History Main / AdoptTheFood

* During one sidequest in ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends2'', a girl asks for a pig. The moment you deliver one to her, she expresses interest in making bacon out of it. However, the next time you talk to her, she admits she couldn't bring herself to eat it like she planned because of how cute it was and decided to keep it as a pet.

** She later obtains her pet pig Waddles at a fair where she wins him by guessing his weight. The carney offers her a fork and knife, clearly intending Waddles to be dinner, but she waves him off.

* Zigzagged in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS6E22FryAmTheEggMan Fry Am the Eggman]]". Leela buys some fertilized eggs at the farmers' market, and Fry, realizing that the eggs have the potential to hatch into a living creature, decides not to eat his egg and let it hatch. And ''then'' he'll eat it. As time passes, however, Fry gets attached and decides to let the creature live instead. Then the egg falls on the floor and splatters, so Fry lets Zoidberg have what remains. However, the creature inside the egg actually survives, and Fry keeps it as a pet, despite it being very destructive.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' episode "Maine Course", Jon discovers the lobster his relatives sent to his door for him to cook via the "Lobster on Wings" service is still alive. No one in the Arbuckle house has the will to cook it, but the local aquarium won't take it, as they already have too many courtesy of other "Lobster on Wings" customers. He names the lobster "Therm" after the dish Lobster Thermidor, keeps him as a pet, and grows fond of him. But eventually it's noticed that Therm isn't feeling good and hasn't eaten since his arrival. Plane tickets are purchased and Jon, Garfield, and Odie release Therm at a beach in Maine, where he happily heads into the ocean.

* ''WesternAnimation/KipoAndTheAgeOfWonderbeasts'': Horribly {{averted}}. [[spoiler:Wolf was raised by a pack of Newton wolves. She trains with them and after a year, it appears her adopted siblings and parents have accepted her as one of their own. But then it turns out she was just raised to be a final hunting test for the other pups. Only one of her adopted siblings hesitates to turn on her, truly considering her a sister, before relenting and saying that "we're wolves, you're a human".]]

Compare with PredatorTurnedProtector and contrast with EatTheDog.

Note that this only applies to animals that were raised with the intention of being eaten, not animals that are normally eaten that people specifically chose to raise as a pet.

->'''Mr. Wolfe:''' Now just take it easy, Heffer.
->'''Heffer:''' ''Heffer?!'' Is that even my real name?!
->'''Peter:''' Dad used to call you "steak".

* ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'': In the short "That's My Mommy", a duckling finds Tom and assumes him to be his mother. In response, Tom becomes interested in eating the duckling, only to be stopped by Jerry in numerous attempts only for Quacker to run back to Tom despite Jerry's efforts to convince the duckling that Tom is not his mommy and is trying to eat him. In the final attempt, Quacker realizes that Jerry was right and that Tom just wants to eat him. However, when he gets ready to jump into a boiling pot while telling Tom that he still loves him, Tom has a change of heart and starts caring for the duckling in the end.

* In the children's book ''The Carp in the Bathtub'', two Jewish children, Leah and Harry, become attached to "Joe," the carp their mother bought for her Passover gefilte fish. They try to save him, but unlike most other examples of this trope, Joe ''is'' eventually killed and eaten. Afterwards the kids' father gives them a pet cat, which they also name [[DeadGuyJunior Joe], and from then on they never eat gefilte fish again.

* This trope is what sets the latter half of ''Anime/YouAreUmasou'' into motion. Heart the ''TyrannosaurusRex'' stated his intention of eating the titular baby ''Ankylosaurus'' as soon as he saw him hatch from his egg (even Umasou's name means "delicious" in Japanese), but the baby imprints on him and regards him as his father. Heart still considers eating him even after having to take care of him for a while, but ultimately [[PredatorTurnedProtector he just can't resist the little guy.]]

* In ''Literature/TheShahnameh'', Zal was abandoned as a baby (he was an albino, which was taken as a bad omen). The Simurgh took him to her nest in order to feed the family, but then decided to adopt him.

* Taken to extremes in ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' episode "I Love Chicken", in which Stimpy falls in love with an uncooked chicken and decides to marry it, much to Ren's chagrin.

* In ''Literature/TheBerenstainBears]] [[ThanksgivingEpisode Give Thanks]]'', Sister becomes attached to Squanto, the turkey Farmer Ben is raising for the Bear family's Thanksgiving dinner. In the end, Mama and Papa let her keep him in a pen as a pet, and serve honey-baked salmon for Thanksgiving instead.

