Ducks Shouldn't Suffer for Doughnuts

Top contender for Most Disturbing Food of the Month: foie gras doughnuts from Do or Dine restaurant in Brooklyn. That's right—fried dough coupled with diseased, fatty duck liver. Want a stomach pump with that?

To produce foie gras, workers ram metal pipes down the throats of ducks and geese and force-feed them until their livers swell to up to 10 times their normal size. The animals commonly suffer ruptured organs, bruised and broken bills, and severe neck wounds. The cruel process is banned in many countries as well as in California. While it is legal in New York, an online petition against Do or Dine's disgusting doughnuts has already garnered hundreds of signatures.

New Yorkers aren't the only ones in a flap over duck abuse. A major food festival in Germany that has banned foie gras is catching flack from France, where most foie gras is produced. But festival organizers, backed by animal advocates, are holding firm.

Unfortunately, ducks and geese aren't faring so well on Royal Caribbean cruises, which continue to serve, and Gelson's Markets, which continues to sell, foie gras. Please take a moment to urge the cruise line to toss this epicurean atrocity overboard, and ask Gelson's Market to take foie gras off the shelves for good.

Written by Michelle Sherrow