Tesco beef burgers are 29% horse meat

[JoanByers]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262961/Beef-burgers-contaminated-HORSE-MEAT-sale-UK-Ireland-supermarkets-including-Tesco.html

It's hardly a surprise now is it. If you are going to eat beef burgers costing £2.52/kg, they clearly can't be made of beef - beef costs more than double that price.

www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=264291549

Cheap processed meat is just disgusting. Ham made from meat slurry (most ham on sale in this country), reconstituted chicken from Thailand (I found this in a sandwich on sale in the Co-Op).

[gaelicsheep]

Flatpackhamster - thanks, but I did know that about UK meat and the little red tractor. I never buy anything that doesn't specify. This product was labelled Beef of Irish origin. I'm not sure why I always thought that was almost as good as UK meat but I shan't make the mistake again.

[OwlLady]

it's not just the eu though is it? I know a lot of frozen chicken products come from thailand

[flatpackhamster]

OwlLady

it's not just the eu though is it? I know a lot of frozen chicken products come from thailand

This is true, it's not just the EU. However, we no longer have control over the produce that comes in to the UK, because that control has been taken over by the EU, who apply the same rules to all 27 member states.

If we want to fix this and stop it happening again, we have to go to the EU and attempt to get agreement on a change in the law. We can't just get Parliament to do it.

[mam29]

This whole think has made me think lot more.

I dont buy much frozen meat and poultry

but the scale of this is huge
they still dont know how
The uk wasent checking thankgod for the irish
they tested nov
we could have been eating this for years

most shops seem to use same suppliers
only m&s simply burgers were 100%beef when tested
What made them random test anyway?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262961/Horse-meat-Tesco-burgers-Asda-Co-op-Sainsburys-withdraw-ranges-tests-equine-DNA.html


I buy from local butcher on a van.
I emailed him
he buys all his meat from smithefeilds marlets in london
I then looked at their website-so many traders
he says some meats bristish somes not
I trust him but dont trust supplier or abbatoir comes from.

Have some smug fb freinds saying im not affected i dont eat crap.
or make your own -but how did we know the mince is 100%beef?

sound paranoid.

anyway spoken to family

we going to try more veggie meals
Try local farm shops/farmers market
order from waitrose organic and british

yes will be huge change but my trusts gone and with kids want to make sure they getting the best.

also think theres probelsm with packaging stuff from eu with bristih logo if packed in uk/ireland which consuses the consumer.

Wonder ho dead tesco is today.

[gaelicsheep]

I've been googling Irish beef and I WAS right - I thought I was - that it is a highly regarded, high welfare meat. So I feel doubly furious that I took the trouble to ensure that if I had to buy so-called "junk" food, it was traceable, high welfare junk food, and yet we still ended up eating god knows what crap. Sorry oh smug ones, as a full time working mum I do not have the time or inclination to make my own burgers, even if my kids would eat them (which they won't because of the visible bits of onion that always result). And not everyone can afford to buy all their meat from the butchers. We don't eat much, now I'm thinking we won't be eating any as I have lost all faith in supermarket meat and meat products full stop.

[mam29]

Gaelic sheep-I as cross as you

Everyone thinks its comical or will do us know harm
Im baffled why people not more angry.

The fact that the retailer and the irish suppliers had no idea has shattered by confidence in anything that comes in from europe or further afeild.

I looked up waitrose they do read made organic duchey fresh beef burgers £3.99 for pack of 4 or currenly 2packs for £6.

I think I may have to rely more online as good butchers few and far between.

Its reason why im going to morrisions buy more fish.

Will do nice speedy eg omlette recipie with free range british eggs,

will do simpler meals like jacket potatoes or soups when in a hurru

try more veggie recipies.

[amillionyears]

flatpackhamster, are you saying that Tesco and others never sample [perhaps not the best word, cant think of a better one] the foods they sell in their stores?

[echt]

Make your own burgers.

Kangaroo is good.

Just heard a good joke - Q:What would you like on your burger? A: A fiver each way.
:o

[LuluMai]

I'm a single parent who works full time and spends most of my time after a full day at work ferrying ds around to his activities. We usually land home 7pm every day. I am not making my own fucking burgers.

[Eliza22]

This is where you get to.... Cheap produce from god knows where..... Crap in the form of additives/hormones to enhance production of animals, bulk buy offers on food that even our biggest supermarkets have NO IDEA what they're selling us. It's a disgrace.....

Have you noticed how long living/healthy our Royal Family are? (Yes, I know, I've wandered off the subject a bit). Could it be, they have never eaten the shite we have to buy as we're led by cost consideration? They only drink special bottled water etc etc...

