Horse Meat Saga... I am so going to be shot down for saying this...

[madmav]

Most do it right. This saga is an outrageous deviation from the law and many people must have been complicit in the deceit! It's not the staff at the sharp end who would benefit from this scam, its higher up, it has to be.

That is quite right and what is so sad about this whole sorry saga, the poor bloody horses, the farmers, the decent food manufacturers, are being shafted and shamed by some shifty, money-grabbing xxx-ers.
Think the moral is to eat more vegetarian - but I need some good recipes!!! Help me with that. And buy good quality meat as a treat.

 

[Regandal]

I don't disagree with eating horse meat, as others have said, if the horse is slaughtered humanely and protocol is followed.

The one thing that would worry me about mass producing horse meat as, say, a replacement for beef for those on a budget would be the intensive farming methods used to create enough horses 'fit for consumption' that will never have been buted etc etc.

Will they be like battery hens? Kept in small pens/stables and fed up until the yearlings are tubby enough to slaughter? Will there be controls over how many times a broodmare can foal? Will the horses have any quality of life (free range !) Before they're shipped off to meet demand? That would be the bit that would scare me

I remember reading somewhere about a person who bought a horse from a market in eastern europe. The horse was plump and very clean, about 2 years old. That's because it was kept in a barn with its' mother and had never been outside before going to market.........If she hadn't bought it, it would have gone for meat. That's how some countries raise horses for meat.

 

[Kat]

Ok so we start farming horses for meat. So breeding increases to service supermarket budget burgers, then what happens when some bleeding hearts start trying to "rescue" meat horses? We have more unsuitable horses entering the "not for human consumption" leisure market causing over supply. Don't you remember franch?

 

[perfect11s]

They eat dogs in Thailand, maybe we should eat them. The rescue centres are full.

Wrong they dont its china vietnam,korea, taiwan and Swititzerland
!!!! You might be on to a good idea We have a big problem with over breeding of unwanted Chavs now we have eastern europeans to do there jobs so maybe these need to be added to the list of food animals also

 

[FfionWinnie]

currently yes, just because it is, doesn't mean it should be or will always be.


Are you more worried about the impact that Horse Meat would have on your beef business than anything else?

Sadly where there are humans there is always the opportunity for corruption

No I am not worried because it won't happen due to the reasons I have pointed out. Obviously you know better.

Leisure horses will never be a substantial food source, if horse meat is to be a popular meat in the uk, it will be farmed the same as beef, with the same inputs (or perhaps more, you don't routinely trim the feet of beef animals for a start).

It's not an answer for getting rid of surplus horses.

 

[touchstone]

I agree with Kat.

I do think that we need more facilities for disposing of horses cheaply at the moment for welfare reasons, but once you start setting up a production line for horses then they are going to be bred specifically for that purpose. It probably wouldn't help welfare at all and could well make it worse.

Over breeding is what needs to be addressed for the sake of the horse.

 

[indie999]

Sorry if your father is representing people stealing meats then he represents people that must be spending their money on other wrong things ie smoking etc(I have seen this never got any money but smoke, drink have nice clothes) No one in the UK lives in poverty they are spending it on the wrong stuff. He should visit a country with no free social provisions.

Economic crisis and too many horses yes but there have always been animal welfare issues. The horse meat trade has slipped under the radar but how can anyone say they didnt realise? The passport system has been around for a long time 10 years+ I also find it strange that ie Tesco etc didnt do their own testing. A friend of mine her OH was a fruit buyer and visited farms all over the world to source fruit(speaking to family owners). So I cant believe they didnt know. 5 Abbatoirs well there should be more as they shut a lot of smaller ones down due to diseases etc. The meat industry isnt a nice industry and most people dont know or dont want to know(out of sight out of mind).Ignorance is bliss.

As to eating horse meat most people dont seem to have a problem as such(I do and dog etc)Its meat at end of day and humans do eat it. However its all to do with choice, labelling etc that is the issue here. So our mulit million billion pound supermarket industry had no idea what was in their foods...I am amazed. Halal they wont label it Tesco etc. They dont want to know. They hope we will all get over it.

Stealing you either are a crook or not, we do not starve in the UK. We have an obesity problem so I am not sure where that sits with the lawyer who thinks that they need a joint of meat cos they are poverty stricken?. Legal aid for the poverty stricken...? Now thats another subject its all paid for them to fight their crime. They are criminals and lie!

