The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: Beewyched on January 15, 2013, 10:19:22 pm
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On BBC News tonight - Tesco burgers found to have 29% HORSEMEAT in them :o :o :o
Just another reason to rear your own or buy direct locally!
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What actually shocked me was that there was meat of any kind in them at all!
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What actually shocked me was that there was meat of any kind in them at all!
:roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim:
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Horse is very poular and fairly common round here....hence horses sell for quite a bit (keep their value) You still get money back from horses that HAVE to be killed rather than it costing alot!
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What actually shocked me was that there was meat of any kind in them at all!
:roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim:
:roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim:
But seriously - it's bl**dy outrageous - I bet it was in their "value range" too - "let's feed the poor, aren't we a nice supermarket, they won't question what's in them - the needy in the UK are so stupid they won't think to question what they're eating".
Now, I know it won't sit comfortably with many, but ... horse meat is supposed to be a "healthy" option & ironically is usually a "premium" meat. Just that given the informed option, most folks wouldn't eat it.
But ... I suppose there are a lot of horses & ponies out there that are being dumped & neglected due to the "current financial crisis" & bearing that in mind, with my smallholder hat on, I would rather have any of my stock culled than not be able to care for them & feeling I had no other choice than to dump them :'(
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Sorry Mel - I x-posted with you there!
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It's ICELAND too :o
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I dont mind if they put horsemeat in burgers - the estimated 10-20,000 fly grazed/dumped/unwanted horses in the uk would be best put to this purpose.
However, I mind VERY much not being aware of what is in food, and find it extremely disturbing that horsemeat is in these burgers. Pig DNA too, but that could have been because of the factory also handling pork (tho not ideal for Jewish/Muslim customers), but there is no reason why horsemeat should have been there. From a food security and safety point of view, it is unacceptable.
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Tesco, Aldi, Iceland, and probably a few more that have not been named.
All because some folk are too lazy or too ignorant to crack an egg into a pound of mince and add a bit of seasoning, serves e'm right. :innocent:
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Ironic that Tesco wold not sell Jimmy's sausages because they had offel in them. The supermarkets would not knowingly sell products incorrectly labelled but it also shows the public's need for cheap food - manufacturers have financial pressures put on them by the big supermarkets so I am afraid they all ( supermarkets and public) get what they want cheap profitable food of dubious origins.
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I like horsemeat - have eaten it in France on numerous occasions - so at least those non-productive livestock units are doing something.
It should, of course be labeled correctly though.
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I'm happy to try anything new but I like to know what it is before I eat it - slipping in some horse to what people believe is beef is unethical.
29.1% of tesco 'value' burgers was found to be horse.
think there is more to come on this story...and I reckon some of the other supermarket giants are currently checking their products and panicking!
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It's nay good!
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I have no problem with horse meat being eaten. I wouldn't choose to do it myself. I DO have a problem with the welfare issues around the live transport of horses across the EU in quite sickening conditions. But if horses are either reared for meat with high welfare standards or surplus horses culled for meat in suitable premises, I don't have a problem with it.
I think we need to get over our problem in the UK with slaughtering horses for meat. It would be a more useful end for a lot of horses.
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Think the major point is knowing and choosing what we eat, at least this has draw attention yet again to what is actually being put into food stuffs, I now wonder about other processed meat products, doubt its just burgers!! what about pies and sausages for example, mind you, a lot of animals are OK to eat, just our culture that stops us.
I never forget a Chemist in a food production factory that I knew saying a lot of the non artificial colourings and flavorings would upset people if they saw them being processed.......I just wonder ::)
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Rosemary, a point that always gets me upset is the fact that so many horses just get left in fields.......and neglected.
All the fuss around dog breeding and horses are the ones that get forgotten about!!!!
Its funny how we are choosy what animal gets eaten and what animal stays as a pet!!
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It's nay good!
Somebody need to rein these supermarkets in, or they are going to be saddled with huge law suits.
Sorry Ill trot off now!!!
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Somebody need to rein these supermarkets in, or they are going to be saddled with huge law suits.
Sorry Ill trot off now!!!
:roflanim:
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When you look at the figures - most of them only found 0.1% horse DNA... Don't know anything about the science of DNA detection - but that sounds almost within the limits of error margins! OK, the one they found at Tesco's was 29% - that is serious... And I don't even know whether the supermarkets are to blame for wrong information on the packets; this looks more like them buying whatever they could get cheapest (nothing new there), and the suppliers/processors taking shortcuts to be able to offer the cheapest. (You can still blame the supermarkets about caring for profit more than truth...)
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It's just a labelling issue really. No food safety problems. A lot of people in the UK are horrified if eating horse meat is mentioned though. Dunno why.
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Exactly - mostly a cultural problem, really. I think maybe they should put labels on their products like they have on some biscuits etc - may contain peanuts, or manufactured in a plant that also processes nuts - something like may contain traces of other meat? (Well, 29% is obviously more than a trace...)
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The pork content is going to offend a lot of people and so it should, thought things were supposed to be labeled correctly, I suppose it depends on the wording.......
