Humane Foie Gras?

I just watched a video excerpt of British chef Gordon Ramsay's TV show The F Word on You Tube.

A woman, noticing that Chef Ramsay served foie gras at all of his restaurants on every menu, attempted to get Ramsay to change his ways and serve an ethically-produced foie gras that she had heard about from Spain.

After visiting a foie gras farm in France (the traditional one), and the one in Spain (the ethical one), she tasted both and declared that the Spanish farm's product has "all the taste and none of the cruelty" of the traditional French method.

However, in a blind taste test, Ramsay noted that the ethically-produced one had a different (and less-desirable) taste and texture than the one he normally serves. He did state that the geese that supply his livers for the foie gras were "half-forced" fed and treated humanely. I'd like to see a video of his supplier's farm, though, to compare!

The video of the French farm certainly didn't seem to treat the geese humanely, as they were kept indoors in a small pen, and the force-feeding definitely appeared to be cruel. The livers that came out of the geese were huge!

At the Spanish farm, the geese were clearly raised humanely, living outdoors in an orchard (definitely free range); I believe they may have even been semi-wild geese, as they appeared to be free to fly/migrate away if they were to so choose. The livers that came out of those geese, however, were much smaller (by at least half to two-thirds) than the French geese. But, this shows to me that the farmer was more concerned with the ethical treatment of his animals than a larger potential profit on his product.

I'm not sure if I've ever even eaten foie gras, but it does sound tasty. I'd like to see if it is available locally in its humane form. It does have that ethical dilemma, however, hanging over the product, much like veal (which can be raised humanely, just not by CAFOs).

The TV show is excellent, by the way, in that it shows the process of [humanely] raising livestock (tukreys, pigs, and sheep) all the way through to the slaughter of them; even PETA supported the showing of the entire process on the show. It will definitely make you a vegetarian if you can't stand it. One can only imagine the horror of a industrial slaughterhouse...