Behind the luxury delicacy known as foie gras lies a story of extreme cruelty: ducks and geese force feed until their livers swell to ten times normal size. In this eye-opening episode, community organizer and animal advocate Sam Schillinger exposes the brutal reality of the foie gras industry and how everyday people are organizing politically to ban it in cities like Portland, Denver, and DC.
What if the fancy appetizer on upscale menus is actually a diseased organ produced through daily torture?
In this powerful episode of Puppies, Pandemics, and Public Health, host Dr. Johnny Lieberman sits down with Sam Schillinger, Oregon Campaign Director for Pro Animal Future. Sam shares his journey from growing up in Iowa’s factory farm heartland to becoming a full-time organizer fighting to end animal agriculture through policy change.
The conversation dives deep into the hidden cruelty of foie gras production where birds are force fed via tubes multiple times a day, leading to organ perforation, extreme trauma, and mortality rates far higher than normal. Sam explains why Pro Animal Future is prioritizing bans on the sale and production of force fed foie gras through ballot initiatives and direct lobbying in Portland, Denver, and Washington DC.
You’ll hear why political organizing and empowering people as voters (rather than just consumers) offers huge untapped potential for helping farmed animals, how public support often exceeds what legislators prioritize, and practical ways anyone can get involved from signing petitions and attending socials to joining signature gathering efforts like Goosapalooza in DC.
Whether you’re concerned about animal suffering, food system ethics, or using democracy to create change, this episode is a compelling call to move beyond awareness into organized action.
Top 3 Takeaways:
About the Show:
Puppies, Pandemics, and Public Health explores the intersection of animal welfare, public policy, and human health. Hosted by Dr. Johnny Lieberman, each episode invites changemakers, legal experts, and health advocates to shed light on what really impacts our communities and what we can do about it.
About the Guest Sam Schillinger:
Sam Schillinger is the Oregon Campaign Director for Pro Animal Future and a dedicated community organizer and animal advocate. Originally from Iowa, one of the nation’s top factory farming states, Sam studied philosophy in college, which prompted him to critically examine the ethics of our food system. After beginning as a petition circulator and briefly attending law school, he dropped out to pursue full-time advocacy for farmed animals.
In his role with Pro Animal Future, Sam works with volunteers, voters, and elected officials to pass pro-animal policies, including efforts to ban the sale of force-fed foie gras in Portland. He is passionate about building political power for animals and turning public concern into enforceable laws. Outside of advocacy, Sam enjoys ultra-distance running, traveling, and theater.
🔗 Learn more: Pro Animal Oregon
Pro-Animal Oregon Website: https://proanimaloregon.org/
Stampede: stampede.proanimal.org
Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/pro-animal-oregon/
Link to join Signal Chat: https://signal.group/#CjQKIMcRPytTHn3iNlON_IlLUjUYBdTjdgP_l-8-lyY2vpIaEhCp7zIsQG99xu0j_9Kvlad7
Goosapalooza Registration: https://proanimal.org/goosa
About the Host:
Dr. Johnny Lieberman is a physician, public health advocate, and lifelong animal lover with a passion for connecting the dots between animal welfare, human behavior, and the systems that shape our lives. With a background in both medicine and public health policy, Johnny brings a unique lens to conversations about how our treatment of animals impacts human health, the environment, and social justice.
In Puppies, Pandemics, and Public Health, Johnny brings warmth, curiosity, and a dash of wit to tough conversations that matter. From exposing the realities of factory farming to uncovering the links between zoonotic diseases and our food systems, his goal is to empower listeners to be informed, compassionate, and engaged citizens while still keeping it real (and sometimes bringing in puppies).
Whether he's discussing legislative loopholes or snuggling his rescue dog between recordings, Dr. Lieberman believes that creating a healthier world starts with how we treat its most vulnerable beings.
Email: John@johnliebermanmd.com
[00:00:00] Foie gras is often considered a delicacy, but behind every plate is a story of force feeding, industry secrecy, deception, and a fierce fight over what we're willing to tolerate for taste. Keep listening and learn the truth about the fo gra industry and how grassroots advocacy. Shameful practice that produces a food product.
The human body is likely not even designed to eat.