 

[indie999]

One other thing we had ex battery hen rehoming and I often read on here about ex racer rehoming. Have the racing industry commented about over breeding and disposal of their horses.

Most animals are chuckaway? All our victorian bureaucracy and we cant get it right.

A farmer was telling me if one of his sheep die he has to run off a report(cant remember if its weekly or monthly) of who is still has and if he has lost any etc the controls and paperwork for livestock is so strict.

Heavy fines, imprisonment of members of this industry will be the only way forward, with ban on horse export for food chain until its sorted out. But they are full of blame.

 

[Polos Mum]

It might be a one off solution to reduce numbers of certain ponies but I expect with proper regulation that breeding horses for meat would be just as expensive as breeding cows (they need similar things) so the price difference would be nil.

The only reason horse is used in these cheap meals at the moment (and they are already this cheap because of what's in them - once they go back to being what they are labeled as the prices will have to go up!) is because romania banned horses from main roads so there was a one off rush to get rid of them.

Most abandoned horses don't have a history clean enough to put them in the human food chain so I suspect while I'd like to see these poor animals out of suffering and put to any kind of use (and I count food as a use) it isn't really practical

 

[Kat]

The meat industry is still an option for disposing of unwanted horses, but as many in this country are not fit for human consumption it is for animal feed.

But there are still those who will support bin end breeders by buying horses to save them from the meat man.

 

[perfect11s]

I agree with Kat.

I do think that we need more facilities for disposing of horses cheaply at the moment for welfare reasons, but once you start setting up a production line for horses then they are going to be bred specifically for that purpose. It probably wouldn't help welfare at all and could well make it worse.

Over breeding is what needs to be addressed for the sake of the horse.

Yes. very good post, Hopefully this is just a blip caused by a glut of unwanted horses making cheap horsemeat too tempting for unscrupulius people to sell on as beef ,surely raising horses as meat animals would cost as much as say lamb or beef so unless it became fasionable hopefully there wouldent be any incentive......

 

[zigzag]

Sorry if your father is representing people stealing meats then he represents people that must be spending their money on other wrong things ie smoking etc(I have seen this never got any money but smoke, drink have nice clothes) No one in the UK lives in poverty they are spending it on the wrong stuff. He should visit a country with no free social provisions.

Economic crisis and too many horses yes but there have always been animal welfare issues. The horse meat trade has slipped under the radar but how can anyone say they didnt realise? The passport system has been around for a long time 10 years+ I also find it strange that ie Tesco etc didnt do their own testing. A friend of mine her OH was a fruit buyer and visited farms all over the world to source fruit(speaking to family owners). So I cant believe they didnt know. 5 Abbatoirs well there should be more as they shut a lot of smaller ones down due to diseases etc. The meat industry isnt a nice industry and most people dont know or dont want to know(out of sight out of mind).Ignorance is bliss.

As to eating horse meat most people dont seem to have a problem as such(I do and dog etc)Its meat at end of day and humans do eat it. However its all to do with choice, labelling etc that is the issue here. So our mulit million billion pound supermarket industry had no idea what was in their foods...I am amazed. Halal they wont label it Tesco etc. They dont want to know. They hope we will all get over it.

Stealing you either are a crook or not, we do not starve in the UK. We have an obesity problem so I am not sure where that sits with the lawyer who thinks that they need a joint of meat cos they are poverty stricken?. Legal aid for the poverty stricken...? Now thats another subject its all paid for them to fight their crime. They are criminals and lie!

Actually people do live in poverty in the UK ... Plenty of statistics on it

 

[perfect11s]

Actually people do live in poverty in the UK ... Plenty of statistics on it

Yes us horse owners !!!! Statistics and dam lies I say More like fecless morons who spend on fags booze and widesreen tvs and takeaways instead of basics we have a very generous welfare state so im a little sick of hearing about Poverty in the UK..

 

[kellybee]

Indie i couldnt make much sense of your last post but the three people i know on racing yards give theirs away for silly money. One doesnt charge at all and the other... Well his current fb photo shows him working a 4yr old tb in an outline in an indoor school with the status "ex racer to good home only, not asking for much, just patience".

Its not all doom and gloom for ex racers when the horse is sellable but i think its only right that if horse has been asked too much and cant cope with the adjustment its really the kindest thing to give a quick and stressless end.

