What is foie gras? How is it produced?

Foie gras is a luxury food product made of the liver of a duck or goose that has been specially fattened. Its flavor is described as rich, buttery, and delicate, unlike that of an ordinary duck or goose liver.

To produce foie gras, workers ram pipes down the throats of male ducks twice each day, pumping up to 2.2 pounds of grain and fat into their stomachs, or geese three times a day, up to 4 pounds daily. The force-feeding causes the birds’ livers to swell up to 10 times their normal size.