Helen Skelton was forced to eat a guinea pig after a mix-up in Peru.
Helen Skelton had to eat a guinea pig in Peru
The former 'Blue Peter' host ended up snacking on a rodent as she kayaked across the River Amazon for Sport Relief in 2011 after her love for the creatures got lost in translation.
Helen told the 'Spooning with Mark Wogan' podcast: "I went to Peru and did a lot of filming with some wonderful charities who were educating children who worked on rubbish dumps, who basically went out every day, scavenging for bits, take them back, clean them, sell them.
"And so the charity were trying to get them into schools and they were showing us their wonderful work and as part of showing us what happened they took us out for lunch."
The 40-year-old star continued: "We were in the middle of nowhere, and there was this big garden with all these hutches showing me their guinea pigs.
"Obviously there’s a language and cultural barrier, but I was enthusiastic because they were proud, and I was being respectful - I thought they were just showing me their guinea pigs."
The ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ star then revealed she had chosen the "cute" guinea pig to be unknowingly "spatchcocked and deep-fried".
She said: "I didn’t realise I was picking my lunch, so the one that I said was cute was then spatchcocked and deep-fried.
"They were so proud because it’s a delicacy, and they presented it to me, it still had claws and served with coleslaw.
"The translator was telling me that this was really, really important to them to eat it. I was like, ‘OK, this is just one of those things that I will take with me to my grave.'
"I can't say that's wrong, that's their world."
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