http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/15/horse-dna-found-supermarket-beefburgers
Horse DNA found in supermarket beefburgers
Frozen beefburgers on sale in Aldi, Iceland, Lidl and Tesco found to contain traces of horsemeat, says food safety watchdog.
Four major supermarket chains operating in Britain are withdrawing a number of beef products after horse DNA was found in frozen burgers sold in the UK and Ireland by Aldi, Iceland, Lidl and Tesco.
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), which made the discovery, said the burgers were produced by two processing plants in Ireland, Liffey Meats and Silvercrest Foods, and Dalepak Hambleton in the UK.
Read on in the Guardian and wonder about those stores here...
Well is it a der chevaux burger? or is it worse...http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/01/16/mcdonalds-mcrib.aspx . I feel for all the people that think that they are not eating pork etc.
I'm sure it won' t be long before folk will realise that the ' extra' meat would be unregulated , the controls in place for cattle , sheep and pigs etc will simply not be there on ex riding school horses pumped with chemicals and wormers etc etc never mind the sick and lame equines that make it to your plates
I much prefer old police horses you can buy them for coppers.
I believe Waitrose only use show jumpers and Fortnum and Mason exclusively the finest thoroughbreds ;-)
Neigh...tha can't go wrong with a bit of horsemeat. When I was courting Stella many years ago, the first meal I cooked her at my flat was horse steaks. As a Hindu, she doesn't eat beef or pork, so I thought; what the heck. Anyway, she took the bit between her teeth (geddit?) and ate and enjoyed it. In those days, in the early 70s, there were at least 2 chevalines in Leeds.
We've now been in Mauritius for 2 weeks (6 to go), and have only eaten fish and veg. Quite a detox!
If you want unadulterated hamburgers, or other minced meat, ask the butcher to mince it for you in front of you. It's perfectly posssible here in France, but it requires forethought. If you buy any prepared, frozen, packaged food inluding fast food you can't really assume total traceability whatever they say. Apparently all Quick products are Halal whether you like it or not. Similarly muslim activists in Paris spit on open displays of charcuterie apparently. Burgers in fact are often better with a mix of some pork meat with beef. Must say I love corned beef and real chorizo (not the mass production stuff), andouillette etc. I am certain that I have eaten horse but don't actually go out to buy it. All preprepared food seems to contain more chemicals, mechanically "recovered" meat etc than anything else. I remember entertaining Jewish clients at home who refused point blank to eat anything other than Kosher or that had been cooked in anything other than a brand new saucepan, or drink non Kosher wine. Round here it's difficult to find work and my wife did work for a while in a factory "transforming" 100,000 chickens a day, all for Halal export to the Middle East.
Donkey saucisson is available on our local market. I haven't tried it but no doubt it would be as tasty or not as the next saucisson. Frankly most cured dried sausage taste much the same to me whether they be beef,pork, boar, chevreuil....
I do recall a similar incident with donkey meat being used in chorizo.
Like other comments on here, it's nice to know what is going into a product so you can make an informed (and safe ) choice.
I find it hard to envisage eating either donkey or horse, probably due to their associative role as "pets".....
I've no objection to using surplus horses for food and at the moment Ireland has plenty of unwanted racehorses. I do object to the possibility of buying a product which is not what it purports to be. The retailers concerned have managed to contract with manufacturers who have made a product that is offensive to the opponents of hippophagy, though why eating horses is wrong I do not know, to Jews and Muslims (pork DNA was also found in some products) and to those like me who object to the adulteration of food. All in all quite an achievement.
Still hiding Richard? Come on and put a picture up please. As for your comment, sorry to say a 'so what' response is not very meaningful or am I missing the point? If it is because horse meat is commonly eaten in France and other European countries, that is beside the point, not at all appropriate in fact. The story is more about health and safety to a point, trading standards to another and ultimately ethical issues about producer, retailer and customer relationships. OK, for you 'et alors?' but I suspect that if somebody crossed your permitted line then you would have something to say with an entirely different tone. Or am I wrong? If so, explain please.