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AIBU?

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Original poster

'Being Gordon Ramsay' featuring dead pig!

539 replies

paloma7 · 27/02/2026 17:10

Ffs! I'm just watching this Netflix show about Gordon Ramsay and his opening of a new restaurant with amazing views in the city. I'm not interested in him particularly, but thought I might go to this 'Lucky Cat' just for the views over London, if and whenever it opens.

BUT - then there is a scene where he is consulting with his head chef about the menu and there is a whole dead baby suckling pig on a plate. They are talking about making this a restaurant feature, requiring two chefs who carve it at your table.

AIBU to think this is obscene? Yes, I'm vegetarian, but I think even most meat eaters would balk at this?

If I were in his restaurant and that was going at the the next table, I would leave. Wtf is wrong with humans?

OP posts:
AlcoholicAntibiotic · 27/02/2026 18:30

I just looked at the menu - they apparently also do a baby chicken. Not sure why OP isn’t equally outraged by that.

faerylights · 27/02/2026 18:30

FairKoala · 27/02/2026 18:27

You make it sounds so nice.

What if we had people who are given a great life and then before they get too old they are killed humanely and served to meat eating animals.

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Well, it would probably a better ending than many of us have now!

Hedgesandbutterflies · 27/02/2026 18:29

WearyAuldWumman · 27/02/2026 18:28

So you only worry about mammals?

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Cute mammals

WearyAuldWumman · 27/02/2026 18:28

paloma7 · 27/02/2026 18:27

Really? Surely you can spot the creature that is a mammal, just like you.

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So you only worry about mammals?

user1473878824 · 27/02/2026 18:28

paloma7 · 27/02/2026 18:21

It's disingenuous to pretend an unshelled prawn or a whole fish is the same as a whole baby suckling pig being wheeled through a restaurant as some kind of gratuitous spectacle.

So simply don’t go there. Problem solved.

WearyAuldWumman · 27/02/2026 18:28

LVhandbagsatdawn · 27/02/2026 18:25

Well, perhaps it was! Different countries have different rules and customs. In the UK however that wouldn't / shouldn't happen.

I have never had suckling pig but I have raised pigs and to be honest I find it hard to think there'd be enough on a genuine newborn animal to eat. I don't disbelieve you, I'm just surprised.

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It was really tiny, I recall. No, I didn't think that you disbelieved me.

It was more than 50 yrs ago, but I remember because I had to go running for my great-aunt when the sow got into difficulty giving birth...and I was a bit taken aback when one of the piglets appeared on the table. (This was a fairly remote village at the time.)

Notasbigasithink · 27/02/2026 18:27

paloma7 · 27/02/2026 18:21

It's disingenuous to pretend an unshelled prawn or a whole fish is the same as a whole baby suckling pig being wheeled through a restaurant as some kind of gratuitous spectacle.

Um, no it's not......

GardenCovent · 27/02/2026 18:27

I don’t think “most meat eaters would balk at this”
Its no different to serving a roast chicken and I don’t think anyone would find that unusual

Original poster
paloma7 · 27/02/2026 18:27

faerylights · 27/02/2026 18:21

Why isn't it the same?

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Really? Surely you can spot the creature that is a mammal, just like you.

OP posts:
FairKoala · 27/02/2026 18:27

faerylights · 27/02/2026 18:17

Giving them a great life before a humane, controlled death doesn't sound particularly horrendous to me.

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You make it sounds so nice.

What if we had people who are given a great life and then before they get too old they are killed humanely and served to meat eating animals.

LVhandbagsatdawn · 27/02/2026 18:25

WearyAuldWumman · 27/02/2026 18:22

I didn't know that. The piglet on the table when I was visiting the relatives in Eastern Europe was certainly tiny. I'm fairly certain that it had been born just the day before, but now you have me doubting myself. It was definitely one of the ones I saw being born - only one pig had farrowed.

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Well, perhaps it was! Different countries have different rules and customs. In the UK however that wouldn't / shouldn't happen.

I have never had suckling pig but I have raised pigs and to be honest I find it hard to think there'd be enough on a genuine newborn animal to eat. I don't disbelieve you, I'm just surprised.

faerylights · 27/02/2026 18:25

nomoreforks · 27/02/2026 18:23

@faerylights so how have baby pigs had a 'great life' if they are killed as babies? Pigs are sentient animals and super intelligent. While they might not understand death , they understand pain and ill treatment. Why do the rights of human beings override the rights of animals to have a dignified life?

Because IMO, there's nothing undignified about a life filled with milk, food, sleep and play before a humane death.

Pigs have no idea that they're supposed to live to a certain age. They're not humans and trying to compare them to humans makes you seem rather silly.

Calliopespa · 27/02/2026 18:24

nomoreforks · 27/02/2026 18:23

@faerylights so how have baby pigs had a 'great life' if they are killed as babies? Pigs are sentient animals and super intelligent. While they might not understand death , they understand pain and ill treatment. Why do the rights of human beings override the rights of animals to have a dignified life?

