'Being Gordon Ramsay' featuring dead pig!

[paloma7]

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?

What about the impact of many vegan foods on the environment? Soy beans, for example? Or foods like avocado which are flown thousands of miles everyday for us to eat?

With all this talk of eating humans, does anyone else remember Greg Wallace's spoof documentary "Miracle Meat"?
Quite cleverly done ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20230727-the-hoax-documentary-about-human-flesh-eating-that-shocked-the-uk

Looked yummy, I'd order it. Delish

Yep. I've seen plenty of videos of abbatoirs and slaughterhouses. I also live rurally where it's very normal to see the trucks coming to collect the animals for slaughter. Many people here also kill and eat their own meat.

None of it bothers me.

Now where is that laughing react 🤣🤣

Some ridiculous posts on here.

How am I 'comfortable with supermarket bacon?' Ffs.

Where exactly did I say I was 'fine' with certain practices in the dairy industry?

People always have to resort to predictable whataboutery on this kind of issue. It's so tedious.

We all draw our lines somewhere. Some people will eat cows but not horses. Some people will eat chicken, but not red meat. Some people are pescatarian. Some are vegetarian. Some are vegan.

By the way, I totally agree that meat eaters should have to confront the 'whole animal' far more, as opposed to parts packaged in plastic boxes. If people did have to deal with whole animals, many more would be inclined to not eat meat, or less of it.

But that is not what the thread is about. The thread is about the grotesque (in my view) spectacle of a baby pig, its eyes stuffed with flowers, in a restaurant because to many people - including meat eaters - this is totally unnecessary and repugnant.

Cue more whataboutery tales of "well I once ate a dodo" or whatever. Yawn. Or "what about lobsters?" Well what about them? Do I think they need to be boiled alive in front of people. Not particularly. But it happens. Nevertheless, a lobster is not a pig, just as a pig is not a human. Just because I am talking about a pig here, does not mean I need to be called to account for all manner of farming practices and animal cruelty across the world since time began. Multiple things can be true at once.

Nobody is forcing you to eat it op.

Nobody is forcing you to go to a restaurant that serves it.

Don’t like it don’t go. It’s just food at the end of the day. A dead pig served up as food. It’s that simple.

Absolutely agree. It’s abhorrent.

Don’t got to Edinburgh OP there are a few shops called Oink that have roasted whole hogs in the windows.

The thread is about the grotesque (in my view) spectacle of a baby pig, its eyes stuffed with flowers, in a restaurant because to many people - including meat eaters - this is totally unnecessary and repugnant.

Except many of us don't find it repugnant or grotesque in the slightest. Unnecessary, sure, but lots of things in life are unnecessary.

Why?

Very normal in a restaurant near Lousa in Portugal that we went to with people being bused in from local villages. Local delicacy.

Good question. Of course crops grown for vegan products, such as soy, will naturally have an impact on the environment. However soy is a common animal feed for cows. Feeding it to cows requires significantly more land, water, and energy to produce the same amount of protein, as most calories are lost during the animal's metabolism.

It is significantly more efficient to eat soy directly. Livestock act as a "middleman" that loses most of the energy from the plant; it takes roughly 25 kg of grain to produce just 1 kg of beef. By consuming soy ourselves, we bypass the metabolic heat and waste produced by animals, allowing the same land to feed many more people.

As for avocados, I agree that flying in exotic fruits has an environmental impact. One can use discretion and eschew purchasing air mile heavy fruit and veg at the same time as eating compassionately.

It doesn't bother a lot of people. I am aware of that. Just find that very sad.
I live rurally too btw.

I think its good that you're being made aware of it,OP, because you can then make a educated decision to avoid the restaurant. Conversely, as a dedicated carnivore, I can actively choose to go there and order the sucking pig. Ive had it before, it's delicious.

Oh well. Luckily most people aren't too fussed about what random strangers think of them.

I would say as close to what would be their natural lifespan as possible without being, like you say, inedible. I mean we have a concept of what is a good lifespan for a pet so why not for pigs which are just as intelligent as dogs in many ways.

People are being bused in as a local delicacy?? Do they serve them whole on a plate with flowers in their eyes.. is the question I am asking.. because I think I would avoid this restaurant.

Most of the animals we eat in the U.K. if they were in the wild would not have a very long lifespan at all.

I would agree with OP that I would never pass judgement on what somebody chooses to consume, but to make a spectacle of a carcass is almost sadistic. Needlessly cruel and very distasteful.

I mean chickens a fox would kill all in a field in one night.

Pigs will eat each other while alive if they cannot find other food.

Sheep again would be food for foxes and are frankly stupid they are basically always trying to kill themselves. By falling over, head stuck in a fence and so on.

Cows maybe have the best odds.

Personally, as a meat eater I’d find this preferable to picking up some plastic packaged meat from goodness knows where on a supermarket shelf. I’d rather have the connection with what I eat. I’d rather my children know too and if on the back of that connection they decide to become vegetarian then that is a choice I would support. I think as a modern society we’re too disconnected from where our food comes from. We’re lucky to have a couple of great butchers in our area and so seeing whole animals is fairly common but again for me is an important link for us to make.

See I think meat eaters SHOULD be absolutely brutally clear on what their meat actually is. I love meat, we shoot and I pluck/skin and butcher our own game. I use as much of the animal as I possibly can, I appreciate it and I respect it. I am VERY fussy about the meat we eat - it’s local, free range and ideally direct from the farmers. Definitely British. I would rather starve forever than eat cheap Tesco bacon from some country with shite welfare laws.
a suckling pin is seen as a celebration - it’s showing respect to the animal. And it should be seen as an animal, far too many people associate meat with plastic packets.

But we do that already - it's just they reach that age and size very quickly. Older pigs are too fatty to provide much edible meat.

No, I guess people that don't give a shit about cruelty in abbatoirs wouldn't care what anyone thinks of them, silly me 🙄