Jamie Oliver

[sunflower68]

I haven't seen today's press but heard on the news about a pic of Jamie Oliver slitting the throat of a sheep. Is the hoo ha about the picture being in the press (which is pretty gross) or just about what he did? I can't think any carnivore can be upset about him doing what thousands of abbatoir-workers do every day. Were they saying it is an inhumane way of killing the sheep?

[brachiopod]

It's because people don't want to be confronted with this side of their food supply. Especially when it's that-lovely-Jamie-Oliver being the one with the knife.

Haven't seen the article myself (or the programme) but I saw the headline over someone's shoulder on the train this morning. It was the Daily Mail (surprise, surprise).

[Ward-Minter]

baaaa baric

[brachiopod]

Just found the article.

I think some are complaining about the fact the sheep wasn't stunned first. (Commercially slaughtered sheep here in the UK are stunned (supposedly) by electric shock, many don't receive a sufficient 'dose' for a long enough period to stun them prior to bleeding, so are concious anyway. Animals that are slaughtered for Kosher or Halal meat are not stunned at all.)

I suspect, though, that more complaints came from those who were upset at having to face one of the more gory realities of where their meat comes from "..and I thought it came in polystyrene trays..." and the fact that it was loveable, cheeky-chappy Jamie Oliver doing it. ("Well, you wouldn't see lovely Delia doing an awful thing like that....")

[jimmer]

I remember Hugh Farley Whatshisname saying he'd never eat something he couldn't kill himself. Furthermore, Jamie Oliver was hunting Wild Boar on his programme the other night. He didn't manage to shoot it but he did have a go. Don't you city folk realise that meat comes from dead amimals?

jim

[brachiopod]

They should stop bleating on about it!

[smudge]

Baa humbug - Adding to the other posts, I think it was also because it was shown before the 9:00pm watershed too.

[sunflower68]

I might have known it was the Daily Mail though!

[andy hughes]

The contoversy is two-fold - one issue is the flagrent disregard for EU regulations regarding the slaughter of food animals, and the other is the showing of the slaughter at a time when children are watching.

As an adult, I am fully aware of how meat animals are killed, and am hypocritical enough to eat meat, but blanche at the sight of it being killed. However, children should not be subjected to a sight like this, especially if no appropriate warning was issued.

The programme makers assertion that this is part of the 'European' approach to food is simply unacceptable - again, an adult perspective thrust into the conciousness of children. We all know that Nazis gassed Jews - that doesn't mean that newsreel film on Newsround is dsesirable or appropriate under the notion of 'living history'.

It happens - lots of things do - but there is a time and a place to show the inhumane slaughter of an animal - this was patently neither, and all involved should be ashamed of themselves.

[jimmer]

Oh, I think children are robust enough to survive a bit of gore Andy.

jim

[Ding-Dong]

A warning was given before the show, and you didn't actually see Jamie kill the animal.

This is the way 'peasant' Itailian people have killed their animals for generations - not everybody can nip 'round to Sainsbury's to pick up a few lamb chops - he is meant to be immersing himself in the culture to learn the way these guys live and cook, and that is exactly what he has done.

I can't help thinking such a fuss is being made simply because it was a fluffy lamb tat 10 minutes before was happily gamboling around the Italian countryside - would there be such a bruhaha (love that word) if it was a rat he had killed? Of course not.

Just can't see what all the fuss is about quite honestly - these beasts are bred to be our food, and they have to be killed: job done.

[andy hughes]

Hi jimmer that really depends on the child concerned. I would suggest that you are puting your adult perspective of the incident onto the perception of a child - as the programme makers have done.

Next week, film of a granfather having a fatal heart attack because, hey, they die eventuallly don't they?

Drawing of lines anyone?

[jimmer]

ding-Dong - Bruhaha is one of my favourites too.

Hi Andy - an adult perspective, you flatter me sir. I cannot see how it would inflict any lasting damage on a child to see such an event, and at least there is some context in that Jamie shows how in Italy the whole family get involved. I am more worried that many of todays kids seem ultra fussy about food and many will only eat processed foods with all the associated long term health problems.

jim

[andy hughes]

Hello again jimmer - I would suggest that you don't have any children?

It is very easy for us to assimilate concepts such as context, and to understand why the slaughter was included in the programme.

My problem is not that it was included, but the time of broadcast - a lot of small children who see lambs in their picture books may have been upset by the killing of one on television - remembering that until at least five or six, children are unable to separate televisual images from reality.

I can only reiterate, it was unecessary and ill-thought-out, certainly by the programme schedulers, if not the programme makers.

[smudge]

I have to agree with Andy on this one - as I'd already mentioned earlier, it was shown pre-watershed time, warning or no warning!

When our eldest daughter was three years old, we were walking past a lorry parked in our road, that was heaped in 'fluffy lambs' that had just been slaughtered. There was blood running out of the bottom of the lorry & along the gutter. Our daughter asked what is was & I explained in the best possible way, that they weren't alive, but being prepared to sell in the shops. I'll never forget the look of horror on her little face & she cried & talked about it for days on end. She is forty now & still vividly remembers that day!

Believe me, I gave this neighbour (who worked in a local abarttoir) a right telling off about it & he apologised profusely!

We all know about the process of animals from farm to table, but this programme should have been shown after at least 9:00pm.

[smudge]

P.S. I know wildlife programmes are shown at varying times of the day & night, but that sort of killing is down to nature & you can switch off before hand.

On the Jamie Oliver senario, some people might have missed the warning at the beginning & weren't prepared

[mullein3]

its enough to put you off meat for life..i hardly eat any as it is..if i had seen that i would never eat any again..i like sheep ..and i dont think its good television viewing..

[smudge]

I have to say mullien, I'm eating less & less meat as the years go by!

[loopey]

I do think that children should know where their food comes from, I tell my son when he wants to eat mcdonalds that if he wants to eat animals lips,skinetc fine i'll buy him one, unfortunately hes not very squimish and usually does but I think pre 9'oclock isnt on as it could really disturb some children if their not ready for this graphic kind of info, especially if they havent yet learnt that meat comes from animals.

[El D]

I think I have to weigh in with the real life brigade on this one - animals die, people eat them. People kill animals. Why is there elementary harm in children appreciating this fact? I think it's rather symptomatic of society that something as natural as death is some kind of taboo before the watershed. Does real life only happen after 9pm? Imposing these artifical barriers on reality is part of a bigger problem in my opinion, and I would suggest that if a child is up at 8.45 they are perfectly capable of rationalising the fact, unlike many so called adults, that meat comes from dead animals. Perhaps then we would not breed a generation of hypocrites. It's reminiscent of those boorish people who used to complain when wildlife programs showed showed 'wildlife' in action.

[spinchimp]

Andy - for goodness sake children through the ages and across all cultures have witnessed animals being killed in order that they can eat. My wife rang chickens necks when she was under ten on her grandfathers smallholding. Kids are robust - its over-protective adults that do the damage to them!

I also agree with the view that if you couldn't kill an animal yourself you should not eat meat - it is the appalling hipocracy.