Horse Burgers anyone?

[Cligereen]

Today I am traumatised. Truly. On the Irish news today it was announced that our 'beefburgers' contain up to 30% horse meat. I've calmed down a bit since I heard it on the 6pm news but gawd it's bloody awful.

I don't buy ready made burgers but I do buy minced 'beef' and make my own. I wonder now if I've been eating the remains of Shergar (an Irish race horse that 'disappeared').

I know the Irish economy is at rock bottom but at least tell us what we're eating! Horse meat is eaten I know, but I don't want to eat it when I'm sold beef. According to the news T**co, Du**s stores, Ald* and Lid* are all selling these products. These are all leading supermarkets in Ireland.

How low can we stoop I wonder? What's next?...roadkill burgers?

I'm planning on heading back to the UK soon if I can persuade the better half who is local.

Thank God for Linda McCartney's legacy...TVP from now on I think!

[Maykal]

Even when bought mince is actually from the animal it claims to be from, who knows what parts have been used? Buy yourself a meat grinder for about a tenner and you'll never wonder what you're eating again!

[Cligereen]

Yep, I have a mincer and I'll certainly be doing that but what if the prime beef steak is rump of horse?

I don't know what horse meat looks like, so how do I know if it's beef or horse?

[Maykal]

Good question! lol

I guess the answer is to use a reputable butcher rather than trusting the pre-packaged cuts in supermarkets.

I'm sure I remember a story some years ago about one of the fast food chains like McD or Burger King using kangaroo meat in their beefburgers and getting away with it for a while because kangaroo meat is also referred to as 'beef'. Could be an urban legend though.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I think the meat in question originated from continental Europe. Horse meat is widely consumed here, but is generally considered something of a luxury meat: the prime bits only are offered for sale and the bits that need mincing would generally be routed to the pet food bins, so I would hazard a guess that we're not talking about the high end of the meat processing chain here.

The trade in illegal meats - repackaging condemned meat for human consumption and so on - is a growing one, helped along by our old friends free trade and naked greed.

[oldjerry]

Not just in Ireland,BBC news are running the story this morning,that UK supermarkets,including Smegsco,have had up to 30% horsemeat in burgers.

[Crickleymal]

Whilst I like to know what I'm buying I have absolutely no problem with eating horse. Never tried it but it's just an animal same as a cow. There's so much cr@p in cheap end burgers and sausages that a bit of horsemeat probably raises the quality.

[demi]

I defiantly want to know that what im buying and eating is what is says it is. However, wither its horse, cow, sheep, pig or whatever i don't really care, as long as it's good quality and tastes good. Ideally i want to only eat meat we can produce ourselves and not have to buy it. Certainly here in Macedonia everything is counterfeit and bad quality including food products and you can never be sure what you're getting which is all the more worrying as who knows what's in it or if it's been handled correctly and possibly contaminated. But until we get our own animals ( hopefully in the spring ) we just have to make do. Luckily the in-laws bought us 1/2 a pig which is in the freezer just now, but still we don't know who that pig was kept or fed on. It's probably fine but here people keep a few pigs locked in a wee shed living in their own poo and producing babies. Not good conditions at all, another reason why i'd rather keep my own and have them outside in the fresh air with some space to roam around and forage and eat the fallen fruit from the orchard.
A friend of mine here was telling me that the 'panga' fish sold frozen in the supermarket is from fish farms in the most polluted river in Vietnam, the water contaminated by factories and the fish fed hormones to make them produce more eggs. I checked it out and found reports from the WHO and others who tested the water and found it to be safe and the hormones are only given to the female breeding fish to make them produce more eggs and these fish are not used for meet, only for breeding. It stated that these farming methods are standard and that panga fish actually pose a lower health risk than farmed salmon, shrimp and some other farmed fish. Interesting, as id never really thought about it before. Again, it's better to produce your own. But i still buy the panga from the supermarket as we've no space to farm our own fish!

[Green Aura]

I'd be far more worried about the amount of GMOs in TVP than horse meat in beef mince.

Aren't they breaking all sorts of food laws though? Labelling regulations seem quite clear - I thought that what goes in a product has to be named unless it's in miniscule proportions(although obviously they're not if 30% something else doesn't warrant mentioning!).

The trouble is you can't even really trust what goes into stuff like pig feed and, as you can't feed them on kitchen scraps any more, feed has to be bought in presumably. We all know what went into cattle cake just a few years ago.

But I'd still rather take my chance with local meat than knitted plants.

[gregorach]

It's people! Soylent Green is made out of people!

[Green Aura]

No problem - as long as they haven't been eating GMOs

[Maykal]

@demi - we have that panga fish here too now I think, except it's called pangasius, but I assume it's the same thing. I bought it once and it tasted hideous, really fatty and horrible. As a rule I only buy whole fish and gut and/or fillet them myself. Doesn't really help you know what it's been fed on or where it's lived, but at least you can see how fresh it is (or isn't!)

Luckily I have a butcher more or less on my doorstep and they do the butchering in the back room (not the slaughtering, just the carving into joints/portions) so at least you can see it is what it is supposed to be. The taste and the value are far superior to the pre-cut and packaged stuff you get in the supermarkets.

Unfortunately, beef is quite rare here and the stuff you do get tends not to be particularly tender.

@Green Aura - Why can't you feed pigs on kitchen scraps any more?

[Mrs Moustoir]

It's people! Soylent Green is made out of people!

I always think of TVP as Soylent Green too! I know it is a serious matter, but I have been amused by the jokes doing the rounds this morning.

Seriously though, this horse meat hoo-ha does rather make a mockery of all the controls that were supposed to be put in place after the BSE scandal.

[Green Aura]

The usual - elf n saifty

[Mrs Moustoir]

I think that was introduced after the last foot and mouth outbreak when the source was traced to a farmer who'd fed his pigs on pork waste from a Chinese restaurant.