Horsemeat

Feeling one has done something wrong doesn't mean one actually has, though obviously it does feel like that! The point is that if something is not intrinsically wrong, then it's not wrong, whoever does it.

guilt complexes caused by early indoctrination, anyone?

We ALL have a right to know what we're eating regardless of any food rules we may have. That's a separate issue from it being wrong to break a 'rule' unknowingly.

Very true Bags and the simple truth seems to be that we can't trust food labelling. The major supermarkets have fallen over themselves to remove meat products from their shelves 'as a precautionary measure'. More likely because they have no idea of what's in their food and are frightened to death of being caught out again.

When my Mum was un well my Dad used to pay top dollar to get her some horse meat.. I dont think its right to kill a beautiful horse just for meat, but if the horse is old and dieing then I feel ok with it..

Wouldn't it be tough at that stage?

For the record, I don't think any of these burgers was labelled halal or kosher, so the presence of pork is unlikely to have disturbed Moslems or Jews. However, the fact still remains that the labelling was inaccurate and it doesn't matter whether the presence of something other than beef was 1% or 99%, it was still wrong.

Yes I agree fully absent

I take it you mean the labelling was wrong, absent?

Or maybe it was absent labelling, IYSWIM.

Many, many years ago I worked in a place with an excellent staff canteen. I was sitting having lunch with a very young Indian colleague, and said that I was surprised that she, like me, was having the beef curry. Turns out she hadn't realised that beef was cow, and therfore forbidden.

In my pre-veggie days, I knowingly ate horse meat when I was 15 and on a school exchange in France; unwittingly we ate it in Madeira but when we found out what we'd been eating - and enjoying - what could we do but shrug our shoulders?
Incidentally J07, I heard someone on the radio saying that meat from older horses is more tender than meat from younger ones.

BTW, on a stall in a French market, containing sausages from every possible kind of animal (well, maybe not crocodile) we saw donkey sausages. Anyone here tried these?

I was introduced to Compassion in World Farming www.ciwf.org.uk and it's made me much more careful of what I buy. Ever tried asking a restaurant (especially Italian ones) where they source their chicken?

Surely we should be encouraging Tesco to continue with their horseburgers. Horse meat is much leaner than beef so the burgers will be much better for the consumer's health!!!!!

In Italy I have eaten horse salami and horse bresaola. Tried a bit of horse steak and it really was just like beef. Have avoided the donkey although it is very popular in some parts of Italy. We should probably be more worried about the "meat products" that are added to things like burgers - remember the pink slush Jamie Oliver was showing us in chicken nuggets?

The Indian girl who didn't know beef was cow meat reminds me of an (English) boy I once worked with in Asda who was packing some pork chops while saying "Pork - that comes from pigs doesn't it?"

My DH feels completely smug. He has always maintained "beef burgers " are to be avoided at all cost!

Crumbs, we'd be charged more for that delicacy here in France.......

It's my view that there's a lot of double-think about this issue.

The fact that horse meat has been found in beefburgers is, I think, absolutely inexcusable, but not for any pseudo animal-loving reason. Why is it OK for cows, sheep, chickens, ducks, pigs, etc., to have miserable existences and then be killed for their meat, whereas people throw up their hands in horror when horses are involved? And let's not kid ourselves that we are more "civilized" because animals are stunned before they are slaughtered - invariably their lives have not been much fun up to that point. And who has bet on the Grand National even though horses are at risk of broken limbs and are then destroyed because they're of no value.

I think that the fact that other animal products, such as horse and pig, have been found in beefburgers is wrong because we should have accurate information about what we are eating - even though people have been assured that the beefburgers are perfectly safe to eat (and can we be sure of that anyway?). No doubt there are lots of ingredients that are considered safe to eat but we may not necessarily want to eat them.

I heard on the news that this coalition government, has hived off the responsibility of monitoring what is contained in a food product to DEFRA, who in turn passed it on to, I believe, local authority food inspectors, who were already hard pushed (due to cuts) to carry out their regular monitoring duties.

I read somewhere that it is now thought that it was not actual horse meat that was in the burgers, but powdered protein made from horse meat.

The farm animals I see in the countryside around here – cattle, sheep, pigs, llamas – don't seem badly treated. The horses look cared for too.

We cared for our chickens and geese. They had happy lives. We ate some of them.

Picture the scene in a French supermarket. DH picks up a salami type sausage product.
Him: How about this one
Me: Oh no I don't think so
Him: Why
Me: Its made of DONKEY!
Him: (ever the man to want to double check my confident assertions) How do you know?
Me: because it says donkey in French on the label maybe?

Ostrich meat anyone? Wild boar? Venison? Partridge, pheasant, swan, goose, duck, blackbird, pigeon. Rabbit. Bush meat various.

Why not donkey or horse?

And that's only land animals.

Bags I don't think you can get swan any more, at least not legally, and in the past it was reserved for the monarch and aristocrats. A blackbird would only be a bony mouthful and bush meat is not imported legally but the other meat you list is available – most of it quite widely – throughout the UK.

Bags, could powdered horse protein make up 29% of a Tesco burger?

anno, I don't know. I know nothing about powdered protein.

absent, I wasn't just thinking of the UK, just about the kinds of meat people eat, especially as jess referred to donkey sausages in France. I think the French eat horsemeat happily too. As I would.

I forgot frogs' legs and snails. Snails fried in garlic butter – and eaten with a champagne cocktail alongside – are very nice. At least, I thought so when DH first treated me to some before we were married.