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Some ready meals 100% horse meat

36 replies
OP posts:
DeepRedBetty · 07/02/2013 22:08

Good grief.

It seems unending.

OpheliasWeepingWillow · 07/02/2013 22:09

Nay!

AnyaKnowIt · 07/02/2013 22:09

Between 60% and 100% horsemeat Shock

kissmyheathenass · 07/02/2013 22:11

Bleurghh. I always worried about mince-based food more because of it being of bum and eyelid origin from a cow not equine. Makes me feel a bit quesy though really its no different to eating beef is it?

TalkinPeace2 · 07/02/2013 22:37

Horse meat tastes better than MRM Beef - which is probably why no consumer complained.

It will be interesting to see how much impact this has on the food chain.

Frozen pre prepared foods are best avoided full stop IMHO

edam · 07/02/2013 22:43

The companies that sell us food and the companies that make this food apparently have no idea what's actually in their products. Hmm I thought since the whole BSE scandal there were meant to be controls, so all meat products could be traced back to their origins. Wonder how much vetinary medicine has ended up in the food chain? And how much non-food grade stuff?

tiggytape · 08/02/2013 11:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mam29 · 08/02/2013 12:45

Too be honest ass oon as burger news came out in back of my mind thourght probably include readymeals and mince next.
Abp the huge company that own silevrcrest and dalepack supply tesco with fresh meats.. so mince, stuff for readymeals and fresh burgers.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 08/02/2013 13:22

I think the finger of suspicion now has to point at all processed foods, particularly those at the economy end of the market where consumer pressure for cheap food means corners get cut. The make-up of economy chicken nuggets and sausages have to be next on the hit-list.

"Safety" in terms of food products is about hygiene, residues, bacteria levels, temperature integrity and so on. So it is perfectly possible that a product is safe even if it is not exactly what it is supposed to be.

This is a matter of serious criminal fraud rather than food safety per se

edam · 08/02/2013 13:59

There's another thread running where people are making the very sensible point that this could affect school dinners, as well. For all we know...

mam29 · 08/02/2013 14:35

True its hit economy end however

its affected tesco finest burgers too

burger king

beef eater.

Its only since scandel hit that realised so few suppliers and how many suppliers silver crest/dalepack supplied most of uk retailers.

They also linked.

It appears wasent mistake.due to

ireland /uk never processsed horse.

its criminal and i doubt criminals concerned about safety if they gone through with this wide spread deceit.God knows how long they been at it and got away with it.

Also detest the judgemental snobbery that people who buy value should expect no less.

AnyaKnowIt · 08/02/2013 20:01

Aldi frozen meals contain between 30% and 100% horsemeat


news.sky.com/story/1049693/aldi-frozen-ready-meals-100-percent-horsemeat

Bossybritches22 · 08/02/2013 20:05

It's not the fact that its horsemeat that is the worry, it's the fact it's a labelling issue.

If they're lying about that,what else are they lying about? Hmm

But then again if they market a 100% beef lasagne for £1.50 or less then it is only to be expected.

I just hope all this food doesn't get binned, by the public, there are some dog/cat sanctuaries that would be grateful for the donations I'm sure.

orangepudding · 08/02/2013 20:10

I think it's worrying. I don't mind the fact it's horse meat I worry that it may not be safe for human consumption due to drugs the ani,also may have been given.

I also wonder what's being used for school dinners.

AnyaKnowIt · 08/02/2013 20:12

No its shouldn't be expected.

If they can't produce 100% beef products for £1.50 then they shouldn't be labelled as such.

Beaaware · 08/02/2013 20:27

orangepudding, you have every right to be worried, I experienced the BSE scandal so I know how worrying this latest beef scandal is. For two decades the government told us that beef was safe to eat, this is what John Major told one mother whose child died from human mad cow disease "I SHOULD MAKE IT CLEAR THAT HUMANS DO NOT GET MAD COW DISEASE" HE LIED, along with many others in the government at the time, they lied. Do you know that bse infected beef went into baby food! even childrens vaccines, have you ever read the justiceforandy.com website, enough information on there to understand why this latest horse meat scandal is being underplayed by Cameron, not much talk about 'Bute' in the horse meat is there, why, supermarkets doing their own testing, why?. Did you know that no one has ever been held accountable for the human deaths from BSE and there are many innocnet people who have died from vCJD We still have a CJD surveillance unit monitoring the UK population, what for? 'Progressive dementia symptons, 60 million of us exposed to rogue infectious prions, I think we have every right to be worried about horse meat from unknown sources. I hope to god this stuff has not been put into baby food.

mam29 · 08/02/2013 21:22

My freinds sussex council and they got email today reassuring parents that they checked their suppliers are ok.

