
the only foie gras producers are in
upstate New York.
So, in Virginia, as far as anybody
knows, there's no foie gras production
happening. However, I
am very certain that it's being sold
somewhere in your state.
And so, what I would recommend if you
want to get involved, focus locally. I
think that's incredibly important
because the issue of animal welfare and
protection in the US typically happens
at the state level and the level of city
governments. So, and that's good news in
a way because that means because it's
much more plausible to get legislative
change done at the state and local
level. So, in if you're in Virginia or
wherever
other listeners are based, if you want
to work on this issue in your state,
talk to your state lawmakers, talk to
your city council members.
We have We also have materials. You can
reach out to us if you would like any
sort of um
lobbying materials, fact sheets, you
know, model legislation.
We can We want to support these efforts
all over the country to ban the
production and sale of force-fed foie
gras. So, um just definitely, you know,
get involved. That's how these things
happen.
Awesome. So, and and people can reach
out to you, Sarah, right? If they have
um if they have questions or
and they want support. Um okay, I'm I'm
going to talk a little bit about the
progress that Animal Equality has made
cuz we before we go into another
question for Sarah, that is what Animal
Equality is trying to accomplish. So,
Animal Equality has been working on foie
gras to ban foie gras
since 2012.
Um investigations
showing what happens inside factory
farms and slaughterhouses, this is at
the core of who Animal Equality is as an
organization and what we do as an
organization. And that's how we started
our foie gras work.
We carried out foie gras investigations
in Spain
and in the southwest of France. We
actually investigated four farms in the
southwest of France and five farms in
Catalonia that is in the north north
east of Spain.
Um what we found is
really terrible. I mean, and there's
there's a picture there was a video
preparing for this meeting. I was
looking through our investigations and
our investigation footage again.
And in the case of Spain, you can see
ducks that are confined in these cages
where they literally can't move. This
isn't they barely can't move. This is
they literally cannot move. Um and one
of the ducks had had
the beak broken and it was bleeding.
And this animal was still being
force-fed. So, the the level of the
level of cruelty is is is is really
really
really extraordinary.
So with these undercover investigations
in France and Spain, we managed to get
media coverage throughout Europe
and there was a number of significant
changes thanks to these releases. The
talk again about the importance of
investigations in Italy. Coop, that is
one of the largest retailers in the
country, saw the footage and immediately
decided to to stop selling foie gras.
And perhaps the most interesting case
study is the case of India where
our
our executive director, one of our
directors in India, Amruta Bale, worked
with lawyers and worked with government
officials, showed them the footage of
what was happening inside these foie
gras farms in France and Spain and
managed to get a ban on the importation
of foie gras in the country, the first
one
in the world. And then in the UK, there
was a number of
of restaurants that stopped selling foie
gras. Of course, it's very important to
point out that the work must continue.
We will continue
showing the footage. We will continue
collecting
these signatures. Again, people need to
sign going to animalquality.org
and sign the petition.
This is some of the historic work that
Animal Equality has been doing to ban
foie gras to ban forced feeding
throughout the last 10 years. And I
wanted to ask you Sarah as you're
heavily involved in this work too and
and you've accomplished
quite a bit supporting other
organizations. What are we trying to
accomplish nationwide with our foie gras
campaign?
Yeah, so
a big part of it is raising awareness. I
can tell you just in talking to
lawmakers Um, and individual community
members, a lot of people don't know what
foie gras is, and I think that part of
that goes back to what I mentioned in
the beginning that it is um considered a
luxury item. It's not accessible to most
people anyway, and those um who do
access it, you know, certainly don't
need it. Um,
so a lot of people just don't really
understand what it is. They may have
heard about it before, but don't quite
understand how it's produced. So,
through this campaign we're educating
people, but then we're also collecting
signatures that we can use in future
efforts to get the product banned um in
individual states or in individual
cities across the US.
Um, we'll be um
taking So, when when you sign the
petition, you put your zip code in, and
with that information we can see, okay,
so we have this many signers from this
state or this many signers from this
city.
And that's really important data to have
so that when we talk to lawmakers, we
can go to our petition, you know, filter
by location and count how many people
have signed from a given um a given
place. And that that's the type of
information that state and local
lawmakers really care to know. So, um by
signing and putting in your zip code,
that is giving us really important
ammunition to um make sure that we can
show lawmakers that people do care about
this issue, and people want to see this
product banned everywhere.