We are here today on another episode of Puppies, pandemics and Public Health. I am Dr. Johnny Lieberman and today I'm pleased to welcome Sam Sillinger. Originally from Iowa. Sam is a community organizer and animal advocate dedicated to advancing a more just and sustainable food system by ending factory farming.
[00:01:00] He began his work in the movement as a petition circulator, and now brings over two years of experience to his role as Oregon Campaign Director for Pro Animal Future. In this role, he works with city council and other elected officials to pass pro animal policy, build political power for animals. And develop a strong, engaged community around helping animals across Oregon.
Outside of his advocacy work, he enjoys ultra distance running, traveling, and theater. I'm pleased to welcome Sam to the show. Sam, thanks so much for joining us today. Hi Johnny. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Alright, let's get to this. So. Sam, if there were one point you wanted to make sure that we get across in our discussion, the most important thing you don't want [00:02:00] our listeners to miss, what would that be?
I think the most important thing that listeners can take away from this conversation is that there is great potential. To help farmed animals, and this potential lies in the ability for advocates, organizers, volunteers, and voters to organize politically. Policy change is an area where there hasn't been an organized movement in the past for animals, and therein lies the potential for us to make great strides.
Excellent. And this is a lot of what you do right here in Oregon, a pro animal organ. Correct. Tell us more about the work you're doing, organizing regular, everyday people who have full-time jobs elsewhere and doing other stuff, and how important it is that they contribute. To helping affect positive change to [00:03:00] the farming system?
Absolutely. Pro Animal Oregon is our Oregon chapter of Pro Animal Future. We are a movement of voters, volunteers, organizers, and donors organizing politically to end factory farming. And we do this by turning broad public support for animals into policy change. We have two main types of campaigns that we run.
Those are ballot initiatives, which about half of the US states. You can run a ballot initiative. And then our other type of campaign is direct lobbying and we are a people powered movement. So most of the work is done by volunteers who give up weekends, evenings, and countless hours to [00:04:00] help animals. And that means that everyone can get involved in our effort.
Thanks for explaining that. Something that everyone can get involved in if they're so motivated. And you mentioned two things Direct lobbying to help with getting laws passed, And then there's the other way to get effective legislation passed, which is this ballot initiative.
And a lot of states have that. It's a way to. Enact a law without going through the legislature. Does that sound about right? Yeah, so ballot measures can be really effective because it puts the issue directly in the hands of voters and bypasses the legislature, which maybe influenced by, lobbying.
And, that can also be difficult because animal issues aren't really a priority [00:05:00] for many legislators. But when you ask people how they feel about animals, they typically vote in ways that, legislators may not. And so there's a lot more potential to create policy change. When we put issues about farmed animals directly in front of voters, right?
And so The process that you're explaining is typically you need to gather a certain number of signatures, which varies state to state. And if those signatures are gathered and it gets on a ballot, it goes up for a vote.
And so if it passes in the vote, it becomes law. It becomes. Enforceable. And so that is another way to make change. And as Sam mentioned, it involves public directly. And that's one of the many areas where Sam is helping in this forgetting animal friendly laws on the books to help protect animals.
And [00:06:00] Sam, we chatted a little bit before you have. An interesting story. I think if you're okay, sharing a little bit with our listeners, how you wound up getting this role in Oregon. It really seems to me like a job that's close to your heart and that it means a lot to you. It's more than a job.
It seems to me, from chatting with you and seeing how you seem to be really invested in it, it's passion and you're doing it for work. And. Speaking as someone who's taking a long time to get to where I am in advocating for the interests of animals, you're their way ahead of me. And so how did you, get to where you are and what was the path that led you here to taking such a strong interest in speaking up and working for the animals?
Originally, I'm from Iowa. Which I'm sure many listeners are aware, Iowa is a huge ag [00:07:00] state. For pork production and also chicken production. Now I think it has the highest concentration of factory farms and leads the nation in pork production. And so I grew up in an area where people didn't even question where their food came from.
They didn't think about animal welfare. It was just accepted that this is what we need to do to. Feed people and, that was the culture that I was steeped in. So for most of my life, I have not questioned that either. I really had no intention to advocate for farmed animals until I went off to college and I studied philosophy and.
That really gave me the motivation to start to take a critical gaze to all of these belief systems. And I landed [00:08:00] on our food system and began to question, who is being harmed to put food on my plate? And eventually that led me to thinking about the ethics. Of, raising animals for food. And I learned more about the industrial animal agriculture system and I learned that there is so much injustice that is occurring at the hands of humans.
