By MOLLY O'NEILL
Published November 17, 1991
Here in the land of the Three Musketeers, the Gascony region of southwest France, goose and duck fat are slathered on bread instead of butter, the people snack on fried duck skin and eat twice as much foie gras as other Frenchmen, and 50 times as much as Americans.
It was no surprise when Dr. Serge Renaud, in a 10-year epidemiological study that included surveys of eating habits, concluded that Gascons eat a diet higher in saturated fat than any other group of people in the industrialized world. Dr. Renaud is the director of research at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research, a Government center in Lyons.
But scientists crinkled a collective brow over Dr. Renaud's related finding about this region, which produces much of the world's foie gras, the fattened livers of ducks and geese. "The foie gras eaters of the Gers and Lot Departments in southwest France have the lowest rate of death from cardiovascular disease in the country," he said. Foie gras is the fattened livers of ducks and geese. U.S. Participation Sought
According to the World Health Organization's Multinational Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in cardiovascular disease, or Monica, which is currently studying eating habits and mortality rates in Toulouse and a surrounding area that includes much of Gascony, the difference is remarkable. Out of 100,000 middle-aged French men, approximately 145 die of heart attacks annually, but in Toulouse the number is about 80. In the United States, 315 of every 100,000 middle-aged men die of heart attacks each year.
In a paper presented to a convention of duck and goose producers in France last spring, Dr. Renaud suggested that goose and duck fat may improve cardiovascular health. Only clinical studies can determine the benefits of the fat from web-footed birds, but chemists agree with Dr. Renaud, who said in a recent telephone interview, "Goose and duck fat is closer in chemical composition to olive oil than it is to butter or lard."
Dr. Renaud has teamed up with Dr. Curtis Ellison, chief of preventive medicine and epidemiology at the Boston University School of Medicine, to request a $3 million grant from the United States National Institutes of Health for a five-year continuation of Dr. Renaud's work.
"The changes in the American diet in the past 10 years are laudable," said Dr. Ellison. "But we are still dying faster and of more heart attacks than the French, and I want to know why." While taking into account the role of genetics and life style, his study will focus on the role of consumption of wine, dairy fats, vegetables, fruits, and goose and duck fat.
To the American heart specialists whose research has brought lean-beef and the low-fat diet, the very thought of a beneficial dietary fat is anathema.
"Heart attacks are less frequent in France, but they are still the leading cause of death there," said Dr. Dean Ornish, a heart specialist at the University of California in San Francisco. For several decades, the low rate of heart disease in France has stumped scientists. Last summer an article in In Health magazine dubbed the mystery "Le Paradoxe Francais."
Dr. Ornish doubts that duck fat is a significant player in the paradox. "We know that fats and cholesterol are not the whole story of heart disease," he said. "But a single epidemiological study could overlook the things like positive social support systems or low stress that could even offset harmful dietary choices like pate or foie gras."
Dr. Renaud acknowledges that many factors need to be considered, but he said, "It is obvious that this fat doesn't increase cholesterol dramatically and, my goodness, it is even possible this fat may provide some kind of protection." Foie Gras as Health Food
For the farmers and exporters of Gers, the department that includes the heart of Gascony, Dr. Renaud's research may be manna from heaven -- or sauteed foie gras on toasted brioche.
"If we can label foie gras health food, ah, the world is then ours," said Jean Michel Justumus, director of the Regional Center for Agricultural and Technological Innovation in Auch, the capital of Gers. The center studies the technology of foie gras growing and processing.
Eighty percent of the foie gras in the world is produced in France, primarily in Gers, which has the highest proportion of people making a living from agriculture in France, Mr. Justumus said; half of them produce foie gras.
Like contemporary d'Artagnans, they fiercely defend their agricultural economy against foreign competition, animal-rights advocates and, the biggest foe of all, health concerns.
Wearing a white lab coat and sitting at his desk, Mr. Justumus looked every bit the cool pragmatist, shepherding a traditional industry into the 21st century. But like a man who knows no fear when he duels for the honor of his country, he waved aside the suggestion that the liver's fat content might help explain why it is generally savored in small amounts. (A tablespoon of foie gras has 60 calories and is 87 percent fat, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.) Fear of foie gras, he said, is a "longstanding prejudice."
