On Newsnight on Thursday night, George Monbiot demonstrated how to skin and cook a squirrel, just in case you’ve decided to start eating the creatures.
The environmentalist explained that after finding a dead ‘but still warm’ squirrel by the roadside, he had the brainwave to take it home, cook it up and use it as a comment on the increasingly ‘confused realities of meat production.’
He said: ‘Farmed meat eaters are unethical,’ explaining that the problems with keeping animals in farming conditions have many issues.
Firstly, they take up land that could be used for grains.
Secondly, it cases pollution - both in transporting the meat and in producing it.
But in contrast millions of ’squirrels, rabbits, pigeons, deer’ are killed per annum, most of which, he claims, end up in landfill.
‘I would like people to only eat this kind of meat, which means you wouldn’t eat meat very often,’ George explained.
Presenter James O’Brien said that whilst ‘it doesn’t taste like chicken, but it’s perfectly edible.’
PETA UK agree that roadkill is actually the only ethical way to eat meat, with Associate Director, Elisa Allen saying:
'If the idea of squirrel stew or rat rashers turns your stomach, then it's time to take a long hard look at what's on your plate, because eating road kill is no more disgusting than consuming the decaying flesh of an animal who died on a farm and spent his or her short life mired in waste and being pumped full of antibiotics.'
'It's also more humane in that the animal wasn't mutilated, didn't suffer the misery of transportation in a crowded truck and didn't hear the screams and smell the fear of the animals ahead of him on the slaughter line. It's likely that the animal never knew what hit him or her.'
'Monbiot has a point: if you must consume animal carcases, the only ethical way to do it is to scrape it off the road. Of course, a far less repulsive way to eat with a clear conscience is to go vegan.'
What do you think on this issue? Would you be happy to eat roadkill if it meant an animal suffered less? Tell us @CloserOnline.