And at that moment, I knew I could not just sit on the sidelines. And watch this happen. So I felt called to take action. At the time, I was a law student and was looking for different opportunities to use my legal education to advocate for food systems reform. And one area I was looking into was animal law.
Um, however, there weren't many opportunities that I was [00:09:00] finding. And so eventually I decided that law was not the best fit for me and so I dropped out and began exploring other opportunities to advocate for food systems reform, and I found an opportunity. Out in Oregon to circulate petitions asking for complete animal liberation here in Oregon.
And so that was, sort of a landing spot for me. I moved out to Eugene, Oregon about two years ago and found myself on the streets asking strangers to sign a petition to help animals in Oregon. And thousands of conversations later. I, discovered this role with Pro Animal Future for a campaign director in Oregon, and it seemed like an incredible opportunity [00:10:00] to make a real difference advocating at the policy level.
And my experience talking to Oregon voters about how they feel about animals really gave me a lot of knowledge about how to turn public support for animals into political power. And so I applied for that role landed the job, and now I'm fortunate to be doing this full-time as the campaign director here in Oregon where I am a community organizer building.
A robust community of people who care about animals and then also working with elected officials to get policy change. And so it's been a journey with lots of twists and turns, but. my motivation for doing this work does come back to the apathy and the ignorance that I experienced growing up in Iowa.
Or people just don't even think about food or animals or the [00:11:00] injustice that's involved in our food system. And so I really feel called because this is an area that it's neglected and. We need people working for change. What a fascinating story. Thanks so much for sharing that, Sam.
I think there's a few things at least in there that may resonate with so many people and some of them for sure resonate with me. one is, which is not easy to do, it's questioning your beliefs. And most, if not all, of the entire factory farm system, which turns pigs, chickens, cows, turkeys into food.
It relies largely on ignorance as Sam. Pointed out speaking to actual individual Oregonians and voters. A large majority would not be happy with the way animals are treated to be turned into food, [00:12:00] but they don't know about it. The agriculture industry is massive and powerful and crafts this message that it's hidden.
You can't get to a farm. There's no glass walls on slaughterhouses that people can walk by and see. And we are so separated from our food today compared to before we had the factory farms, I share the experience of Sam in Iowa and I grew up in New York.
Not considered an agricultural state by any means, but I never gave a thought growing up to where my food came from. Never. It was, you went to the grocery store and you got some ground beef, or you got your chicken and your vegetables and. The process of turning an animal into that ground beef, which never entered my mind before.[00:13:00]
Now I can't think of it as anything else, but a cow that suffered literally from the moment it was born until the time it was slaughtered, and hacked up, and turned into food.
I share with Sam what speaks to me is the injustice of that. The injustice. These are the most vulnerable, the least powerful members of society, and they're trapped. The laws are largely not designed to protect them. We have a lot of creative lawyers and great advocates working within the legal system to try and get them protections.
A large part of that comes from what Sam said. it's the public. Very few lawmakers understand this, how important it is for a growing number of Americans [00:14:00] with grassroots efforts and building. Coalitions and talking to people, learning yourself, and maybe changing your behaviors, speaking out. That's how change can happen
Anything you wanna add onto that, Sam? I just wanted to highlight a couple of those points which speak to me and help motivate me to change. And especially the questioning your belief system which is hard to do unless someone points it out to you. Yeah. It's deeply uncomfortable when you have that realization that, something you thought was true is just not the way you thought it was,
And then you have to pivot your habits and your lifestyle and It is awkward socially because most of our culture does eat meat and doesn't think about it. And so there are many reasons why people are disincentivized to [00:15:00] change, and that's one reason that we frame this as.
Uh, a civic shift rather than focusing on consumer choices, we like to think about this as a shared vision and encouraging people to think of themselves as voters rather than consumers, because people generally don't like being told what they can and cannot consume. For sure, but when you empower people as voters who care about animals, they're much more likely to get behind the cause.
I have never heard it explained that way before, but I like that different approach. It's almost the opposite of being restrictive, saying, you can't do this or shouldn't do this, but empowering [00:16:00] them. To have a voice and make their own choice for something that's meaningful to them. Exactly. And many other social movements organized politically to achieve policy change and the animal movement has lagged behind in this area.