Thank you, Sarah. Uh we have a question
from uh Denise that I think um I can
answer. Uh Denise asks, "Where do people
order this on their menu restaurants?
Expose them." Thanks for your question,
Denise. Yes, we we will continue to
expose animal cruelty uh worldwide. Um
it's as simple as that it's in in the
menus that you can you can order in
restaurants and places that sell foie
gras, you can order foie gras. Um I
think that in terms of um
of actions that can be taken in this
case, you can you know, you can always
uh speak with the manager and and talk
about or send them a letter, a very
educated letter talking to them about
the cruelty uh behind foie gras. And
actually, this was very successful for
Animal Equality
um in in in the UK where our our
uh our our advocates uh with the footage
sent the footage to some of the some of
the restaurants um and many of the
restaurants decided to take it off take
it off their menu. So, uh sometimes, you
know, we can all assert a thing, we can
all take uh local action. Sarah, do you
have any more advice for for Denise?
Yeah, I mean, just again, to reiterate,
you know, there's so many things that as
individual activists we can do to um
stop the
sale of this product and ultimately, you
know,
um
stop the demand for it, which will
you know, stop the production. And part
of that includes working with lawmakers,
like I said, but another part of it is
having conversations um
with restaurant owners and grocery
stores that do sell this product. You
know, obviously, you want to be very
polite and professional and have your
talking points all, you know, ready to
go, but a lot of times people just need
to be informed and I think um there's a
lot of
people have a lot of respect for
um individuals who, you know, are able
to uh clearly and politely articulate,
you know, their concerns about a
product. So, you know, don't be shy um
when it comes to raising awareness and
you know, raising your voice against
this cruelty.
Awesome. And another question for you,
Sarah, from Catherine. I live in Canada
and I want to know what I can do.
Yeah, so Canada unfortunately is um one
place that does produce a lot of foie
gras.
Um
I would say again it's going to be
it's going to require a combination of
both conversations with lawmakers,
um talk to your elected officials about
this issue and that you know,
um you really don't think that the
production of foie gras is something
that should be continuing in your
province and um
see what they say about um
pursuing a ban on the production of the
foie gras through force-feeding.
You can give them examples of all the
other countries around the world that
have banned the production and or sale
of it. Um and then also um again, see if
you can find out where it's being sold
and have conversations with those
retailers, those restaurant owners and
see if you can convince any of them that
this is a cruel product that simply
doesn't belong on any menu or on in any
grocery store aisle.
Um so it just again comes comes back to
raising your voice um with individuals
who have the power to make decisions to
to stop this practice or stop the sale.
And there's so much footage out there
that people can also use as part of
their advocacy. There was the
investigations that Animal Equality has
done, but I also want to point out to
our friends from L214 in France that
have been working
uh on this issue for for years and they
have very, very powerful
uh footage of of of of foie gras uh in
in in France. And and I think that, you
know, an image speaks a thousand words
and when you see some of this footage,
when you see this
duck stuck in a cage
uh that's that can barely move and the
only thing that happens to this animal
twice a day is that there's a tube that
is going down their esophagus and and
and they're force-fed. And I also wanted
I had something here that really shocked
me as I was reading this report. Uh and
it talks about the the behavior of of a
duck specifically and how they come to
fear humans that are force-feeding them.
And it says they show panic and flight
responses to the approach of humans. Um
because they know that they're they're
going to hurt them, right? Um so this is
not the relation that we should be
having with non-human animals. And we
should be working very hard to try to
avoid this and other
absolutely horrific practices. Um
another question for you, Sarah, which I
think I think you'll you'll like. It's
from Melinda and she says, "How do I get
my senators and representatives to enact
a ban on this terrible practice? And
what part of the government do I I
address to it?"
Yeah, great question. So you'll want to
talk to your state elected officials,
especially if you want to
um get a ban on the sale and production
of it. Depending on where you live, it
probably is not being produced there at
um
in your state because like I said, it's
only currently in the in the US only
being produced in New York's in New York
state. But um individual states can
still enact a ban on the production of
it. You never know when a foie gras
producer might decide to establish
themselves in you know, in another state
if it's legal there. And so um it's good
to pursue a ban on production and a ban
on the sale. And so you would want to
find out who are your elected officials?
Who represents you in the state Senate
and the state assembly or the state
house? And there's there's different
tools you can use online to look up who
your elected officials are at the state
level. Um like I said, you also should
strongly consider reaching out to local
government officials because local
governments um
many of them do have the power to ban
the sale of foie gras within your city
or county.