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How much pork was there actually in them - I didn't see a figure for that (admittedly, didn't read all the stuff that's online about it today...). If it's less than 0.1%, would you really expect it to be on the label in all detail?
It was said somewhere that there isn't a logical explanation about the content; it's not as if it's a money saving. Just cross contamination, I suppose, in most cases.
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Apparently, the burgers were low in fat but high in shergar...
(i'll get me coat...)
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If you eat meat does it really matter what you eat - horse, dog, pig, guinea pig, chickens, cats, ducks, goats etc ??? it's all meat.
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I have eaten horse meat overseas (a long time ago) and found it perfectly acceptable. However, where horses are not specifically reared as meat there will be no record of medicines and other treatments used, so the withdrawal times will not be noted, or adhered to. As for sending maltreated, malnourished, neglected horses for meat, then the meat itself is likely to be of poor quality and the parasite burden could be high. Surely if those same animals were cattle, sheep or pigs they would be rejected for human consumption at the slaughterhouse?
If we are to eat horse meat then it should be from animals reared and slaughtered in our own country and with the same health and identification requirements as other meat intended for human consumption.
Even then, if those selling the products are unaware that there is horse in their products then they cannot claim traceability.
I can't help but feel that those of us who can rear our own meat and grow our own vegetables are in a happy place, but for most of the population that luxury is unavailable so they have no option but to trust the shops where they buy their food. The problem here is betrayal of that trust.
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I have no problem with horse meat being eaten. I wouldn't choose to do it myself. I DO have a problem with the welfare issues around the live transport of horses across the EU in quite sickening conditions. But if horses are either reared for meat with high welfare standards or surplus horses culled for meat in suitable premises, I don't have a problem with it.
I think we need to get over our problem in the UK with slaughtering horses for meat. It would be a more useful end for a lot of horses.
AGREE ABSOLUTELY. i dont think there is much difference in raising cattle/pigs and eating them etc to eating horses. i think many of the people who wouldnt eat a horse, havent raised their own livestock for slaughter either. eating animals that you have grown to love does harden you to the thought of eating horses, especially as there are so many poorly bred, unwanted ones being given away.
if you thought about it, if we slaughtered all the unwanted horses in britain, we would have more land (from grazing/haylage/grain) available for growing food to make uk more self-sufficient, and then maybe pig farmers wouldnt be going bankrupt.
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One issue is that they say there is no food safety issue BUT one of the reasons horse passports were intrduced was to prevent horses treated with the most common painkiller for horses, bute, going into the food chain. If your horse ever has bute the passport is marked so they cannot go into the food chain, ever.
Since noone has any idea where this horsemeat has arisen, then either there is a risk to health as there is a good chance some of the horses will have been given bute at some point. OR bute isnt a health risk, in which case it makes a mockery of that aspect of passports
(The EU wanted to ban bute as it isnt tested safe for humans but UK got an opt out so long as bute treated animals were marked as not for food chain. My BIG concern over this whole issue is that bute is the cheapest and most effective painkiller out there and if the EU chose to, they could say the opt out and traceability isnt working, and ban bute for use on horses in the UK, which would be a welfare issue.
Makes me very cross. Wouldnt have happened if they stuck to putting meat of the species claimed into burgers, preferably sourced from UK.
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Interesting that on radio 2 some one just asked where did the horse meat come from? They say we usualy give far more medicines to horses than other animals for the meat market, could that be a concern?and Greenlife, that was funny :roflanim:
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Makes me very cross. Wouldnt have happened if they stuck to putting meat of the species claimed into burgers, preferably sourced from UK.
As I said above - this really isn't an issue except for the one case where the horse content was 29%... All the others can't have "put" different meat in it - that would have only happened if they wanted to save money, and at 0.1% of the total meat used a saving can't have been an objective. I find it more worrying that cross contamination obviously happened - plant not cleaned properly between batches of different meat? That can lead to H&S problems in the end. (I remember a case of cross contamination when I was in France - the gages of the farm were made into jam in a small factory; we then found traces of tomato in one of the jars... They'd been making tomato chutney or such like before our batch. Not dangerous, but makes you think!)
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I agree that any animal could be used for meat production. Why should young, unwanted horses be shipped abroad when the y could be consumed here? But then we are all preaching to the converted. Its our huge city population that dont understand livestock rearing thats really the problem. Its not their fault of course, its just the way our small country is.
Lovin' the horsey banter too :D
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and Greenlife, that was funny :roflanim:
Glad it wasn't wasted on my audience. ;D
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i would presume the meat was from europe and therefore wouldnt contain bute etc as i dont think they use it there anymore.
the passport thing is a myth. my ponies have been gelded etc and had strong anaesthetics that have to stay out of the food chain, after 15 gelding operations, only once has a vet has examined the passports with reference to opting out of the foodchain. my youngsters get sold on and although i do sign the not-for-human-consumption section - noone has regulated me in the slightest so these ponies could easily have entered the food chain.