And that's why we are focusing on policy change because there are many orgs engaging in different types of advocacy, and I believe that many different types of interventions are necessary for the change that we envision, namely ending factory farming. But I think one lever that is underutilized. Is advocating for policy change.
And so that's why our focus is there. That's great. [00:17:00] advocating for policy change building coalitions to get to that point, educating, empowering, those are all outstanding lessons from this and a powerful technique to make change and. We will pivot a little bit here within that regard to work that I know you've been doing that I recently became more aware of than before.
On prior shows we've talked about other farm animals, but we haven't talked about ducks or geese, which are Part of the food system as well, although a relatively small part. And some people haven't even heard of fo gra, but Sam, I know that an issue you are spearheading here with your group is getting some policy change here in Portland to help protect some of these animals, which are getting.
Ho for this diseased product that people think is [00:18:00] a delicacy. Would you like to enlighten our audience a little bit on what is fo gra and. Why it's such a, an important issue that needs to be addressed. Absolutely. So Pro Animal Future is running a fo gra ban in all three of our chapters, Portland, as you mentioned, and then also Denver and DC and in Denver and DC we are running ballot initiatives to ban, the sale.
In production of wa gra in Portland. We are directly lobbying city council to ban the sale of fo gra and fo. GRA is French for fatty liver. It is the disease liver of a goose, or in the US it's [00:19:00] a duck who's been force fed until their liver swells up to 10 times. It's normal size. It's typically served at French and upscale restaurants with a hefty price tag, and it involves extreme cruelty and intense trauma because these birds are force fed up to three times.
Per day until their liver is literally diseased. And so we're focusing on fo gra first because many people are opposed. Hold on. Sam, I'm gonna interrupt you here. I'm gonna expand a bit on the fo gra there. I wanna paint a little bit more of the picture, I wanna give the audience a bit more picture of what that means.
So you're not eating a healthy [00:20:00] liver. You're eating a diseased liver in humans developing this disease. Fatty liver takes decades of eating a horrible diet fatty liver. It's something that. You don't wanna have, right? You don't wanna have a fatty liver. And it takes decades to build up in humans.
And these animals, they're feeding them such an unusually fatty diet over a short period of time so that they get this disease, which normally takes decades in a matter of weeks. And if you think you know what force feeding is? You might not know. Sam, do you wanna explain what, how these animals are force fed just briefly for the audience?
Yeah, so force feeding involves a tube being jammed down the throats of these birds so that the food goes directly into their [00:21:00] stomach. And this is because they will not eat. At a rate on their own that induces this liver disease. So for fo gra, the force feeding is almost necessary. And I say almost because there is one farm that does not use force feeding, but almost all of the fo gras that is served in the US is produced through force feeding.
And the two major. GRA farms in the US both located in New York, feed their ducks using forest feeding and it's so violent. there's an accepted rate of organ perforation. process. Shoving this tube down leads to poking a hole and perforating the esophagus or the stomach.
iRead as high as [00:22:00] one outta 25 animals, so 4%. Realistically, it's probably a lot higher than that. It's kind of a cost of doing business. but it's an extremely violent, horrific process that leads to poking a hole and shearing open some of their internal organs on a semi-regular basis.
Yeah, I would just add to that free slaughter mortality rates among birds raised for fo gras have been found to be nine to 19 times higher than non force fed birds.
So this process of force feeding really does cause severe trauma for these birds and because it's their liver every serving basically represents an individual bird who is subject [00:23:00] to this torture. There's an animal on the other end of that, all of our choices can come with consequences.
And Sam's absolutely right if you're staring at your plate at this, they call it gra, but it's really, like Sam said, it's fatty disease, liver packaged as something that's a delicacy and should be eaten and charged a lot of money for, but. The suffering involved with making of that. It's just unimaginable to me.
who thought of that in the first place? This seems like a good idea. let's make a disease liver and serve it as a delicacy. It's an incredible amount of suffering to make that product. Yeah, it is, and many people are horrified to learn that it's still served in many places and still served in Portland, which [00:24:00] is a city that has a reputation for ethical and sustainable food.
and I think you have data showing that a majority of Portland's surveyed, would not be in favor of having this process going on in Oregon. there was some stiff resistance to trying to get this passed at council at the local level. Yes. We had a committee hearing in Portland's Arts and Economy Committee on January 27th. And the council ultimately ruled in opposition to advancing the GRAS sales ban that we proposed. The vote was three to two, and this was despite a strong showing from the community in favor of banning the sale of fo gra.
