Kill It Cook It Eat It - The Babies

[the.fee.fairy]

Its on now on BBC3. Don't know what time its on regularly.

I feel i should watch it, but the last series stopped me eating beef and lamb forever - and i can't eat pork anyway.

Little piglets at the moment. I don't think i can watch the actual killing bit, it disturbed me to watch the adult ones...

[Clara]

Well at least you made your decision to not eat beef and lamb in full possession of the facts! Sounds like a good idea for a program, a little less meat eating for whatever reason will probably do us all a world of good!

[Annpan]

Personally I don't think you should eat meat if you are not prepared to slaughter and butcher the animal yourself - I don't mean you have to do it, just think about it... I honestly don't think I could kill and butcher a horse or a rabbit (I guess it's cultural) But, if I had to, I would a chicken, a pig (at a push) and If I had no chickens or pigs, a cow. I am not saying I'd be glad to... but I would and could do it (not legally I understand, but y'know).

Anyone who can't face the fact that a living being has died to feed them shouldn't eat meat. I worked with a woman once who freaked out because there was a vien in a chicken leg... she threw it in the bin and said that 'they' should do something about it, it's discusting

[the.fee.fairy]

That's why i made myself watch the first one - i wanted to know what really went on, how the animal really died.

I need to watch the chicken one again - that was barbaric, but it didn't stop me eating chicken long enough.

I dont' feel uncomfortable with the fact that the animal has died, because i understand that the animal has to die. i feel uncomfortable with *how* it has died.

I don't like the stunning, i found it cruel and not guaranteed - how can you guarantee that the legs moving is just spasms and nerve movement, and not the thing trying to get off the hook? Why can't their heads be chopped off? Get the animal eating something yummy and just decapitate it before it knows anything about it.

I have this horrible notion - animals generally have better sense of smell than we do, so can they not smell 'death' in the abbattoir? Maybe not the first animal, but what about the second? the third? the thirtieth?!

I have toyed with vegetarianism before, and i think that the more i watch these programmes, and the more i learn about death for food, the more it makes me believe that i have a lot of blood on my hands being a meateater, even if i don't eat a lot of meat.

Fish, i feel different about - i can kill a fish. I also feel different about rabbit, my dog has caught and killed a rabbit before and its death was quicker and with less fuss than the animals in the abbattoir. I think i can handle rabbit - i've helped my sister skin and gut one too (it smells!!) but it wasn't too bad. Once it was dead, and we'd started gutting it, it became a piece of meat.

I think after the piglets had been in the water to take their bristles off, they became pieces of meat for me - even though i'd just watched them die (well, not quite - i couldn't watch the stunning), i didn't associate the dead animal with the living one.

I didn't like the dying though. That's what will stop me eating pork/pig products in the future.

[the.fee.fairy]

eeek...its goats tonight. I love goats...the live animals. Not eaten goat meat before.

[citizentwiglet]

I honestly don't know what I thought of it.... I've not eaten red meat for 20 years and, having procured a few rather nice cookbooks I HAD been toying with the idea of starting again....but now I think not. The only bit that upset me was those wee goats skipping happily to their deaths - as soon as they were dead I was fine. I don't know whether I'm being overly sentimental about it, I eat free-range chicken and I eat fish and don't really consider their feelings so I can't help thinking I'm suffering from 'but it's got nice eyes' syndrome, IYSWIM.

And I don't honestly think that ALL abbatoirs have such careful and considerate slaughtermen, either.

[the.fee.fairy]

I had 'cute flappy ear' syndrome with the goats. And i agreed with the woman on the lamb or veal one who said that it wasn't the killing, it was the knowledge that the last thing they saw from the second one on was their dead friend's body hanging in front of them. The idea that their last thoughts were the sudden realisation that they were next...

Don't like it!! Not going to eat a huge amount of meat. I'll eat some, but i'm going to drastically cut down. And i'm not eating red meat or pork again (well, that's not that difficult - i'm allergic to pork products...). I'm also not eating 'standard' chicken again, or anything that does not categorically state that it is free range. Nor will i eat any other products that don't specifically say that they don't use battery eggs (like Hellman's Mayonnaise..).