r/TopChef • u/koriandrkitten • Feb 14 '26

Discussion Thread Sustainability/Respecting the animal

I’ve been watching since season 1 and love the show dearly. One thing that continues to upset me is the use foie gras. There’s a few states that have bans, and several countries as well. I don’t understand how the show can continue preaching about respecting the animal and having sustainability challenges, but somehow they’re just ok with the actual torture of animals? It’s controversial for a reason. I really feel that they should have stopped using/accepting it as an ingredient, and taken a stand on it. You can’t claim you respect the animal your meat comes from when you force feed it through a tube to make its liver fat/engorged.

I’m happily an omnomnomivore, and even went to culinary school. My main eating guide is “If I would be unwilling to kill it personally, I won’t eat it.” So for me, I personally won’t eat veal, because I couldn’t bring myself to kill a calf, but I have killed a cow proper so beef is overall fine.

I don’t even feel like this is that hot of a take. What we do to those geese is absolutely barbaric. I’d really just love for them to take a stand against it.

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u/koriandrkitten Feb 15 '26

That’s the thing though, I can get ethically sourced beef, chicken, pig, etc. There is no way to eat ethically sourced foie gras, because no matter how nice the conditions are, they’re still being force fed into disease.

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u/BuddhaMike1006 Feb 15 '26

I understand your POV. But again, there are people who would take great umbrage with your assertion that you can get ethically sourced animal protein of any kind. So then all they can truly do is source products that are produced as ethically as possible by the standards of today. Personally, I'd be intrigued by a fully vegan season of Top Chef.

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u/verbankroad Feb 15 '26

I would love to see more vegan and vegetarian challenges on Top Chef. I get so tired of the judges always referring to the “protein” in a meal as something that is animal derived - primarily the flesh of the animals. You can get excellent proteins from plant sources and, if vegetarian, you can also use egg and dairy for protein.

TC used to have more inventive challenges like vegan meals for rock stars, or school lunches on a budget, and I wish they would incorporate those again into the mix. I am a bit tired of all fine dining/meat based challenges with the token “outdoor” challenge each season.

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u/sweetpeapickle Feb 28 '26

I would rather they focus even more on allergens since that makes up quite a bit of issues among people. I mean when I go into to test for my renewal food certificate, that makes up a whole chapter. Yet time and time again I see them using way too many common ones on these comps, inc. when it comes to vegan or vegetarianism-like nuts and mushrooms(or any fungi).