[00:25:00] Very strong. I was actually there at the meeting
and it was overwhelmingly in favor of getting this ban. It's not consistent with a large majority of what Portland residents want. And the testimony was impassioned. It was from the heart and. I felt it, and the effort was strong.
The data behind it was strong, didn't make it through this time, but that doesn't mean we're done, right, Sam? There's more to this story to try and get a fo gra ban. We are not finished Johnny. So with legislation, at least at the local level Portland has a few different committees.
composed of a few members of city council and. Legislation typically starts [00:26:00] in a committee before it's heard by the full council. And so this ordinance started in the Arts and Economy Committee, and that is one way that the ordinance can make it in front of the full council, but it is certainly not the only way.
Despite the fact that the Arts and Economy Committee did not advance this legislation, one of our co-sponsors, Mitch Green, will be bringing this to full council, along with our other co-sponsor, who is the newly elected president of the Portland City Council. Jamie Dunphy will be bringing this in front of the full council, likely with no delays.
So we are anticipating. A full counsel hearing sometime in the next one to four months, and in the meantime, we're building support among other [00:27:00] counselors so that when we do bring this to full counsel, it will pass. It's outstanding persistence there to keep going forward with what you believe in. It's not dead here in Portland.
And for those of you who don't know about the legislative process, going down to the city council level, what Sam's talking about engaging with the individual council members, it's a crucial part of the process as well as those council members hearing from their constituents. That combination leads to getting the support heading into a hearing.
The hearing happens. But all the legislators, the council members, they wanna hear from their constituents.
someone who's not directly involved in interacting with your counselors right now, or this is the first time you're hearing of it and you are appalled by it and feel like, I don't want this going on in my city. I don't support this.
what can [00:28:00] people do, Sam? How can they make their voice heard, be a part. Of the solution for saying, this is not acceptable where I live . Yeah. This really is a community effort. my title is campaign director, but it's really the voters and the community of Portland who are carrying this campaign forward, and that's because elected officials want to be reelected and.
they rely on votes from Portland voters and their role as council members is to listen to constituents and pass policy that reflects the values of Portland community. And so there are several ways that people can get involved. We have regular socials. [00:29:00] At various establishments around Portland, and typically at these socials, we'll have different activities that work to advance the campaign, whether it's writing postcards, identifying different constituent events that we can show up to engage with counselors.
And also these socials are just a great way to get to know other community members and activists who care about these issues as well. Aside from that, just signing on to our voter block is one thing that people can do that is incredibly helpful because we have a list of people who we can contact.
We need to reach out to city councilors, and by being part of that [00:30:00] list, you are a vital part of this community, and that is the muscle that we can flex to show City Council that there is a large number of community members who care about.
And at the end of the day, if they want to be reelected, they have to respect that. And so showing up to our socials, signing on to our voter block are the two biggest things that you can do. And of course, with those, you'll get up to date on where the campaign is. Different action alerts and other ways that you can get involved as they come up.
And how does one find pro animal organ? So we are active on all of the [00:31:00] socials, Instagram, Facebook, if you use Meetup, we post our events on Meetup. Our page is Pro Animal Oregon. And. I will send those links to Johnny to share. And then we also have a custom built platform called Stampede, which is our one stop shop for activists on Stampede.
We post all of our events and socials. We also have different lobbying actions that you can take. So you can write an email to your counselor and it's very easy. And we also send out action alerts via Stampede. So I would recommend joining Stampede. It's free, it's easy to use, and you won't be spammed [00:32:00] with emails from it.
Thanks, Sam. So if this has piqued your interest, you have a way to get involved. It really sounds like you just need to reach out to a pro animal, organ, connect with the group, and they make it very easy to plug you in with the system.
If this issue is important to you, maybe you haven't heard about fo gra before this, not too surprising.
