{"id":24636,"date":"2025-03-25T14:00:05","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T15:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24636"},"modified":"2025-03-25T15:30:47","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T15:30:47","slug":"foie-gras-that-skips-the-force-feeding-is-developed-by-physicists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24636","title":{"rendered":"Foie Gras That Skips the Force-Feeding Is Developed by Physicists"},"content":{"rendered":"
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While not sparing the lives of ducks and geese, the technique lets the birds eat and grow normally.<\/p>\n

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Thomas Vilgis<\/a>, a food physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany, has been in love with foie gras for a quarter century. The luxurious delicacy is a p\u00e2t\u00e9 or mousse made from the rich, fattened livers of ducks or geese.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something really extraordinary,\u201d Dr. Vilgis said, recalling his early encounters with high-quality foie gras when he lived and worked in Strasbourg, France. It was soft and buttery and, once the fats began to melt in his mouth, the flavors evolved and exploded. \u201cIt is like fireworks. You have suddenly a sensation of the whole liver,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But such transcendence comes at a price.<\/p>\n

To fatten up the liver that\u2019s used to create foie gras, farmers force-feed the fowl more grain than their bodies need. The excess food is stored as fat in the animal\u2019s liver, which balloons in size.<\/p>\n

While he\u2019ll eat foie gras produced by local farmers on occasion, Dr. Vilgis finds the force feeding intolerable at an industrial scale. \u201cIt\u2019s terrible to see,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dr. Vilgis wondered whether he could somehow \u201cmake a similar product but without this torture.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a paper published Tuesday in the journal Physics of Fluids<\/a>, he and his colleagues say they believe they have devised a technique that allows ducks and geese to eat and grow normally. To be clear, though, this is not a foie gras substitute that spares the lives of the birds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The unheated foie gras mixture.<\/span>Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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While not sparing the lives of ducks and geese, the technique lets the birds eat and grow normally.Thomas Vilgis, a food physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany, has been in love with foie gras for a quarter century. The luxurious delicacy is a p\u00e2t\u00e9 or mousse made from the rich, fattened livers of ducks or geese.\u201cIt\u2019s something really extraordinary,\u201d Dr. Vilgis said, recalling his early encounters with high-quality foie gras when he lived and worked in Strasbourg, France. It was soft and buttery and, once the fats began to melt in his mouth, the flavors evolved and exploded. \u201cIt is like fireworks. You have suddenly a sensation of the whole liver,\u201d he said.But such transcendence comes at a price.To fatten up the liver that\u2019s used to create foie gras, farmers force-feed the fowl more grain than their bodies need. The excess food is stored as fat in the animal\u2019s liver, which balloons in size.While he\u2019ll eat foie gras produced by local farmers on occasion, Dr. Vilgis finds the force feeding intolerable at an industrial scale. \u201cIt\u2019s terrible to see,\u201d he says.Dr. Vilgis wondered whether he could somehow \u201cmake a similar product but without this torture.\u201dIn a paper published Tuesday in the journal Physics of Fluids, he and his colleagues say they believe they have devised a technique that allows ducks and geese to eat and grow normally. To be clear, though, this is not a foie gras substitute that spares the lives of the birds.The unheated foie gras mixture.Max Planck Institute for Polymer ResearchWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24638,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24636"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24639,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24636\/revisions\/24639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}