Is meat surgically harvested from humans sold in the UK to address the cost-of-living crisis? No, that's not true: A British television program that explored the production and sale of human meat to provide a cheap source of protein and income is a satirical production, designed by its creators to highlight the plight of the vulnerable in this difficult time. Clips from the Channel 4 satirical documentary The British Meat Miracle have been taken out of context and shared without disclaimers, sparking outrage and confusion among some viewers who believe the show was real and was endorsing cannibalism.
The claim appeared in a TikTok video (archived here) published on July 27, 2023 with a caption reading:
WAKE UP! The UK is selling Human Meat.
The video shows excerpts of the Channel 4 documentary with captions in Bulgarian stating that the company is selling human flesh from males and young children.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Aug 3 19:04:51 2023 UTC)
Since the end of July 2023, clips of the spoof TV documentary have been circulating on social media posts in Bulgaria with users misinterpreting the show as an authentic non-fictional documentary. For example, in this post where a caption reads:
And we ended up with cannibalism:
👉Channel 4 presenter Gregg Wallace of the British cooking reality show advertises human meat for cooking. In the lab, human tissue is turned into larger pieces of meat that can be used to make steaks, hamburgers and sausages. On the packaging it says "Made by humans to humans". Liberistan just freaked out 🤬🤦♀️😡
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Aug 3 19:47:07 2023 UTC)
The show, which was first broadcast on 24 July 2023 on Britain's Channel 4 television, is described by the channel as satire, and it features celebrity chef Greg Wallace exploring a fictional factory called the Food Harvest factory that produces meat products surgically removed from poor people.
Wallace said that he was acting and playing himself and that the program was inspired by Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, an 18th-century satirical proposal that suggested poor Irish parents sell their children as food to the rich to make ends meet. Wallace said he wanted to highlight the plight of the vulnerable in this difficult time and the show was not meant to offend anyone.
A Channel 4 spokesperson told Reuters news agency:
This 'mockumentary' is a witty yet thought-provoking commentary on the extreme measures many people are being forced to take to stay afloat in our society during the cost of living crisis.
Other Lead Stories fact checks related to lab-grown meat can be found here.
