New British Reality Show Challenges Families to Give Up Meat or Eat Their 'Pets'
Meat the Family, a new British reality TV show, forces participants and viewers to consider a tough question: Would you eat a burger made from a cow you know?
Part reality show, part game show, and part social experiment, the Channel 4 program’s chilling tagline, "What happens when your dinner comes to stay,” gets right to the point.
Here’s how the series works:
A meat-eating family is tasked with adopting and caring for an adorable farm animal (the first few episodes include chickens, sheep, pigs, and cows). After three weeks, the family must decide whether to go vegetarian and send the creature to live out its days in an animal sanctuary—or to cook and eat their temporary “pet.”
Related: 25 Easy and Delicious Vegetarian Recipes
"Why do we find it acceptable to eat a lamb but we wouldn’t eat our pet dog?" said Daniela Neumann of Spun Gold, the production company behind the show, according to The Guardian. "Could you go back to meat once you’ve put a name and face to a meal?”
WATCH: How to Make Classic Three-Bean Vegetarian Chili
The casting call, which has since expired (bummer), said the showrunners were looking for “warm, opinionated families who will share their homes with an animal they would normally eat (i.e. a chicken/lamb). For three weeks they’ll learn all about the animals whilst living up close and personal with them!”
Who could pass up an opportunity like that?!
Meat the Family is scheduled to air sometime in early 2020. Though it’s set to air only in the U.K., the show is expected to "go international quickly."
