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Horse Meat found in Tesco Beefburgers

Findus "Beef" Lasagne, anyone?
:eek:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodandd...y-meal-was-up-to-100-per-cent-horse-meat.html

Findus, one of the most popular brands of frozen foods, has withdrawn 180,000 lasagnes from sale after carrying out tests on meals from a French supplier that had raised concerns.
The frozen food company found that 11 out of 18 ready meals, which were advertised as containing 100 per cent beef, were actually between 60 per cent and 100 per cent horse meat. The lasagne was sold by Tesco, Asda and Morrisons.
Findus said it did not know how long the product had been on the shelves, but admitted that Comigel, based in Metz, north-east France, had been supplying meat for its lasagnes for more than two years.
Samples are now being tested for bute, a painkiller given to horses which can lead to serious blood disorders. The Food Standards Agency urged anyone who bought the products to return them to retailers, who will give them a full refund.
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Phenylbutazone (bute) is an anti-inflammatory used by vets mainly to treat pain and fever in horses.
In the mid-20 century it was also used in human medicine as a treatment for gout and arthritis, but was banned – in food and medicine intended for humans – after it was linked to aplastic anaemia (a blood condition that inhibits cell production bone marrow) and the suppression of white blood cell production. According to the Indy.

Yum, yum.
 
This has definitely refined my views about why I don't go further up the food chain than fish.
I suppose BSE was the first time - and I was fully vegan back then.
If I ever took up eating poultry / game, I would want to process the whole animal myself.
Can't see myself ever going in for meat per se - it isn't crying out to me after 32 years ...
 
gentlegreen said:
This has definitely refined my views about why I don't go further up the food chain than fish.
I suppose BSE was the first time - and I was fully vegan back then.
If I ever took up eating poultry / game, I would want to process the whole animal myself.
Can't see myself ever going in for meat per se - it isn't crying out to me after 32 years ...
Click to expand...

Likewise; not eaten meat since 1986, and for the same reasons.
 
DexterTCN said:
So it wasn't just horses, which is probably fine, it was possibly sick horses?

That is not on.
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Not just sick. Working nags that have been stuffed full of drugs that are banned from the human food chain to keep them working and then sold off cheap.

It's still at the testing for stage AFAICT, but it'd be amazing if this meat came from horses intended for human consumption (legally by UK law) because it is would be more expensive than the beef it is replacing.
 
Global Stoner said:
Where do they keep geting all these horses from?
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I can't give chapter and verse here cos I wasn't paying close attention. But The Food Programme (?) on Radio 4 asked this question too. They spoke to a journalist or film maker who had traced the story of the racing horse Sahara Sky (?) after he was put to stud and then sold on into retirement. He ended up sold to Ireland (?) and then to a meat trader and went into the food chain. He was treated with bute all the way through his racing career. Apparently, one of the reasons it was banned was that it's carcinogenic.
 
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Global Stoner said:
Where do they keep geting all these horses from?
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The "Celtic Tiger" had the highest per capita horse ownership in Europe before the crash, as a result of all the status symbols bought in the boom. Loads have been abandoned and culls are either planned or already happening (can't remember which, there's a lot of opposition to a cull so I think it may not have started yet).

Similar is happening here. Some horse shelters are putting on night security to prevent people abandoning horses overnight cos they're full.
 
Now that I think of it, I never even thought about what they did with dead horses.

....are there.....other animals...that are legal to be in our pre-prepared food?
 
This is not legal. Working nags aren't even supposed to find their way into pet food any more.

Regulations are a lot looser in some parts of Europe.
 
ymu said:
The "Celtic Tiger" had the highest per capita horse ownership in Europe before the crash, as a result of all the status symbols bought in the boom. Loads have been abandoned and culls are either planned or already happening (can't remember which, there's a lot of opposition to a cull so I think it may not have started yet).

Similar is happening here. Some horse shelters are putting on night security to prevent people abandoning horses overnight cos they're full.
Click to expand...
I am not prepared to eat tiger mince in my food no matter how Celtic it is. Nor am I in favour of a tiger cull.
 
Anybody else think the real scandal lies in that the horse meat was pet food horse meat, from factories with less hygiene standards than non pet food meat factories. It doesnt make sense that the 'scandal' is just putting meat from a different animal in a burger.
 
Global Stoner said:
Where do they keep geting all these horses from?
Click to expand...

The knackers yards? Certainly wont be from abattoirs providing meat for the discerning palates of France and Italy. It wouldnt make sense to put meat which is thought as a delicacy into 'value' burgers and Findus gack.
 
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Findus lasagna says 100% beef on the packets but some have contained 100% horse meat. Shouldn't they be prosecuted for this?
And why are the Food Standards Agency not being ripped a new one over this ffs?

My wife is vegi so I eat very little meat but this shit makes me furious. Not so much with Findus, Tesco etc, but with the people who should be checking what these companies are selling to us.
 
Just saw a guy from the Food Standards Agency being interviewed on Day Break. He seemed to be defending the companies who have been selling us horse meat.

Its weird that, I thought they were supposed to be protecting us.
 
sunny jim said:
It doesnt make sense that the 'scandal' is just putting meat from a different animal in a burger.
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Correct. I made that point way up the thread when this first broke but was drowned out by people saying "what wrong with eating horse?". Nothing. But that isn't the point. There's first the point that people need to be able to choose which type of meat they want in their shopping basket today - beef, pork, lamb, horse - and be confident that they've been given the one they asked for. But more importantly, there's the points about having a traceable chain (post BSE etc) and about fitness for human consumption. If horses were raised for human consumption in Ireland or Yorkshire, then there should be a traceable chain, and there should not be chemicals and medicines harmful to humans, and certain hygiene standards should be met.

But it turns out that we just don't seem to know where this meat is coming from, whether it might be powdered meat, whether it's from Yorkshire, Ireland, Poland, France.
 
danny la rouge said:
Correct. I made that point way up the thread when this first broke but was drowned out by people saying "what wrong with eating horse?". Nothing. But that isn't the point. There's first the point that people need to be able to choose which type of meat they want in their shopping basket today - beef, pork, lamb, horse - and be confident that they've been given the one they asked for. But more importantly, there's the points about having a traceable chain (post BSE etc) and about fitness for human consumption. If horses were raised for human consumption in Ireland or Yorkshire, then there should be a traceable chain, and there should not be chemicals and medicines harmful to humans, and certain hygiene standards should be met.

But it turns out that we just don't seem to know where this meat is coming from, whether it might be powdered meat, whether it's from Yorkshire, Ireland, Poland, France.
Click to expand...

And ultimately it is those on the tightest budgets that suffer most. Which is why I smug vege comments a little hard to stomach (no pun intended). It's all right for some. Well done that you can manage a vegetarian diet. And well done even more if you have a children and you can convince them to eat vegetarian to. And if you do eat meat and yet are able to afford to buy good quality food for you and your family then that's a privilege.

There will always be dangers with processed food. But so long as the economic conditions that allow to flourish exist the least the state could do is make sure it is actually what it says it is.
 
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