Horse DNA found in beef burgers on sale in Tesco and Lidlt

Slightly Foxed

Slightly Foxed

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Hmm, dunno what make of beef burger. Just hear this on the news. What do we make of this then?

Should we be squeamish about what sort of meat we eat if we are meat eaters?
 
surely its not a beef burger if its horse... should just be 'burger'! It wouldnt really bother me that much - supermarket burgers have all sorts of junk in them - horse meat's probably the best of it!!
 
Says specifically frozen beef burgers in the tesco case, I've never bought frozen meat as always assumed it to be a bit of a case of the "floor sweepings" - most likely their own value range otherwise a brand name would be mentioned/would be sold in other supermarkets..... you get what you pay for!
 
moana said:
Where did you hear this and where is the evidence/proof?

Nothing would surprise me these days
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The news on RADIO 4, so it must be true!!

Not completely horse meat, just traces of horse DNA, so, 'can't guarantee no nuts scenario, as produced in a factory that processes nuts' if you see what I mean?!
 
I don't mind horse meat but I wouldn't be buying burgers like that anyway as like to know what's in my food and how it's been kept. My meat as far as possible is direct from my friends farm, local college (deer culls), shoots or local butchers.

For some reason I'm quite happy eating the horrible battered sausages from the chippy though :D
 
Slightly Foxed said:
Hmm, dunno what make of beef burger. Just hear this on the news. What do we make of this then?

Should we be squeamish about what sort of meat we eat if we are meat eaters?
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Not squeamish but we should considder the welfare issues, Ie horses the transport , hens in battery cages , pigs in crates, the way veal calves are reared and so on..
 
Horrible as it sounds, if it's been in them all these years, I've had no problem eating them [if I've ever eaten any] so unless I actually physically read the product in question, I can't say I'll not eat a burger again.
 
Slightly Foxed said:
Should we be squeamish about what sort of meat we eat if we are meat eaters?
Click to expand...

Not squeamish but I choose to eat beef, chicken, pork and lamb and I choose not to eat horse, duck, deer or rabbit...if I choose a beef burger I expect it to be beef not any of the animal I choose not to eat.

Maybe if the supermarkets listed all the ingredients then I could make an informed choice if I wanted to eat that product...if I read horse in the ingredients then I wouldn't eat it but not to have been told and they sneak it in is just wrong.
 
I'm a veggie anyway but it is a bit alarming that they don't seem to have any sort of bio security to prevent this kind of contamination- it says 'horse DNA' not 'horse meat', could be horse turds for all we know...
 
My concern here is, health and hygiene... why aren't these meats handled in a clean and sterile environment ? Clean being, surfaces wiped and disinfected between orders.. Cross contamination comes to mind..... If Tesco's has any say in this, those companies will have their rating reduced, and will be checked twice a year by auditors.
 
moana said:
Where did you hear this and where is the evidence/proof?

Nothing would surprise me these days
Click to expand...
It was reported on the Radio 4 9pm news. Rather a long list of s/markets involved according to the report which originates with The Food Safety Authority of Ireland.

Ireland has had a very big problem with "redundant" horses for some years. The number of horse abbatoirs has increased enormously in Eire as even racehorses are being sent for slaughter because there just isn't a market for live horses. There was a report on (again) Radio 4 about this two or three years ago.
 
nosenseofdirection said:
I'm a veggie anyway but it is a bit alarming that they don't seem to have any sort of bio security to prevent this kind of contamination- it says 'horse DNA' not 'horse meat', could be horse turds for all we know...
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At a guess I'd say it's possibly contamination from the machinery used to butcher the animal carcasses, due to careless cleaning practices.

Horse DNA representing 29% of the beef content may not be very much when one considers the total meat content of the average burger. It's still too much though.

Until recently I was under the impression that the sale of horsemeat for human consumption was illegal. I was told by the butcher when I was young that this was because there was a connection with tuberculosis. However, it seems that this was untrue and it has never been illegal.

The non-veggies among us have probably eaten it, as a 2003 Food Standards Agency investigation revealed that salami and similar products such as chorizo and pastrami sometimes contain horse meat without this ingredient being listed.

I have eaten it in France - once - but was unaware until after the meal. It was very tasty but I wouldn't knowingly eat it again.
 