* Zigzagged in the ''Film/{{Madeline}}'' movie where Madeline wants to keep a chicken named Fred as a pet but Helene the cook wants to kill and cook him instead and adds that the boarding school that Madeline and the other eleven girls attend does not allow pets. When Madeline finds (presumably) Fred dead, she decides to become vegetarian and the other girls (except [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Vicky]]) follow suit.

[[folder:Music]]
* In "Baby Mario and Papa Yoshi", a song by Music/{{Brentalfloss}} which is based on the Athletic theme from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld2YoshisIsland'', Yoshi considers eating Baby Mario when he lands at his house. However, he becomes attached to him and decides to raise him as his son.
-->''The moral of this fable is do not eat a baby,''\\
''Cause' he'll become your friend one day, maybe.''
[[/folder]]

* In the ''Music/{{Brentalfloss}}'' song "Baby Mario & Papa Yoshi", Yoshi finds Baby Mario and expresses interest in eating him. However, he's too full, so he tries to give him to his friend, Yellow. When Yellow tells him that he's too sick to eat anything, Yoshi decides to keep and raise Baby Mario instead, as he's started to grow attached to the baby (plus the dirty diaper made him lose his appetite).

->'''Heffer:''' "Heffer"? Is that even my real name?!
->'''Peter:''' Dad used to call you "steak"?

* Inverted in ''WesternAnimation/{{Storks}}'' when the Alpha and Beta wolves fall in love with Diamond Destiny.

* The Creator/{{Pixar}} short "WesternAnimation/{{Bao}}", which was a tie-in for ''WesternAnimation/Incredibles2'', has a Chinese-Canadian mother suffering from empty nest syndrome. One day she makes a dumpling that ends up coming to life. She ends up raising the dumpling as a child, caring for it and watching it grow each day. However, she starts being an [[OverprotectiveDad Overprotective Mom]] as the dumpling son enters his rebellious teenage years. Eventually, the dumpling son comes home and introduces a girl to his mother with the intention of moving out and marrying her, which the mother forbids [[MalignedMixedMarriage due to her being white]]. After a struggle in trying to get him to stay, she eats the dumpling son in anger, but is immediately horrified over what she did. Soon after the mother's real son returns and his appearance resembles the dumpling, [[AllJustADream revealing the whole sequence was a dream she was having]]. He then apologizes to his mother and offers her the same treat she had offered the dumpling, leading the two of them to make-up and the mother accepting her daughter-in-law.

* The Creator/{{Pixar}} short "WesternAnimation/{{Bao}}", which was a tie-in for ''WesternAnimation/Incredibles2'', has a Chinese-Canadian mother suffering from empty nest syndrome. One day she makes a dumpling that ends up coming to life. She ends up raising the dumpling as a child, caring for it and watching it grow each day. However, she starts being an [[OverprotectiveDad Overprotective Mom]] as the dumpling son enters his rebellious teenage years. Eventually, the dumpling son comes home and introduces a girl to his mother with the intention of moving out with her, which the mother forbids [[MalignedMixedMarriage due to her being white]]. After a struggle in trying to get him to stay, she eats the dumpling son in anger, but is immediately horrified over what she did. Soon after the mother's real son returns and his appearance resembles the dumpling, revealing the whole sequence to be figurative. He then apologizes to his mother and offers her the same treat she had offered the dumpling, leading the two of them to make-up and the mother accepting her daughter-in-law.

* The Creator/{{Pixar}} short "WesternAnimation/{{Bao}}", which was a tie-in for ''WesternAnimation/Incredibles2'', has a Chinese-Canadian mother suffering from empty nest syndrome. One day she makes a dumpling that ends up coming to life. She ends up raising the dumpling as a child, caring for it and watching it grow each day. However, she starts being an [[OverprotectiveDad Overprotective Mom]] as the dumpling son enters his rebellious teenage years. Eventually, the dumpling son comes home and introduces a girl to his mother with the intention of moving out with her, which the mother forbids [[MalignedMixedMarriage due to her being white]]. After a struggle in trying to get him to stay, she eats the dumpling son in anger, but is immediately horrified over what she did. Soon after the mother's real son returns and his appearance resembles the dumpling, revealing the whole sequence to be figurative. He then apologizes to his mother and offers her the same treat she had offered the dumpling, leading the two of them to make-up and the mother accepting her future daughter-in-law.

* Subverted in ''Manga/SilverSpoon''; When Haticken declares that he wants to buy Butadon, Fuji-sensei initially thinks he wants to keep Butadon as a pet due to how attached he's been to the pig and starts pointing out how that would be difficult, if not impossible, for a high-schooled student like him. That's when Hachiken specifies he wants to buy the ''meat'' that Butadon will be turned into once he's slaughtered.