I checked my council website and they source everything from local farms within 40miles.


Im afraid the purchasing will depend on your council or nhs trust I guess not done at central level.

Still They always have daily veggie option .we can also pick and choose days and have menu in advance as usually 4week rolling menu.

I agree with others when does cheap mean doesnt have to be accuratly lableled and say ahh it was heap people were silly they should have known.

If we cant trust labels then thats worrying for allergy sufferers and relgious based diets. Not sure can be allergic to horse..

Who knows about the drugs as bute is not fit for human consumption and never really been any trial on it in humans over long term.
Bute is just one of drugs horses have,

Guess depends how long and frequent individual has consumed cheval. Bute never leaves the horses system might lower in levels over time.

Im amazed how blase people are about it.

I fear we as uk exposed as our supermarkets drive down prices , are awful to producers and we compared to europe eat more processsed foods/readymeals.

claig · 08/02/2013 22:30

It said on Channel 4 news that some burgers contain only about 45% beef, and that the rest is other type of ingredients including crap like "soya protein".

I try to avoid soya in everything, but had no idea they add it to meat as well.

OP posts:
chickydoo · 08/02/2013 22:51

I might be naive, but isn't selling something, that is in fact something else a crime??
If I purchased a Mercedes, & later found although new, it had a skoda engine, wouldn't that be misrepresentation. If I purchased a Gold ring from a high street store & found later it was fake, would the store not be liable.
If a store selling 100% Beef products is actually found to be selling 100% horse meat products, the items have been mislabelled. Is it a crime? I don't know, maybe someone can enlighten me.

AnyaKnowIt · 08/02/2013 22:52

Yep its a crime

edam · 08/02/2013 23:03

"The Veterinary Residues Committee (an independent scientific advisory committee that advises the Government) has repeatedly expressed concern over residues of
phenylbutazone entering the food chain. This is because this substance has the potential for serious adverse effects in consumers, such as blood discrasia (a rare but very serious, life‐threatening, condition)." Veterinary Residues Committee
Position Paper ? Residues of Phenylbutazone in horses
Published July 2012

So the feckers KNEW there was a problem six months ago.

edam · 08/02/2013 23:05

There's more - from the same committee (part of Defra): "The number of horse samples which have tested positive for residues of phenylbutazone
has varied between 2‐5% over the last five years." This refers to horses slaughtered in the UK, for export. God knows how much of this stuff is in horsemeat from the continent.

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AnyaKnowIt · 08/02/2013 23:05

Shock Angry

edam · 08/02/2013 23:21

sorry, that's 2-5% (figures went all wibbly when I cut and pasted). So in the UK between 2-5% of the samples of horsemeat destined for human consumption were contaminated with dangerous drugs that should never have been anywhere near the human food chain. God knows how bad the contamination is on the continent, where the all this horsemeat that was never supposed to be in Tesco burgers or Findus readymeals comes from.

FGS, the last Tory government gave us BSE, that's why the Food Standards Agency was set up in the first place - so that the govt department in charge of agriculture wasn't in charge of food (in theory, removing the conflict of interest between promoting food production and guaranteeing consumer safety). The current government originally planned to abolish the FSA but backed down - but I wonder whether cuts have been made that have placed us at risk. Someone on Newsnight said half the food laboratories in the country have shut down over the past few years so there just isn't the capacity to check what the hell is in our food in the next week as the government is promising it will do.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 09/02/2013 08:46

"I try to avoid soya in everything, but had no idea they add it to meat as well."

Soya should be on the label if it is in the product. Sausages have always contained a percentage of rusk and other fillers to meat - the higher this is, the cheaper the sausage. Rusk etc can be up to 35% of a pork sausage and 50% of other sausages. There was an outcry many years ago from the EU that our traditional links contained so little actual meat they should be renamed something like 'edible pork flavoured tubes' ... I forget.... rather than 'sausage' which, in continental terms is something much more meaty. We responded with 'Hands Off Our Bangers' ....

This is what I mean about how all processed meat products will have to be looked at again. Not because they contain Romanian cat instead of chicken but because the formulations are often remarkably free of actual meat. Similarly, what we call ice-cream contains very little actual dairy products.

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