The Horsemeat scandal - does it make you worry?

tatli_lokma

Hi folks,

just wondering what people are thinking/feeling about this horsemeat scandal?

Obviously processed meat products are not something I buy, but I am concerned that the integrity of the food production industry has been seriously compromised. In which case, who is to say that meat of any origin could not find its way into vegetarian processed foods?

I buy Linda McCartney lasagne, burgers and pies about once a month. I also at times buy tesco own brand burgers.

I now find myself very concerned about my purchases!

anyone else worried about this?

Tar.Aldarion

No, these people make and manufacture their own goods. They know what it is. This was a case of people importing meat, meat which all looks the same. They weren't involved in making it/creating a recipe and so on. Fake meat is more of a product than just meat, it's something that is designed and made in-house. I don;t know what ingredient they could be sent that they could possibly mistake for their own product and be in face meat, so I wouldn't be worried.

tatli_lokma

Dunno - I just feel like I can't trust mass production in general as a result of this. Given how much of food is produced in large factories, I kind of have to deal with it. But in regards to processed ready meals, I personally think I will be giving them a wide bearth until I can have more confidence. At the end of the day, cost cutting is the cause of most of these inferior products being used. Who is to say that a factory making veggie burgers for Tesco won't buy a cheaper bulking agent supposedly veggie, but which in fact contains meat?

Many of the halal products in the UK have been found to have pork in them. and these are supposed to be stringently monitored etc to get halal classification.

So if pork can get into halal processed foods, who is to say that meat or meat by-products can't get into veggie processed foods???

Zombienosh

the bad word with all this horse meat scandal and in general is "processed" Nobody should be using a lot of processed meals anyway.
This scandal has just highlighted that you never really know what's in all these processed dinners, horse meat is probably the least of your worries.

tatli_lokma

Zombienosh wrote: »

the bad word with all this horse meat scandal and in general is "processed" Nobody should be using a lot of processed meals anyway.
This scandal has just highlighted that you never really know what's in all these processed dinners, horse meat is probably the least of your worries.

True, but lets be honest, much as I would like to be healthy and eat homemade unprocessed food 100% of the time, in reality that's not going to happen. There are a few times each month when time restrictions or just sheer tiredness means that I will turn to a ready meal. I find it very unsettling that the food I eat cannot be guaranteed veggie anymore.

I very much doubt this is restricted to processing companies only making meat products...for all we know the greed and in some cases just laziness could be resulting in god knows what in all sorts of products.

In modern day, even 'healthy' foods are processed somewhere. There are not many kitchens which won't have some form of foodstuffs processed somewhere - sauces or pastes, yogurts, soups or the like.

We've started recently making our own yogurt, and a few other things, like passata or curry paste. But generally, I just wouldn't have the time to make everything from scratch every week.

Staff Infection

Initially when the scandal broke I laughed at my family saying "well I've never felt so lucky to a vegetarian at least I'm not eating Shergar".
Then as the days went on and more products got implicated I got a wee bit more worried about what is actually in say the tesco meat free burgers.

However, I'm calming myself by thinking that meat and meat products are by and large expensive so it would make no economic sense to try and "sneak" them into vegetarian or vegan products as it would be too costly.

Also being meat free is essential to a vegetarian/vegan products survival, if they broke the customers trust they would cease to exist as if someone suspected they might not be meat free nobody would touch them. As a result I'd be pretty confident that accountability and ensuring the product is 100% as described is the companies principal objective.
I reckon they depend upon the consumer trusting them too much to jeopardize future sales by not double checking ingredients.

Finally, they're in a niche market so unlike in the meat industry even a minor issue could be very costly thus they have to be doubly careful.

tatli_lokma

I hear what you are saying, but that hasn't stopped halal processed products being tainted by pork?

Tar.Aldarion

Little Ted wrote: »

Dunno - I just feel like I can't trust mass production in general as a result of this. Given how much of food is produced in large factories, I kind of have to deal with it. But in regards to processed ready meals, I personally think I will be giving them a wide bearth until I can have more confidence. At the end of the day, cost cutting is the cause of most of these inferior products being used. Who is to say that a factory making veggie burgers for Tesco won't buy a cheaper bulking agent supposedly veggie, but which in fact contains meat?

Many of the halal products in the UK have been found to have pork in them. and these are supposed to be stringently monitored etc to get halal classification.

So if pork can get into halal processed foods, who is to say that meat or meat by-products can't get into veggie processed foods???

Halal meat can be tainted with pork because they are both so similar. Meat and meat, the company is expecting meat, it got delivered meat.

I'd be happy that I was living in Ireland, the country that discovered it. It got through a lot of other EU countries fine, so it shows our system is working.

tatli_lokma

but most of the veggie processed products like Linda McC and Tesco own brand are not made in Ireland AFAIK.