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As I understand it the manufacturers are going back through their supply chain because the meat was from Europe. Do agree on the horsemeat issue, though. Our vet says he's seen more cruelty to horses in the last few years around here, since town folk have moved onto what were smallholdings so the children could have a pony, than he's seen in 20 years of being a farm vet.
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Our vet says he's seen more cruelty to horses in the last few years around here, since town folk have moved onto what were smallholdings so the children could have a pony, than he's seen in 20 years of being a farm vet.
Horsiculture :( I have ponies (that do not very much) but what your vet is talking about is worrying. I suspect it's more neglect and ignorance than deliberate cruelty (which doesn't make it any less unpleasant for the poor pony). But the shelters seem to be full - especially with the recession biting and horses being expensive - and there's no way out for owners if humane slaughter isn't an option.
I also have concerns about the potentially productive land that's "lost".
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I am not against anyone eating horse meat that is know to be safe ( not something I would want to do ) but going into the food chain when its suppose to be beef is not on. There is a lot of surplus ponies and horses in this country. Some studs sell their colt foals to wild life parks and zoos as animal food. People are buying ponies for their kids cheap but its not the buying but the keeping that they soon find out they cannot afford. If horse meat can get into our food chain what else is going on that we do not know about .
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Exactly! I saw film of a European pig farm that was, well, appalling was too mild a word to use. Most people would, I think, rather not know because the only practical thing to do to stop it is to buy food that's properly reared, and it won't be cheap.
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Apparently there has been the same problem with veggie burgers - there has been traces of uniquorn found in those!
:roflanim:
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Apparently there has been the same problem with veggie burgers - there has been traces of uniquorn found in those!
:roflanim:
They're all out today ;D ;D
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I thought they made glue out of horses?...
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Can someone put me right here? Are horses actually bred and kept as an edible product or are we talking about using them as meat when the are too old or have no value to man?
We have a horse meat stall on our market and a shop in town but I am unsure if they buy up horses others do not want or if the horses are farmed for their meat.
Does anyone have any knowledge on European horse meat production ?
martin
i
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It is a mix martin, horses are bred as cattle in the likes of Poland. They have specific breeds of horse that are thick set and never handled by people other than for transport/slaughter. Also any animal who has come to the end of his useful life can be slaughter for human consumption as long as the passport has a declared the carcass free from drugs (or whatever you know what I mean I am sure)
Regarding the European Horsemeat trade, horses by their very design are far from easy to kill, tall animals, with long necks and nervous dispositions. Many of the "farmed" horses will feel much stressed by lack of personal space when transported without separate partitions, and their vulnerable limbs are at high risk of damage. Horses are delicate animals, both in body and mind - its a low welfare meat that is for sure.
The polish meat horses I have dealt with first hand, as we used to buy them to turn them into ridden horses.
Anyone who condones the horsemeat trade ought first to try and catch, restrain and pat an unhandled colt on its head... a challenge for any horseman, let alone a busy slaughter man.
There are lots of surplus horses around in the Uk & Ireland at the moment, that’s a different story, and using them to feed a nation when we have ample supply of sheep/cattle is a bit of an extreme answer!
Traditionally in this country those horses who have served their owners as mounts have feed our dogs, and the feet made glue, thats all good wi me, just wish they didn’t also throw cats n dogs into the dog food too!!!
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went into the fridge to check on my tesco burgers and they are ( OFF ! )
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You beat me to that one bigchicken. Only by a nose though....
Beth
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many thanks Mays. I had no idea of what is happening and the detail you provide has certainly given me an insight. The key points of how stressful any contact with the "farmer" it must be for the animal and of course the consequence on how it is handled when transporting and slaughtering. Mmmm ! Think I will stick to my current meat diet.
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local rumours suggest that more than 4-legged animal meat has made its way into the food chain recently. That worries me more than horse.
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I can see Weschenfelder's doing a roaring trade in the months to come.
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:thinking: Now what animal has more than 4 legs???? :thinking:
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:thinking: Now what animal has more than 4 legs???? :thinking:
;D nooo I meant less than 4 legs - 2 in fact. sorry, I was being dopey when I wrote that!
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:roflanim: I can only think of birds with 2 legs...maybe pigeons :thinking:
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Would you like anything on your burger sir ?
go on then , I'll have a fiver each way!
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:roflanim: :roflanim:
Now I know why too many burgers give me the runs!!
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Forget the horsemeat in burgers , this is far more worrying.
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Tizaala, that's made my day :roflanim:
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:roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim: ...and mine! Thanks Tiz!
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:roflanim: :roflanim: Good grief :o :o :o does it belong to a horse as well 8)
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::) errr, where can I buy them :innocent:
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:roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim: you're terrible!!!
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Where have all the homeless gone , long time roaming .
Where have all the homeless gone , long time ago .
Where have all the homeless gone , gone to burgers everyone .
When will they ever learn , when will they ever learn .
Mmmmm. Soylent green anyone ?
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I am sure that may happen one day :innocent: ......I will know for sure if I got anything like a rusty burger, it will be tough and be very cold......... ;)
Has anyone tested Tesco's veggie burgers for uniquorn yet?