Many animals bred for food would have had no life at all if there was no market for them as food.

I mean we can debate whether that is better or not from the pig's perspective, but let's not pretend he'd otherwise have been running free in fields of buttercups and tended till old age.

AlcoholicAntibiotic · 27/02/2026 18:24

nomoreforks · 27/02/2026 18:23

@faerylights so how have baby pigs had a 'great life' if they are killed as babies? Pigs are sentient animals and super intelligent. While they might not understand death , they understand pain and ill treatment. Why do the rights of human beings override the rights of animals to have a dignified life?

But that argument isn’t specific to suckling pigs.

I’m sure a lot of vegetarians and vegans would prefer it if nobody ate fish or meat. That isn’t going to happen!

TeaAndTattoos · 27/02/2026 18:24

It wouldn’t bother me at all we all know where meat comes from. You don’t like it but thats
you not the rest of us.

WearyAuldWumman · 27/02/2026 18:23

paloma7 · 27/02/2026 18:21

It's disingenuous to pretend an unshelled prawn or a whole fish is the same as a whole baby suckling pig being wheeled through a restaurant as some kind of gratuitous spectacle.

An unshelled prawn? No. A whole fish? Yes, it absolutely can be.

nomoreforks · 27/02/2026 18:23

@faerylights so how have baby pigs had a 'great life' if they are killed as babies? Pigs are sentient animals and super intelligent. While they might not understand death , they understand pain and ill treatment. Why do the rights of human beings override the rights of animals to have a dignified life?

Calliopespa · 27/02/2026 18:23

It's very easy, if eating only fillet of beef, that is either served elegantly beneath the glossy coverlet of a jus, or purchased shrink-wrapped and largely blood-free from a supermarket, to forget the rest of the carcass that died for that few square inches of deliciousness.

I'm not saying I necessarily find it easy to confront that reality, but I do think it is probably a good thing if I could.

DrPrunesqualer · 27/02/2026 18:22

Sartre · 27/02/2026 18:00

YABU for watching such tripe in the first place!

👏👏👏
well said !

WearyAuldWumman · 27/02/2026 18:22

LVhandbagsatdawn · 27/02/2026 18:18

Point of order: suckling pigs are not slaughtered at birth. Apart from anything else, they'd be far too small.

The suckling part of the name means they've been reared exclusively on milk. Not that they're newborn.

Suckling pigs are usually slaughtered at around one month old.

Your standard pack of bacon or pork chops will have been slaughtered between 4-6 months old. Possibly earlier depending on the breed and intended outcome.

I'm not really sure there is a great deal of moral difference in those 3 months.

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I didn't know that. The piglet on the table when I was visiting the relatives in Eastern Europe was certainly tiny. I'm fairly certain that it had been born just the day before, but now you have me doubting myself. It was definitely one of the ones I saw being born - only one pig had farrowed.

faerylights · 27/02/2026 18:21

paloma7 · 27/02/2026 18:21

It's disingenuous to pretend an unshelled prawn or a whole fish is the same as a whole baby suckling pig being wheeled through a restaurant as some kind of gratuitous spectacle.

Why isn't it the same?

FairKoala · 27/02/2026 18:21

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 27/02/2026 17:13

Would you leave if someone was eating a pork chop or a bacon sandwich? It's the same thing really. I think if you can't bear the sight of the whole dead animal you should stick to restaurants and cooking programmes that focus on vegetarian or vegan food, or only using fish and meat after the butcher or fishmonger has finished with them.

I would if there was a strong smell. (Have done in the past)
I probably would leave if I saw this.

Original poster
paloma7 · 27/02/2026 18:21

It's disingenuous to pretend an unshelled prawn or a whole fish is the same as a whole baby suckling pig being wheeled through a restaurant as some kind of gratuitous spectacle.

OP posts:
BauhausOfEliott · 27/02/2026 18:20

paloma7 · 27/02/2026 17:37

If you ordered veal, would you want the cow's head on the table while you ate?

Yes, people know where meat comes from, but many of them don't like to dwell on it too much. No meat eater I know would be particularly delighted with the head of a lamb, pig or cow on the table while they ate. Let's be honest.

In lots of European countries serving a whole head would be totally normal. I’ve eaten a grilled sheep’s head in Albania and a stewed one in Iceland. You see racks of heads in lots of European food markets.

If you eat meat - which I do - you should in my opinion use every part of the animal. I buy high welfare meat and I will eat any part of it that’s available including offal, tail, head, trotters, brain, tripe. Otherwise it’s wasteful.

I wouldn’t set foot in a Gordon Ramsey restaurant because I think he’s a giant cunt, but the form in which he serves pork is irrelevant to that.

faerylights · 27/02/2026 18:20

nomoreforks · 27/02/2026 18:19

@faerylights if you"re eating a baby pig how has it had a 'great life before a humane, controlled death'?

Pigs have no concept of mortality and their own life spans, they're not people.