It's, one of the many agricultural issues that are just below the radar. For a lot of people we're separated from our food like was mentioned before, very separated, unlike a long time ago. Fo gra fits right in with that. So you're connected more to it now. if you care about how animals are treated.
how they're mistreated in the food system, horribly mistreated. Just to make products for a few minutes of our pleasure, [00:33:00] a few times a day. Learn more. Look into it and if you haven't done it before, maybe this is a good place to start with something you either have never eaten, but the cruelty of it you find appalling.
This might be a good place to start. Reach out to pro animal, reach out to Sam. dip your toe in and see what it's like. maybe you'll feel a lot better about it contributing to a part of the solution.
Sam, what else? anything you wanna touch on or follow up? Other efforts underway or comments on the food system to share some wisdom? Yeah, I would just echo what you just share, Johnny, in that there has never been a better time to join. For most of my life I wasn't aware of the suffering involved in our food system, and then I was, and I took action.
And so just because you haven't been involved [00:34:00] in these issue areas before, doesn't mean you can't start right now. We are building momentum. And like I mentioned, we have chapters in Portland, Denver, and DC So if you're local to any of those areas you can get directly involved in one of our campaigns.
In Denver, we've already qualified our fo GRA band for the 2026 ballot. Yes. And yeah. So exciting. We are on the ballot. That's not easy. That's not easy to do. Sam kind of talks about it like, we got a passed. It's a lot of work, a lot of grinding the pavement. A lot of asking people
It's a lot of effort. and that's the first hurdle. Yes. back in December is when we officially qualified, and that was the result of [00:35:00] thousands of signatures collected. By volunteers in Denver and it is difficult work, and it was a huge win for us to qualify for the ballot.
And now we're taking that momentum into the next phase of that campaign, which will be. Building support and getting out the vote and getting people to vote Yes. In Denver this fall. And activists in Denver will absolutely play a huge part in that. So if you're local to Denver, you can absolutely get involved in the efforts there with pro Animal Colorado, which is our Denver chapter, and then in DC.
We're similarly running a ballot measure there, and we are just about to begin the signature collection phase, [00:36:00] and we need a lot of signatures in DC in a short amount of time. And so volunteer support will be huge to getting this done, and we're actually hosting. A convergence called Gosa Palooza where we get a shared Airbnb and for a month and a half we're gonna be bringing in people from all around the country to collect signatures, to get a FO broadband on the ballot in DC for 2026.
It is a wonderful opportunity to have a real impact for animals and also just to connect. With other activists and people who care about this, and we'll provide the housing and plant-based meals for you. And in return you'll collect signatures to help qualify this [00:37:00] impactful policy for the ballot.
And so I would encourage you to sign up to attend Gua Palooza if you're available. It will run from April 13th. Through May 31st in DC and the signup, registration is open right now and we'll link that as well. And I will be there for part of it. And I would encourage anyone who is interested to learn more about that effort because it's something really special when you have, a group of all of us under the same roof working towards the same goal.
Great. Thanks for sharing that, Sam. It is a great opportunity. If you haven't gotten involved yet, Maybe this is for you We need people on the streets gathering the signatures to get it on the ballot, to get it passed. It's a very important part of the process.
Absolutely, Sam, and [00:38:00] any closing remarks? And lastly, I'll say, if you're not local to Portland, Denver, or DC you still have a role to play. First, you can spread the word about fo gras because. Likely it's being served somewhere near you and it only takes a few concerned citizens to get the ball rolling and work for policy change at the local level.
And that's ultimately our goal is to create a campaign in a box that other people can replicate. And so you can start advocating for animals as well in your area, as well as get plugged in. To what we're doing, and occasionally we have opportunities for remote volunteers to get involved. And finally, you can engage with us on social media because as many listeners know, everything lives on social [00:39:00] media these days, and that's a great way to get the word about and raise public awareness about what we're doing.
So please follow us. Share our content. Engage with us on social media because that is a great way to support our campaigns.
Sam Schillinger Pro Animal Oregon. Thank you so much for joining the show, sharing the important work you're doing. Very inspirational. I hope some of this inspires you. To speak to your friends, share the knowledge and
reach out, learn how you can help and take some action that's consistent with your values. Sam, thanks so much Johnny. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate your curiosity, your interest, and you getting the word out about this, incredibly important and [00:40:00] urgent issue.
So thank you for, creating this content. Yeah, my pleasure.