Ethical Non Force-Fed Foie Gras
The tradition of making foie gras has been in the Sousa family since 1812 when they the learnt how to rear free-range geese to obtain foie gras thanks to their migratory cycle.
On Eduardo Sousa's farm in western Spain, his geese are raised free-range. To obtain a good foie gras the geese must enjoy the same quality of life as if they had complete freedom. Eduardo has to endeavour if the animals decide to stay at the farm as they are totally free and can leave whenever they want, the only way of achieving that is by ensuring their well-being. The geese are in command, not the farmer.
Ethical foie gras is a seasonal foie gras. It is only available at the time of year that geese need to reinforce their metabolism and get enough energy to migrate back to the north. The farm is located in a unique biographical enclave in Europe, in the middle of the European Atlantic migration corridor, it's like a bird's migration highway that comes from the north of Europe; Denmark, Finland and Sweden. The metabolic basis that the geese archive for migration mainly comes from acorns, the rest of the year they eat grass, yellow lupins that give the liver a similar pigmentation as corn.
Traditionally foie gras was only eaten during Christmas, whenever the weather and nature made it possible and it was like a prize, a gift for all the hard work of the year.
Most of the world's production of foie gras is obtained using the 'gavage' method. This means that the animals are force-fed during the last 2-3 weeks of the lives in confined cages on big industrial farms. Their food is a paste made of fat, corn and in most cases additives and they get a forced growth of their liver regardless of the season.