I'm lucky now (though it may not always be that way in this financial/job climate) in that I buy small amounts of organic or top quality produce. When I was a single mum, working and trying to make ends meet, I bought the the value and bulk buy stuff. I HAD to.

And as for making your own burgers... Yes, I'm sure David Cameron would encourage that when 'mum' gets home late, having juggled several jobs in order to bring in a bit more cash for " the pot".

And.....breathe.

[Back2Two]

I'm not pushing the point, I mean, make your own burgers if you want to and don't if you don't. But it's not really a time thing as making your own would take five minutes.

It's a no brainer for me. Make my own or just don't eat them.

[lljkk]

They are being incinerated to make electricity, supposedly, but still what a Collossal food waste simply to bin them. :(

[gaelicsheep]

Back2Two - maybe it takes you five minutes. With two children at your feet wanting to help, getting out the food processor to chop the onion fine enough, raw meat and egg on your hands so having to wash them every two seconds before little ones want picking up etc., cooking the bloody things which then fall apart in the pan, then extra washing up afterwards. It isn't five minutes is it? Be honest.

Plus "make your own burgers" totally misses the point of this whole debarcle. The point is that if you are buying food that you believe contains decent quality beef - and unlike the food snobs I don't care if it has eyeballs, penis, whatever in it, as long as it actually comes from the stated animal in the stated country - and then you discover you have been lied to, you are entitled to be very very pissed off.

[Back2Two]

Of course you have the right to be pissed off gaelic .
I am mortified but I've never bought that sort of frozen "beef" burgers. I do totally care what "beef" actually means in terms of, as you say, eyeballs and gristle and "pink slime" scraped up off the floor (known as mechanically recovered meat [check out Wikipedia]) Or, as it turns out, horse meat.

Yes, so maybe more than five minutes with my two pestering me, but not much more. And, possibly actually adding potential minutes to their actual life. I'm seriously not trying to sound provocative or like a w**ker I'm serious. Food and the quality of it is very important to me, as is budget. But, I am lucky that I'm not working at all at the moment. It makes it easier.

[gaelicsheep]

I rarely buy anything like that, I'm especially pissed off for succumbing just this once. But as I said earlier in the thread, I would actually rather the whole animal was put to use. What matters to me most is animal welfare and humane slaughter (as far as possible). If the beef is coming from Ireland or the UK then I believe I'm getting both of those. Again as I said, if you're squeamish about the less savoury parts of the animal then you really shouldn't be eating meat at all. I would never be under any illusions that I was getting high quality cuts of meat in cheap meat products, but as long as it's safe to eat that doesn't matter unduly, mechanically recovered or not. The problem is now I no longer believe such products are safe to eat.

[gaelicsheep]

As a matter of fact, mechanically separated beef is not permitted in the human food chain. Not that I have any faith any more that the regulations are being followed. If they discovered THAT in the beef burgers I would be much more worried than by the horse meat.

[gaelicsheep]

Actually I said that too categorically, whereas actually I just got it from that Wikipedia article. Is that true does anyone know? I think I've been very naive in assuming food sold in reasonably reputable supermarkets if fit for human consumption.

[MoreBeta]

I once worked briefly for a wholesale meat trader.

Think container loads of frozen beef on giant container ships out of South America and places like Botswana. Perfectly good beef but plenty of opportunity for the truely unscrupulous to switch horse for beef meat somewhere along the supply chain.

The result is that honest suppliers and shops are unwittingly selling horse meat in burgers.

[amillionyears]

but where is the testing?

[amillionyears]

To be fair, I was in Tescos yesterday, and there was a very contrite notice from Tescos, on the fridge door, where the burgers should have been. And it said, they themselves had let customers down.I assume the notice was in every Tesco store in the land.

[gaelicsheep]

But as I keep saying, the beef in these burgers is supposed to come from Ireland. I would never buy anything that I thought involved container loads of beef from South America or anywhere like that. Or is it really true that it's just made up bolleaux and actually they haven't a clue where the meat in any particular product comes from?

[gaelicsheep]

Are they giving refunds for returned boxes? I ditched the burgers but kept the box with the intention of posting it off for a refund.

[amillionyears]

Yes. They said you could return just the empty package and you would get a full refund. And you didnt need the receipt.
I think they said bring it into the store. Not sure if you could return it to anywhere else.

[gaelicsheep]

Well I'm not driving 30+ miles to go return it so I'll be posting it to their head office or something.

[edam]

gaelic, I too thought mechnically-recovered meat (the use of 'meat' in that phrase has always been somewhat generous) had been banned but apparently not. It counts as 'beef' in the claim that burgers are '100% beef' according to Joanna Blythman, who ought to know what she's talking about.