So I would recommend that you look into
doing that as well.
Um and yeah, please reach out to me if
you need any additional guidance or
talking points um or materials.
And at the end, we'll make sure everyone
knows how they they can reach out to
you, Sarah, and to um Animal um
Equality. Um okay, I think we have time
for a couple of uh more questions. Um
I I I'm going to We have a question from
Ralph uh Sarah that I think we can both
answer.
Uh thanks, Ralph, for your question.
It's how can we make sure we get this
message across to the right audience?
And how can we, advocates and
volunteers, get the right tools to
explain in detail what foie gras
consists of in order to be presented to
our audiences?
Um I'll I'll go first. Uh
I think that
the most important thing as Sarah is
saying is the information, right? I
mean,
it it's very clear. Foie gras is abuse
and it's cruelty. It's a diseased liver.
It's an animal that we've made sick uh
through cruel ways to consume a part of
this animal's body, right? Uh and
actually uh Animal Equality did a
necropsy of a forced-fed duck uh a few
years uh ago that had died at a farm.
And uh what we found uh was that the
liver of this duck was 10 times bigger
than a healthy one. Uh can can we can we
all imagine living
uh you know, with with with these kind
of uh liver uh diseases and and liver
problems? And this is what we're doing
uh to to these uh poor animals. Uh so
information making sure that we know the
information well but we're ready to
explain it. Um and also using
different platforms to to get the
information out to us. Social media uh
you know emails and and making sure that
we're also having conversations with uh
if if I don't know Ralph where where you
live and if in your city there's
restaurants that are selling foie gras.
As we're saying a very polite letter
conversation about the cruelty that is
inflicted maybe a dossier that and we
can help you we can provide you with
this uh that shows the images that
animal equality and other organizations
that do undercover investigations have
found. And I I I think I always say that
being an advocate being an activist
means that we're we have to be optimist.
We have to believe that people can
change. We've already seen so much
change. So it's just having those
conversations in a very polite manner
and encouraging people to do the right
thing. Sarah what would you add to that
about our audiences?
Yeah, I think all of those points you
just made are very good ones.
It's definitely important again I want
to emphasize the importance of being a a
good advocate also means presenting
yourself well not getting angry not
yelling not using various verbal tactics
that immediately cause people to shut
down. Right you need to understand where
the person you're talking to is coming
from and start there meet them where
they are at and then you know
don't don't speak to them in a way that
will cause them to get defensive you
know basically
it it it takes some practice and it
takes um
sometimes checking our own emotions,
because I know that we're all very
passionate about these issues. But,
being able to stay calm and um
just stay respectful in talking to
people about about these issues. That's
really how we can be the most effective,
right? It's not about feeling right.
It's not about winning an argument. It's
about um bringing a person along with
you on a journey and helping them just,
you know,
feel the same level of compassion that
you currently feel. So, yeah. Thank you
for your question.
Awesome. Um
I think we can um
start closing the the questions and
answers. Sarah, is there anything uh
that you would want to add? And how can
people find out more about the work that
you're doing? And how can they reach you
if they have questions?
Sure. Yeah, there are a lot of resources
that exist on Animal Equality's website
uh related to this topic. So, if it's
something that you would like to get in
um involved in in your state or your
city, and um you are not sure where to
start, you can go to our website,
animalequality.org, and also reach out
to me. My email um is s a r a h h at
animalequality.org,
um my first name and last initial.
And uh yeah, if you just Google Animal
Equality foie gras, that that should
take you to some of our resources, and
I'm happy happy to provide others and
chat with anybody over email or Zoom um
if this is something that you would like
to help us out with.
Thank you so much, and I just want to
remind everyone, please go into our
website, animalequality.org,
and sign uh the petition. This is
incredibly important to allow Animal
Equality and Sarah to be able to uh to
work to continue to to uh to ban foie
gras. Uh Uh and uh thank you so much
everyone for listening. We will continue
working to protect uh and to the lives
of farmed animals worldwide and to make
sure that we're passing legislation
uh and corporate policies that truly
protect
uh these uh abused animals. And uh thank
you thank you so much. It's been a real
pleasure and please reach out to us if
you have any questions. We're committed
to banning foie gras in the US and
worldwide and we know that we count with
everyone's support. Thank you so much.
Thank you.