 

[Littlelegs]

Actually, I can understand why in the UK someone might be forced to steal a basic necessity once or twice. It's all very well saying we have a welfare system, but situations sometimes change overnight, & no benefit is quick enough to provide for the next day. So unless you've been there, I don't think you can judge. However, there is absolutely no reason why someone would need to continually do so once in receipt of benefits. As for the comment about the poster who stole disposable nappies once using washable ones, fine, but if she didn't already have them she couldn't have used them, stealing disposable nappies is less costly than all the paraphernalia for washable ones. I've never been in that situation with a child/baby, but my own experience makes it very easy to understand how somebody might be.

 

[Angelbones]

Hmm, I agree in principal with what you have said, and although I wouldn't want to eat it I have no problem, other than a pink fluffy one, with horses being farmed for meat for human consumption if it's all done in the correct way.

However, we have the same issues facing, say, dogs (over breeding, not enough regulations, no room in rescues / pounds, abandonment, already eaten by humans in some other countries) - do we want to go down that route too?

I know that's not what we are discussing here, but when my head gets to musing....

 

[Asha]

To even have a chance of working in the UK, the consumer would need to see 1 of 2 things:

1. A benefit to eating horse meat - taste
2. Financial benefit.

Getting them to overcome the big taboo would be difficult enough. The financial benefit , well thats another tricky one. I would imagine, the consumer would want to see a significant benefit in choosing horse. There are many issues associated with that.

1. being the perception that anything VERY cheap is NASTY.
2. If you look on the back of packs of processed foods - ie savers lasagne, you will see a very low percentage of the product is actually meat. So if the meat only accounts for say 19% ( a guess) of the overall product. There will be insignificant savings actually passed onto the consumer.

If we are producing lasagne for £1.50/pack, how much cheaper would it need to be for someone to pick it up with horsemeat declared ??

Think about, £1.50/pack - retailer margin, supplier margin, packaging costs, labour costs, costs of pasta, costs of dairy. Doesnt really stack up!



Just one more small point. When discussing protein, and referring to chickens. The chicken we eat are NOT battery hens.

 

[Crugeran Celt]

Actually people do live in poverty in the UK ... Plenty of statistics on it

Really?????? That's a whole different issue I think!!!! As to the production of horse meat I am not adverse to it, we eat cows, sheep etc not really any difference but as someone else has already said not sure if it would solve the over population of horses we have at the moment or cause more unwanted breeding and too many animals for slaughter.

 

[Alec Swan]

Asha,

a good post, but a couple of anomalies; Firstly, the only reason that horse meat has been the cheap option for the supermarkets, is because it's been imported from the Eastern European Block, where the conditions are less than ideal, both for the living animal, and at the point of slaughter. Were we to welcome our own horse meat as a product, the costs would be such that it wouldn't be any cheaper than beef. The reason why our own beef and lamb, is the cost that it is, is because of the hoops that the processing industry from growth through to sale, are stringent, at best. If we want the ethically produced product, then we're going to have to pay for it!

Secondly, it's hard enough getting the general public to eat game, which is in essence wild, so what chance would there be for horse meat? Very little, I'd suggest!

Alec.

 

[Polos Mum]

.

If we are producing lasagne for £1.50/pack, how much cheaper would it need to be for someone to pick it up with horsemeat declared ??

Think about, £1.50/pack - retailer margin, supplier margin, packaging costs, labour costs, costs of pasta, costs of dairy. Doesnt really stack up!

.

I strongly suspect the only reason the pack is this cheap is because of what's in it, the UK banned the import of 'pink slime' (obtained by putting bones in a tumble dryer type machine to get last parts of 'meat' off) which lead to producers looking for equivalent priced alternative - hence the horse meat (coupled with romaninan ban on horses on roads - it worked out well for them)

The cost of these foods will go up as retailers are forced to used something someone might recognise as meat and Tesco et al will blame the cost of ongoing DNA testing

 

[Asha]

Just had a look at the Tesco website.

you can buy 400g of Value lasagne for 88p. This product has 20% beef.

The cost of the beef is pennies

 

[strollon]

I for one am in agreement with so many others that horses being slaughtered is perfectly acceptable, but I wouldn't eat horsemeat myself the same as I wouldn't eat cat or badger. Cattle and sheep farming is one thing, but horses are a whole other kettle of fish for a lot of different reasons.