"When something tastes very good, people think it must be very bad," Mr. Justumus said. "Even the French think this. And Americans. . . ." His voice trailed off, then rallied. "But a label that says, 'Eat foie gras, live longer'; what a marketing tool!"
The Gascon farmers are facing the threat of fattened livers from Eastern Europe. Last month a French television news program carried a report of a shipment of Eastern European foie gras that was hijacked in southwest France where it was to be processed. "Other countries can raise the ducks and geese cheaper," said Yves Saint-Pe, who fattens geese and ducks on his farm outside Auch.
Gascon farmers have also jabbed back at animal-rights advocates who contend that force-feeding ducks and geese to fatten their livers is cruel. Gesturing to the blue skies above her farm near Auch, Lucette Baron, who raises about 400 ducks and 150 geese a year, defended the practice. She said that before wild ducks and geese migrate, they stuff themselves, engorging their livers with fat to provide energy for the flight.
Mrs. Baron sees herself as the keeper of a holy tradition. "The Romans did this," she said. Walking into the barn to feed her flock, she was puzzled by the charge of cruelty. "My ducks don't run away from me," she said.
Mrs. Baron is the rare farmer's wife who keeps a small flock and, in the final three weeks of fattening, uses the traditional hose-necked funnel to pour corn directly into the birds' stomachs. Today, a typical foie gras producer raises 20,000 birds a year, favors ducks over geese (ducks fatten faster) and has an automatic feeding system. The 12,000 producers in Gers make more than a ton of foie gras a year, which can retail for as much as $25 an ounce.
And they think that in the work of Dr. Renaud they may have found the ultimate sword to defend their industry in a diet-conscious world.
"Eat Foie Gras for Health!" said Mr. Justumus jubilantly. In his office he is trying out slogans. "Even 10 years ago, you would have been laughed out of France for saying such a thing, but no one is laughing now."
In fact, scientists are following Dr. Renaud's research and the Monica study with interest. "Duck and goose fat contains saturated fat, but it may also contain a fatty acid that has a positive affect on blood platelets," said Dr. Ellison of Boston University.
Dr. Ornish is skeptical. "What people don't realize is that even if part of a fat has a beneficial mechanism, it cannot counterbalance the overall effect of fat in the diet," he said.
Dr. Adam Drewnowski, director of the human nutrition program at the University of Michigan, finds the study worthwhile. "Who knows?" he said. "First we had the Mediterranean diet. Maybe next we'll get the Southwest of France diet."
The basic Gascon in his blue beret would not be surprised. Standing in his barnyard Mr. Saint-Pe listened to Dr. Renaud's findings as though he were being told the obvious. "The people in my family live to be 90 years old," he said. "We cook everything in duck fat. We have foie gras on Sunday. Everybody knows this is the long-life diet."
Other locals were equally surprised that such common knowledge could be a marketing tool. "Scientists say we should be dead by 40 because we eat duck and liver and salt and wine," said Bernard Verduzan, 87, as he laid out his fattened livers at the foie gras market in Eauze in southwest France recently. "And then they say it is big news when they read the obituaries in the newspaper and see how long we live." Straightening his shoulders and puffing out his chest, he said, "I am still young."
Robert Jacquerez, 95, who dines daily at the Hotel de France in Auch, contends that the key is balance. "Always have a salad with your cassoulet, bread with your foie gras," he said. "Always drink as much mineral water as wine." His eyes dropped to the menu of the hotel, where Andre Daguin, the chef and owner, is renowned for creating entire meals of foie gras and has earned two Michelin stars for his rich regional fare.
Instead of describing the various preparations, the menu simply states, "The fat of birds may be good for health."
"I've written this finding as a conditional, pending further research," said Mr. Daguin grudgingly. Dr. Renaud's studies will not begin until spring, and waiting for science to corroborate the obvious frustrates this eighth-generation Gascon cook.
It also frustrates Mr. Justumus, who grew up in Gers, eats foie gras once a week and said that members of his family live into their 90's. Looking out his laboratory window toward the rolling, open farmland that the foie gras industry has preserved he said, "Too bad we won't have the follow-up study for this Christmas season."
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