In order to justify the barbaric practice of force-feeding, the foie gras industry has generated a number of lies to feed to the media and public. Here are some of the most notorious and explanations of why they are false.

LIE #1: Force feeding mimics natural gorging of birds before migration.

FACT: Ducks used in foie gras production are of a species that does not migrate. No duck in the wild would ever consume as much food as these ducks are forced to consume in a day, let alone for two to three weeks. The goal of foie gras production is to increase the fat content of the liver so dramatically that veterinarians consider it a disease, "hepatic lipidosis." The livers of force fed ducks become so large that they cannot stand or walk properly.

LIE #2: Force feeding does not injure the birds because they have hardened esophagi.

FACT: This is a lie. Ducks do not have hardened esophagi, as explained in a letter to the editor appearing in the Albany Times Union on May 28, 2004 by Holly Cheever, DVM, a veterinarian who graduated from Harvard University in the top one percent of her class, graduated first in her class at Cornell Univerisity College of Veterinary Medicine, and has won numerous awards for her work in the past 20 years educating New York State Police about prosecuting animal cruelty cases. Here are the relevant excerpts:

The ducks' esophagi are not naturally "calcified," as Izzy Yanay [co-owner of Hudson Valley Foie Gras] mistakenly claims, but are just as delicate and subject to traumatic injury as ours. Nor do they naturally gorge themselves for migration to this degree in the wild -- the other oft-cited defense.

Since migration is an athletic event like no other, wild birds could hardly migrate with the diseased livers seen in their force-fed relatives (Moulards are the hybrid product of a nonmigrating species, anyway).

I praise Assemblyman Jack McEneny for tying to outlaw this barbaric practice in our state. I suggest that consumers think twice before biting into liver spread on toast.

HOLLY CHEEVER, DVM

LIE #3: Ducks enjoy being force fed because they run to the feeders.

FACT: This is the most offensive of the many lies appearing in Michael Ginor's book, "Foie Gras, a Passion." There is simply not a grain of truth in this statement, and it is all the more offensive since Ginor keeps most of the ducks at Hudson Valley Foie Gras in isolation cages so they can't move anyway. The Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare of the European Union observed that in contrast to ordinary hand-fed ducks, who do run to be fed, force-fed ducks try to get away from the feeder as much as possible, and this behavior has been documented in controlled scientific studies as well (click here to read the full report).