Animal Liberation has a request for TVM: can Masterchef Malta go vegan?

The animal rights organisation ALM has called out the use of animal meat on Masterchef Malta, as TVM’s Sunday showstopper now get to deal with a different kind of culinary critic.

Animal Liberation Malaa said it was appalled at the use of the 12 rabbits – a mainstay of Maltese cuisine – in a challenge they claim left some contestants ‘shocked’ at seeing the skinned animals staring back at them.

“Why were they shocked so much? On a daily basis people dissociate meat from the animal itself. When one doesn’t look into the eyes of the animal, it’s easy to treat a ‘piece of meat’ as an object, but when looking directly into the eye, a sense of morality arises in one’s mind. Is it fair that just for a ‘challenge’ 12 lives had to go through such horrific pain and fright? With their heads being twisted to death?” ALM said on its Facebook page.

Animal Liberationist Leila Scott on the 5am vigils outside the Marsa abattoir

“What if the contestants were presented with another de-skinned animal, such as a dog, how would they react to it? Would they have accepted to cook it?”

ALM, which in the past has called for an end to horse cabbies, circuses and dolphinaria, as well as the use of live animals on film sets, said it was “absurd” to care for pets while using animal meat for food.

“One can be a great chef even with plant-based ingredients. There are already Michelin and well-known plant-based restaurants in the world, each of whom are owned by very well-talented chefs that professionalise in cooking with ingredients that are food – plants – not animal lives.”