Actress Winslet speaks out against foie gras in video

Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet threw her weight Wednesday behind a campaign against foie gras, narrating a video which she said shows the "terrifying and painful" way the food is produced.

Winslet, winner of the 2009 best actress Academy Award for "The Reader", put her voice to the footage for campaign group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

The video - which PETA said was filmed undercover on foie gras farms - shows birds confined to cramped cages and apparently being force-fed by having tubes placed down their throats.

The foodstuff is normally made by force-feeding ducks and geese to enlarge their livers.

"Foie gras is sold as an expensive 'delicacy' in some restaurants and shops, but no one pays a higher price for foie gras than the ducks and geese who are abused and killed to make it," she said.

"This is a terrifying and painful process for the birds, who have no semblance of a normal life and know that several times a day a tube will be rammed down their throats," added the 34-year-old.

She ended the video with an appeal to boycott the food: "Please join us in helping ducks and geese by pledging never to eat foie gras."

PETA said the video would be sent to exclusive department stores around the world in a bid to stop them selling the product.

Winslet is the latest British star to speak out against foie gras. Actor and former 007 Roger Moore paid for and starred in a poster campaign outside a top London shop in November against the food.

The bus stop poster outside the upmarket department store Selfridges, on the British capital's Oxford Street, urged shoppers to think twice about buying the delicacy. The ad was also for PETA.