You mean animals are killed before we eat them? I am shocked and disgusted. I always thought we only eat meat from animals that die peacefully in their own bed, surrounded by family, of old age.

Some people simply need a good slap across the face with reality.
I’m sure that turkey doesn’t want to die but neither does any animal in the food chain. I’d rather people know where their meat comes from than thinking it just magically appears boned and rolled. Ex butcher

People should know how their food reaches their plate.

Anyway, if done correctly, there’ll be no blood or gore, as the neck is broken or the bird is stunned to death & then should be plucked & hung upside down for several days to bleed out.

Context is everything. For an animal rights organisation who rountinely use placards with graphic images of mistreated animals (during the day, pre-watershed, in the middle of the street where children can see) to claim that the regular method of killing an animal – an act which happens countless times every day – is somehow the most offensive thing imaginable requires a considerable amount of self-delusion about how ARAN go about their work.
While RTÉ are offering the measured context of “this is how this is done before every meal reaches your plate”, ARAN think this is unreasonable, & that somehow only their own pictures of mistreated & abused animals represents human/ animal interaction accurately.

Also, for ARAN to claim that RTÉ are making an attempt at attention grabbing completely ignores the fact that ARAN protested the pretend death of a cat on a fictional TV program.

I think Kids should be exposed to seeing this kind of thing. Not against their will, but for people who eat meat, it doesn’t oroginate in the packaging.

Meat means killing an animal. I disagree with aran. People ought know what meat production involves. Chicken had become a ubiquitous protein source with all the animal rights implication of factory farming. Some states ban any recording in slaughter houses, giving carte blanche for cruelty during the slaughter process. We have had pork contamination and horse meat in beef. More openness and engagement of the public with the meat supply could never be harmful.

“They relish having their feathers stroked and like to chirp, cluck, and gobble along to their favourite tunes.” Is that a joke, because I can think of a few tunes turkey’s probably won’t like at this time of year…

Advert currently running on tele for Irish lamb farmer strolling through fields talking about grass and rain etc no sign of a living lamb anywhere same thing really we like our meat but we don’t want to know how it gets to the table

If you don’t want to watch it, don’t tune in. Simple.

Who knew? I’m off to bond with my turkey before I kill and eat it.

How many plates are going to be stuffed with ham and turkey globally this Christmas? Millions I imagine.
I’m a veggie but I don’t see the harm in showing the reality of where all this meat comes from as long as it’s done with as little stress to the animal as possible. I could think of a lot worse things being shown on the telly although it would be different if they were to slaughter a dog or a cat in the same manner. I see their point in this respect. They don’t place higher value on one over the other which is fair enough.
Society norm simply dictates our behaviour.

If God didn’t want us to eat animals he wouldn’t have made them out of meat…

:-)

While I am sensitive to animal rights, I really don’t see the value in NOT showing the scene. This is the reality of meat, and if anything it’s the mild end of the scale considering the majority of meat production is highly industrial and a lot more horrific than one bird in a rural setting. People should understand the impact of their choices- we are adults. And if anything, an exposé into slaughter houses and the like would be a valuable thing.

It’s more festive than anything. Where else does everything think ALL OF THEIR MEAT comes from? If you can’t face the fact that you are eating something that died then don’t eat meat.

Anyone that would listen to Claire Downes from ARAN would want to go away and have a sit down with themselves.

So where does the turkey come from so? These groups are complete idiots why on earth are they given air time

One bird killing another bird.
Happy Xmas my ar*e..

who cares what a bunch of vegan loons thinks, this group wouldnt make it in to the funny section of a national paper, yet they get “front page” here

Is she having a laugh! meat is meat. What about cows, geese, pigs and sheep. Food has to come from somewhere and why not know where it comes from.

I thought farmers were all mythical grim reaper types? Wondering around farms all over the world, preying on weak animals and delivering them straight into tescos fridges.

How foolish was I? The poor things are actually slaughtered, nae, murdered? My god I feel ill so I do.

Oh for goodness sake. Get real! Probably the best of all the Irish tv programmes ever made, covering such interesting articles. Don’t watch it if you can’t hack it. But I am very interested in finding out what u actually think happens the birds?? I mean how do u think they get from farm to fork, naturally????

Its kinda of amusing,

If anything, showing alot of people how meat is prepared would actually put people off the meat. So if anything you should be encouraging people to know where meat comes from.

Its the faceless meat that means people have no problem eating anything,

i say this as a meat eater, not as one of those veg only people….I’d be fecked without chicken and beef :)

When stores advertise hometown Irish turkeys do some people think they grow out of the ground like vegetables or that pre packed meat on your supermarket shelves just magically appears? If you eat meat or poultry then you must accept that it was alive once and had to be killed before it reaches your plate. Over sensitivity gone mad!!

Meat doesn’t come from the Meat Fairy, you know. Everyone sitting down to their traditional Christmas dinner should know where their food comes from and the reality of food production.

You should feel priveleged to have seen that old lady kill the chicken, cook it and slap it on the table in front of you! Today kids are eating chickens that may come from Thailand reared in god knows what kind of place! That woman in black was the ultimate “green”! No air miles, carbon footprint or unknown additives for her food!!

