Jamie Oliver hit the headlines when he was seen slaughtering a lamb during the filming of Jamie’s Great Escape.
Some viewers complained to Channel 4 claiming the killing was ‘barbarous’ and should not have been broadcast before the 9pm watershed.
Jamie himself was close to tears during the killing and afterwards admitted it was ‘pretty emotional - pretty hard-core’.
Britain’s favourite chef was shown holding a knife to the lamb’s throat and hesitating before killing the animal. He said on the show;’It's a beautiful creature, but it is tasty and we are top of the food chain. If that offends you, you shouldn’t eat it. A chef who has cooked 2,000 sheep should kill at least one, otherwise you're a fake.’
The programme featured Jamie staying with a family of farmers and hunters in Le Marche region of Italy. Not only did he kill the lamb for a family feast – but he was seen trying to shoot, but missing a wild boar while on a hunting trip. It later showed a three year old girl joining in as the family skinned and gutted the wild boar into her paddling pool.
Some critics felt that the killing, the way many lambs are killed in rural Italy, was inhumane as the animal was still conscious.
In the UK animals must be killed on licensed premises and must first be stunned - normally with a bolt to the head. However both the Jewish and Muslim faiths are exempt from this law because their religions demand animals are killed with a single cut to the throat.
Others felt that the footage should not have been shown at a time when young children could possibly have been watching. A spokesman for Jamie said: "When put on the spot, Jamie felt that to kill one lamb out of the thousands that he has already cooked was an honest and important experience. It wasn't the easiest thing for him to do as you can see from the footage.
"The method of killing the lamb was one not out of the ordinary in rural Italy and one considered humane by all present.
Jamie feels that the piece is an honest and powerful account of how meat is respected in Italy. Italians consider animal welfare of the utmost importance. A large percentage of animals are reared organically rather than by battery methods.
"The hunters of the La Marche region have a much purer notion of the relationship between animals and meat than, say, a person who buys beef burgers on a weekly basis, without any consideration for how the animal in the products was raised or by the way in which they were killed."
A Channel 4 spokesman added: "We were aware of the sensitivity of the scene and ensured that it was clearly flagged to viewers immediately before the start of the programme. It was a difficult scene but one which was relevant in the context and important to include in the programme."
Please note, although this way of killing animals is commonplace in the area, it is in fact illegal and is governed by a 1993 EU directive on the protection of animals at the time of slaughter.
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