Given that one of the implicated plants was in Yorkshire and the others in Ireland, and that none of them had a legitimate reason to have horse DNA on the premises it is pretty worrying.
 
Ooops..I have just made another thread about this with the link... Didnt realise it was already exsistant.. Although I have no idea how to delete it on my Iphone
 
I work for Tesco and had a packet of frozen burgers come through that scanned as an emergency product withdraw, so they must have taken the product off sale for that reason. They are not cheap end ones either.
 
Doesn't really surprise me, I guess they use it in dog food do they? I know on cat food it just says 'meat' usually. Is it possible the burgers could be manufactured in the same place as dog food? I don't see why not!

I tend to avoid cheap burgers and sausages and anything but fillet chicken as in not 'reformed'... My BF however will eat anything and fully accepts there is all kinds of rubbish in it but even he has started to pick vegetarian burgers over mega cheap ones as they taste so much better!
 
mandwhy said:
Doesn't really surprise me, I guess they use it in dog food do they? I know on cat food it just says 'meat' usually. Is it possible the burgers could be manufactured in the same place as dog food? I don't see why not!

I tend to avoid cheap burgers and sausages and anything but fillet chicken as in not 'reformed'... My BF however will eat anything and fully accepts there is all kinds of rubbish in it but even he has started to pick vegetarian burgers over mega cheap ones as they taste so much better!
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I always thought the dog and cat meat was ground down bones, insides, and really bad useless bits of the meat?
 
Slightly off topic, but along similar lines and this is a true story - from the horses mouth!

I have sheep - they are all megs and every year they were required to be treated for sheep scab. The Government official had to be present to witness this, check your flock number get you to sign form etc.

So year 1 he arrives and sees me bringing the sheep into a stable ready to be injected. Now my sheep love bread - they follow a loaf instead of a bucket and this is what I was using to get them in.

Government official said to me I could be prosecuted for doing this. To be honest I thought he was having a joke and thought nothing more of it.

Year 2 arrives and the same bloke arrives 1 hour early. So off I toddle with my newly bought loaf and tempt the sheep into the stable.

The bloke absolutely loses it - told me I had been on a warning the previous year and that he was considering prosecuting me under (can't remember exact act) Untreated Food Stuffs for animals Act.

Basically the one that governs what you have to do to food before it can be fed to animals - ie cooking pig swill properly so you don't get foot and mouth.

Now bear in mind I have a fresh loaf of locally made bread - which very clearly has on it a vegetarian society emblem and clearly states suitable for vegetarians - so I am slightly perplexed

Bloke though his rage told me that the problem was that the factory where it is made did not hold a specific type of licence - the bread could therefore have been contaminated with raw meat and was not fit for animal consumption.

This is a true story and I have a witness and the name of the raging man

So the upshot of this story is a representative from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries threatened to prosecute me for feeding a specific local make of bread to a sheep as it could have been contaminated with raw meat.

Not fit for a sheep but OK for human consumption and vegetarians - not that I am suggesting veggies aren't human:D

Next day I went and bought a bread maker and have used it ever since - you have no idea what you are eating in these own brand packets, and I for one am glad I go to a butcher
 
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I had the "fortune" of meeting with (through work) an employee from one of the meat processing factories mentioned and he sniggered saying we irish were stupid and didn't know what we were eating and proceeded to mention horses. I was never so glad to be vegetarian. It is one of the biggest and respected meat processing in IReland - that was about 2 years ago.
 
another reason not to eat processed meats besides all the crap they put in them :D I have dietary problems so processed meats are off the menu for me anyway but I am not sure that I could eat horse meat anymore than I could the dog :(
 
Cronkmooar - your story didn't half make me giggle! I have a tedious link type of story to yours - I once used to work for asda and i found about 6 loaves of shop made bread, with very minor damage to their silly flimsy packaging, the actual bread was intouched/damaged so I asked my department manager if I cud take these home for my chickens! Instead of them being wasted in the crusher. Her answer, sorry but no! Because asda could not guarantee that the bread was safe to enter into the food chain - I'm guessing cause it was damaged (or something along them lines)! I was shocked n said I didn't eat my chickens, she asked if I ate their eggs, when I replied yes she just shook her head and said 'food chain!' And even though the eggs were for personnel consumption and I was happy to take the risk, she could not break asda protocol! I still wonder now what harm un damaged bread can do to a free range chicken which eats from the ground!
 
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