In other news… ARAN sieze any opportunity to get media coverage and succeed…

I am a huge animal lover and supporter of animal rights but I also love to eat meat and make no apologies for it. What is important is to know and respect where your food comes from. It doesn’t magic itself onto shelves in plastic. It is this sanitised form of sale that means people grow up ignorant of how it is produced. High lighting what happens to animals is important to allow for an informed decision to eat meat or not eat it. Smaller portions of humanely reared, free range meat and poultry is preferable to mass produced, tasteless meat full of growth hormones and the animal has been provided with a good life up to slaughter. Kids especially need to be educated about food and where it comes from. I will never forget hearing a child who looked about 8 asking it’s mum what my potatoes were at the checkout in a supermarket last year. They’re what you get your chips from was her answer. If that’s an example can you imagine where some kids think meat comes from.

Salacious TV as usual. Does nothing for anyone’s good. There’s a time and place for everything. Programmers should sensitive to their audience needs especially children but the way things have become in society we’ve gone straight back to being in the cave albeit in a technological one.
As a very small child on a visit to Achill Island once we were at a small whitewashed cottage. I wandered freely outside when the old woman in black appeared and swiftly picked up a bird by the legs, lashed it down onto a block and chopped its head off before me. Next thing I remember is seeing her approach the table with a roasted bird on a plate. I have never since been able to eat fowl. Deep associative influences playing havoc with logic for life. If we really are to come outbid the cave, we need to start with how we affect our children.

We all know where meat comes from we are not stupid but it is unnecessary to show killing, it serves absolutely no purpose.

If knowing where your christmas dinner comes from offends you yhen simply don’t eatch this programme.

Far too many peiple think yhat meat comes from the supermarket. If they know exactly how an animal is raised, nurtured, slaughtered and butchered they will have far more appreciation for their food.

This IS TOTALLY STUPID and IDIOTIC! It’s bad enough some kids grow up hardly knowing the names of their veg, they should be allowed to see where their bloody Christmas dinner comes from. Put a sock in it ARAN ya muppets.

I understand it could be upsetting to see but I think if your going to eat meat( and I do) you should know and maybe occasionally see how its killed. I don’t think people really connect that piece of meat in supermarket and the actual living animal.my friends a primary school teacher was doing a lesson on animals and what they give us sheep-wool etc and when she asked her 1st class students where beef comes from the answer was the shop, she said yes but what animal does it come from and a lot of the kids were completely confused by the concept that the meat in the shop came from an animal

Most people would appear to prefer not to see a bird or animal killed because it might stress them out,but i have seen animals that have been highly stressed out before being slaughtered,and it can affect peoples meat eating choices, but it might do no harm to educate them on the way food arrives on their dinner plate.

I would live to b vegetarian except I love pig & poultry too much! The idea that they don’t arrive on the earth pre packed is shocking – do everyone good to see a bit of reality. That’s Ireland’s problem they want it all sterile & ‘nice’. Get a grip

It’s stupid little things like this that annoy me about modern society. People are being brainwashed into thinking natural and instinctive things are cruel and wrong. Almost every other animal would tear a turkey apart to get its meat. If anything the turkey is lucky

“They relish having their feathers stroked and gobbling and singing along” wtf is she on about. It’s a turkey, not a pisshead on his way home from the pub

All the jokes aside, thousands of living, breathing animals are murdered every day so fat pigs can gorge on their carcasses…. it’s just sick

This never happened on Glenroe.

Knowing thejournal.ie they’ll spend hours thinking about which side to be on and eventually they’ll think: this is wrong. After hours of painstaking left leaning thinking and Guardian newspaper articles.

And then most of them will eat Turkey at Christmas.

Meanwhile, over at the real Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/dec/18/how-to-eat-christmas-dinner *

Dear RTE
As you are so adept at glorifing abuse to sentient non humans in such programmes as Ear to the Ground, Kill it Cook it Eat it and every cookery show that abounds perhaps you might like to air “Earthlings” or how about “Blackfish” on Christmas day perhaps at dinner time?

I support animal rights but I do love turkey and not just at Christmas

Its actually ARAN trying to grab some headlines here.

“Kill it,cook it,eat it” has been of for months and it hides nothing!

Looks like choking the chicken is the way to go !

I genuinely would have thought that Animal Rights campaigners would be ADVOCATING that the slaughter of animals be shown live on television, in order to publicize the barbaric practice which precedes our Xmas dinners.
They really are a funny ol bunch.

I want to know when are Aran going to start sticking up for vegetables rights

Should not be allowed, off to shoot now to get a couple of cock pheasants for christmas

Whatever about slaughtering the turkey, why is the Presenter, Ms. McSweeney doing it????

I have great respect for animal welfare/rescue groups and the hardship they deal with on a daily basis.
I also eat meat and fish and have killed my own “prey”.

What I do not understand, appreciate or accept is why broadcasting the killing of an animal raised for consumption (who according to the report on ETTG had a great outdoor life) is less acceptable under the aspect of showing the animal’s “suffering” compared to using the images of abused and/or neglected animals – regardless whether they are pets or commercial animals, wildlife, local foxes killed by a pack of hounds, the slaughtering of whales or dolphines or the fate spanish bulls – for reasons of r”aising awareness” or funds/donations.

The means are the same only the ends are of different sentiment.

After all the discussion, I watched ETTG last night. What was shown was the preparation of the bird, the explanation of the method but not the actual deed itself. Of course, I do not know whether that has been cut out since the first broadcast.

Why did my comment disappear?

All I said was from memory: “Yes of course it should be shown because animals die to feed us. I also said it should be shown before the watershed as reality is often cruel.”

Gobble gobble!