As you say, they expected meat, and they got meat, and it was hard to know by looking at it that it was not beef.

I'm not really worried that real mince would be used instead of processed soya, more concerned that meat by-products would find their way into the production line.

decisions

I'm not a veggie, but I don't think you have anything to worry about. In an effort to make cheap beef cheaper something else which can easily be passed off as beef, (and was cheaper I assume) entered the food supply chain. It came down to money.

There is no financial gain to be had by mixing meat into veg products.

Dejvice

Most people will say or will start saying......'I don't eat processed food'. Then run off buy a pack of cigs, chocs for the kids and a six pack at the OL. What's worse?

What is more disturbing is our demand for cheap food. We never complain about cheap food.....complain about expensive food. This is what it has come to, not only in Ireland but in most countries across Europe. If we demand cheap imports from China, demand ever more cheaper electronic goods, clothses etc....at the expense of possible slave labor. Then why not throw a horse or two in to the burgers or lasagne.....its what us Europeans deserve. We indirectly asked for it.

All our education, decmocracy, policies, could not even protect us from been hoodwinked in to buying a pig in a poke.

Benny_Cake

decisions wrote: »

I'm not a veggie, but I don't think you have anything to worry about. In an effort to make cheap beef cheaper something else which can easily be passed off as beef, (and was cheaper I assume) entered the food supply chain. It came down to money.

There is no financial gain to be had by mixing meat into veg products.

I think that his is the crucial point tbh. There is no gain to be had from mixing meat product into vegetarian food. The motivating factor in all of this has been naked, unadulterated greed and given that even using cheap meat would produce no savings for the producers of veggie food I don't think that there is too much to worry about.

As regards pork ending up in halal meat, the halal slaughtering line at a factory is supposed to be kept completely separate from the standard line. Obviously something went badly wrong, either at the factory or at a later point when the meat was being processed.

Hopefully this mess will reinforce the idea that no industry can be trusted to regulate itself. Personally, I'm planning on looking a bit smug when I go out to dinner with the family this weekend, regardless of how bland the veggie option is (not really, but I think they understand my decision for the first time)!

loveisdivine

Dejvice wrote: »

Most people will say or will start saying......'I don't eat processed food'. Then run off buy a pack of cigs, chocs for the kids and a six pack at the OL. What's worse?

What is more disturbing is our demand for cheap food. We never complain about cheap food.....complain about expensive food. This is what it has come to, not only in Ireland but in most countries across Europe. If we demand cheap imports from China, demand ever more cheaper electronic goods, clothses etc....at the expense of possible slave labor. Then why not throw a horse or two in to the burgers or lasagne.....its what us Europeans deserve. We indirectly asked for it.

All our education, decmocracy, policies, could not even protect us from been hoodwinked in to buying a pig in a poke.

This is exactly how I feel. Whilst I dont like to be ripped off when shopping, I now can be put off by things that seem too cheap to be true.

I saw an ad a while back for Supervalu and on the ad a carton of fresh orange juice was more expensive than a pack of sausages! Now I know sausages are the worst of the worst, but still!

We are not fully veggie (yet) in our house but we dont eat a lot of meat. I certainly dont go into the shop with the aim of buying the cheapest product/piece of meat available.

Unfortunately a lot of people do. Its this desire for cheap meat that has created a lot of these problems.

Dejvice

loveisdivine wrote: »

This is exactly how I feel. Whilst I dont like to be ripped off when shopping, I now can be put off by things that seem too cheap to be true.
.

The ringing words.....'What seems too good to be true'.
Those words can be applied to a many things that have have happened in the last 15 to 20 years in Ireland.

Just reading the indo online last few weeks. Eating horsemeat,. Ireland up to its eyes in debt, eBAY to give us 450 jobs (answering telephones) and we are happy with it, we will call Joe Duffy, we will complain to each other (no doubt in the pub having a jar)

With all our education, (the blah blah we are the best educated etc), democracy, policies we still look like fools and are being made to look like fools.

You know what? I remember watching on youtube that guy on late late show who absolutely tore in to Pat Kenny who as he said was 'pontificating' about something.

Just found it.........here is the link,. Mind you it is from 2009. This is the anger that Ireland needs right now (rates, food, debt etc).......listen to it again. The people of Ireland should be angry and 10 times more angry than the guy in this clip, and you need to show it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu6d0ns-JJU

rubadub

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

I don;t know what ingredient they could be sent that they could possibly mistake for their own product and be in face meat

fats/Oils, stabilisers, colourings, all sorts of "chemically" ingredients.

Staff Infection wrote: »

Initially when the scandal broke I laughed at my family saying "well I've never felt so lucky to a vegetarian at least I'm not eating Shergar".

