Foie gras production involves force-feeding ducks and geese to massively enlarge their livers, a practice banned in the UK but still imported, raising welfare concerns about a product with documented severe harm.
Foie gras welfare harm is among the most thoroughly documented in animal agriculture. Force-feeding causes oesophageal injury, difficulty breathing from enlarged liver pressing against lungs, and locomotion difficulty. Birds show clear behavioural indicators of aversion and distress associated with the gavage process. The hepatic steatosis (fatty liver disease) induced is a pathological condition that would be fatal if production continued longer. Despite UK production being banned on welfare grounds, imports remain legal, allowing consumers to purchase a product that could not be legally produced domestically. Calls for an import ban parallel the logic of the UK fur farming ban.