Dodgy meat

[Klinsmania]

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about really. Are people up in arms because the beef is not beef, or because the beef that's not beef is actually horse? It doesn't bother me in the slightest about eating horse meat, I would willingly eat it if it was on offer. I agree that beef products should not contain other meat otherwise it is false advertising, but would people really care if they found out that the beef lasagne actually had traces of pork or lamb in? Of course not, it's just the stigma of horse meat that is bothering people. I'd eat cat meat, dog meat or horse meat, so don't really see why the outcry.

 

[NickTB]

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about really. Are people up in arms because the beef is not beef, or because the beef that's not beef is actually horse? It doesn't bother me in the slightest about eating horse meat, I would willingly eat it if it was on offer. I agree that beef products should not contain other meat otherwise it is false advertising, but would people really care if they found out that the beef lasagne actually had traces of pork or lamb in? Of course not, it's just the stigma of horse meat that is bothering people. I'd eat cat meat, dog meat or horse meat, so don't really see why the outcry.

Two reasons from what I can see:
1. False advertising as you say,
and
2. The animals used are subject to different kinds of medication that may not be a good idea to enter the food-chain

 

[Gordinho]

Two reasons from what I can see:
1. False advertising as you say,
and
2. The animals used are subject to different kinds of medication that may not be a good idea to enter the food-chain

With false advertising goes mispricing, if horse meat costs only one fifth of the price of beef then everyone's being duped, the supermarket and the consumer. I don't believe for a second that supermarkets have gone along with it. One of the people arrested yesterday in Holland has previous convictions for selling horse meat as Halal beef. That has nothing to do with keep costs down for the end user, that's plain old fraud and greed.

 

[Gilzeantoscore]

Also inspection of this meat is not so stringent as it is for beef. Most of the horsemeat available in Britain would probably be utilised in the pet food trade.

 

[Lily White]

Although this was obviously down to greedy criminals commiting fraud, we shouldn't be too surprised by this cost cutting and profiteering and the blame goes right the way through the chain. Consumers want cheap produce, supermarkets want their custom but also to maintain their high profits and will pay less to the producer and so the producer has to find ways of cutting back on their own costs to make any sort of money themselves.
Take for instance the 2 for £5 chickens they do or did in supermarkets. At the time ( a couple of years ago) the supermarkets were paying the farmer 50p per bird. The only way the farmer was able to make any money was to squeeze as many chickens as it was physically possible to do into these sheds and feed them on cheap (not cheep) food. The conditons were appaling, wading around in their own excrement, being physically injured, the ammonia burning the legs and so on.
The only way to deal with this is for the farmers and producers to get a proper price for a decent product and for the consumer to except that food isn't cheap.

 

[Kenyan Spur]

Although this was obviously down to greedy criminals commiting fraud, we shouldn't be too surprised by this cost cutting and profiteering and the blame goes right the way through the chain. Consumers want cheap produce, supermarkets want their custom but also to maintain their high profits and will pay less to the producer and so the producer has to find ways of cutting back on their own costs to make any sort of money themselves.
Take for instance the 2 for £5 chickens they do or did in supermarkets. At the time ( a couple of years ago) the supermarkets were paying the farmer 50p per bird. The only way the farmer was able to make any money was to squeeze as many chickens as it was physically possible to do into these sheds and feed them on cheap (not cheep) food. The conditons were appaling, wading around in their own excrement, being physically injured, the ammonia burning the legs and so on.
The only way to deal with this is for the farmers and producers to get a proper price for a decent product and for the consumer to except that food isn't cheap.

Well said mate. In the end you pay for what you get.

We don't have this problem in Kenya or other African countries I have been to.
You get REAL organic meat.

 

[jts1882]

Also inspection of this meat is not so stringent as it is for beef. Most of the horsemeat available in Britain would probably be utilised in the pet food trade.

I was surprised to read that there are several abattoirs dealing with horse for human consumption, mostly for export to France.

On the point made above about what the fuss is, the focus on horse meat is deflecting attention from the important issue. There is the fraud aspect mentioned above, but the bigger problem seems to be that the people running the supermarkets don't know what is going in their products. If it's not what it says on the label for the main ingredient, then what other crap is being substituted when an ingredient gets expensive or they run out.

 

[Gordinho]

Also inspection of this meat is not so stringent as it is for beef. Most of the horsemeat available in Britain would probably be utilised in the pet food trade.

I don't understand your point, any inspections would have been for beef, horsemeat should not have been there in the first place to be inspected, so the meat should have been subject to beef inspection standards rather than horse.

 

[Gilzeantoscore]

I don't understand your point, any inspections would have been for beef, horsemeat should not have been there in the first place to be inspected, so the meat should have been subject to beef inspection standards rather than horse.

Apparently a lot of the testing is for hormones, artificial clour, antibiotics etc, when meat is sent in for analysis, they are not testing for species, this is how it get through.

 

[Gordinho]

Apparently a lot of the testing is for hormones, artificial clour, antibiotics etc, when meat is sent in for analysis, they are not testing for species, this is how it get through.

Ah, I see.

I listened to the discussion on Radio Five yesterday and I think as many points were missed as raised.

Some of my general observations;

I haven't heard any objections to horse being in processed food on ethical grounds, only arguments relating to fraud, misselling and possible contamination by veterinary products, maybe if people really are on such limited budgets that they are demanding the cheapest possible food then horse should become more widely available if it keeps costs down, farming horses for human consumption isn't illegal after all.

Everywhere is local to somewhere, there's a rose tinted vision it seems that local=pure=best.

Farmers supplying massive supermarkets are industrial farmers, we're not likely to know if the beef we're eating comes from Daisy or Bessie but again the myth is peddled that if overnight we source everything from within the British Isles then it's all sourced from a cottage industry, I'm led to believe that battery farms are on the wane, I can see this situation turning round now that all Tesco Chicken will be UK sourced.

People looking for the cheapest cuts of meat will be heading for the Delboy types selling food out of lorries on disused airfields (Bovingdon, Finmere and the like) at weekends, I've heard a few stories about those type of traders.

Pork has been coloured and sold as beef, if people can't tell whether they're eating pork or beef why are they paying for beef?

If more people decide to only eat organic or go veggie from now on I think it opens up more avenues for organised crime to take advantage of people's trust in their suppliers, prices will surely rise because of all this as a secure chain of supply costs a lot of money which it seems up until now hasn't been spent.