I didn't hear any concern from anybody I know, in fact quite the opposite, many were going on about horses been clean, and what a waste it was to throw away good food. I would have liked to have tried a horse burger. The veggie equivalent is really substituting say potato in a processed veggie burger for some vegetable not readily sold here. Some people might have moral objections to eating horse of course, in which case the veg substitution may not be the same, though some veggies might object to certain veg for whatever reason, religious perhaps.

The concern should really be about lack of control of ingredients in commercial setups, I don't mind eating horse, but I would hope it is not riddled with disease, just like I hope the veg is not rotting or have rancid oils etc.

decisions wrote: »

There is no financial gain to be had by mixing meat into veg products.

Staff Infection wrote: »

However, I'm calming myself by thinking that meat and meat products are by and large expensive so it would make no economic sense to try and "sneak" them into vegetarian or vegan products as it would be too costly.

I think vegans would be at much higher risk. I would imagine beer vegan finings are more expensive, they were when I brewed beer, and took longer to work so are probably less economical efficiency wise. You get pork fat in cheap biscuits, and animal fats in cheap ice cream (not just dairy fat), so it is presumably a cheaper alternative.


http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2009/06/15/2003446226

Meat found in vegetarian food
The Investigation Bureau recently found that some processed foods advertised as vegetarian contained meat and said it would refer producers who knowingly added meat to their products for prosecution on fraud charges. Pu Chang-en (蒲長恩), a technician at the bureau’s Department of Forensic Science, said yesterday that among samples collected from 31 vegetarian food vendors in Taipei City and County for safety checks, food taken from 17 vendors contained meat. An investigation targeting the producers of the processed food was launched to determine whether meat was deliberately added to the soybean-based products to enrich their texture and flavor. Fu said it was possible that vegetarian food showing small traces of meat was contaminated by poorly cleaned work tables or cooking equipment in factories where meat products are also processed. Producers who have not deliberately defrauded consumers would not be subject to prosecution, Fu said.

Peanut

It's tempting to be ever so slightly smug about it, but you just know that something else is bound to pop up that's nothing to do with meat or horses sooner or later.

I used to sometimes eat supermarket veg. burgers but just got turned off them since it can feel like they're using lower quality veg. for the filling. The Beanie range or Dee's is a much better option.

I doubt there's anything especially dodgy in something like the Linda McCartney range, however they do appear to be overprocessed so would tend to avoid them for that reason.

Another scandal in the recent past that's most likely still ongoing is cheap Chinese/Indian honey being fraudulently labelled and blended into EU honey sold here, the concern is due to lead and small amounts of antibiotics previously being found in some of the Asian products.

GastroBoy

The phrase "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse" will forevermore have a ring of irony to it.....:D

Dejvice

Horsemeat scandal....really no different from the financial property collapse.

Mix a bit of dubious meat in with a bit of good meat and sell it in a nice package - and we buy/bought it.
Mix a few bad loans in with a few good loans and sell them in a nice package - and we bought it.

Cardinal Richelieu

Little Ted wrote: »

but most of the veggie processed products like Linda McC and Tesco own brand are not made in Ireland AFAIK.

As you say, they expected meat, and they got meat, and it was hard to know by looking at it that it was not beef.

I'm not really worried that real mince would be used instead of processed soya, more concerned that meat by-products would find their way into the production line.

Depends if your vegetarian products are made in a factory that makes Meat products. The products found to contain pork were largely due to production lines not cleaned properly between production of pork and beef products rather than intentional adulteration. Some factories would have dedicated product lines but that increases production costs and were specialized equipment is needed it may be shared with non vegetarian lines. So if your Linda McCartney Vegetarian Food Product is made on the same line the possibility does exist that using DNA testing you will find traces of Beef/Pork DNA. That said you would also find Insect and Human DNA traces too. You would want to be a really dumb business person to replace cheap vegetables with cheap meat cuts that still cost more than vegetables as product filler.

Tom Builder

The really scary bit is that we were fooled to eat horse as gangsters made a huge profit. I do hope that they test the meat for other types of DNA! Feline, canine, and human. If the gangsters got horse relabeled then it would be a fine way to get rid of troublesome individuals as well..... for all we know they may already have tested for this but not told us yet... yumm yumm ..........

La Buka

Y'know what? I'm really pleased this has happened. Hopefully it will help people wake up to what they're eating & also to the fact that they're being lied to by the powers that be!

Slaphead07

Peanut wrote: »

It's tempting to be ever so slightly smug about it, but you just know that something else is bound to pop up that's nothing to do with meat or horses sooner or later.

Spot on. Obviously as a veggie I'm not at all surprised that meat is contaminated with some other meat (big deal?) but I wouldn't be at all surprised to find other processed foods have dodgy traces too. Bread, mainstream vegetables, dairy products, bottled water etc. All quite likely to make headlines before the year is out if investigated.