Personally I wonder if horse meat being labelled and sold as such in the UK would lead to higher thefts and rookie horse farming which would cause new legislations and almighty welfare related uproar in a country already riddled with careless breeders. On top of that, horses are expensive to keep, not only for the grazing but also for the injuries which come with life in a large herd, that's without the DEFRA regulations which come with cattle being imposed on horses too, and therefore I don't think the cost/value would be lower than beef either.

Exactly what would happen.

 

[Asha]

Asha,

a good post, but a couple of anomalies; Firstly, the only reason that horse meat has been the cheap option for the supermarkets, is because it's been imported from the Eastern European Block, where the conditions are less than ideal, both for the living animal, and at the point of slaughter. Were we to welcome our own horse meat as a product, the costs would be such that it wouldn't be any cheaper than beef. The reason why our own beef and lamb, is the cost that it is, is because of the hoops that the processing industry from growth through to sale, are stringent, at best. If we want the ethically produced product, then we're going to have to pay for it!

Secondly, it's hard enough getting the general public to eat game, which is in essence wild, so what chance would there be for horse meat? Very little, I'd suggest!

Alec.

Alec, I whole heartedly agree with you. I wasnt sugesting horsemeat was cheap. I was suggesting that to get it to work, inline with OPs thread it would need to be substantially cheaper. Even if it was, which it clearly wouldnt be if it was farmed properly, the commercials wouldnt stack up.

Consumers need good reasons switch, and a couple of pennies off a value lasagneigh thats already 88p wont cut it.

 

[BWa]

Does it still go into dog food? Without putting too much thought into it, that seems like a better way of disposing of surplus stock, in a humane, regulated way.

 

[Asha]

I strongly suspect the only reason the pack is this cheap is because of what's in it, the UK banned the import of 'pink slime' (obtained by putting bones in a tumble dryer type machine to get last parts of 'meat' off) which lead to producers looking for equivalent priced alternative - hence the horse meat (coupled with romaninan ban on horses on roads - it worked out well for them)

The cost of these foods will go up as retailers are forced to used something someone might recognise as meat and Tesco et al will blame the cost of ongoing DNA testing

If you work it out its the amount of meat that goes into these products that make them cheap. if you take the retail/kg for the meat it actually means the consumer is paying £11/kg . So no reason why they should be putting MRM in.

However, as there is so little meat in, whether is £5/kg or £11/kg the cost benefit is insignificant.

 

[puss]

Im not shocked they found horse meat in our food i knew 20 years ago my friend lost her horse to colic the horse was full of bute 6 a day at the time told the vet her horse couldnt go for meat two weeks later gets a cheque from meat man she had gone into the food chain dog or human who know. I dont trust the goverment supermarkets to much of our food is brought from abroad which i think is wrong. As for eating horsemeat i dont have a problem eating it and have done but i knew it was horsemeat its the way they meet the end bothers me the same goes for any farm animal the should not be moved around countrys alive

 

[puss]

Sorry another quick post have you seen how kfc chickens or not are made google that disgusting

 

[Polos Mum]

If you work it out its the amount of meat that goes into these products that make them cheap. if you take the retail/kg for the meat it actually means the consumer is paying £11/kg . So no reason why they should be putting MRM in.

However, as there is so little meat in, whether is £5/kg or £11/kg the cost benefit is insignificant.

I agree they COULD be spending £11/kg on the meat and SHOULD not be using MRM BUT why not spend pence per KG and keep all the extra profit for themselves? Until people are more careful in understanding what they are buying the supermarkets will keep selling cheap and nasty food. It's only simple supply and demand.

 

[el_Snowflakes]

Just one point, people steal joints of meat and nappies because they are relatively high value items that can easily be sold on. they are also not usually security tagged. Nappies are often used to conceal the meat in trolleys and make it easier for the thief to steal. Most of this is sold to fund drug habits, please don't feel sorry for them, I see it everyday and it is often quite highly organised.

agree with this......

This is not a good enough excuse to steal. The government provide benefits for those who cannot afford to live. Unfortunatly alot of these folk choose to spend it on drugs and cigarettes & THAT is the reason they are stealing home essentials.

ALSO.........

lthough I dont really have a problem with others eating horse meat, If it became big business in the UK we would probebly have to worry about being targetted by thieves stealing horses for meat........and that does not sit comfortably with me at all

 

[Asha]

I agree they COULD be spending £11/kg on the meat and SHOULD not be using MRM BUT why not spend pence per KG and keep all the extra profit for themselves? Until people are more careful in understanding what they are buying the supermarkets will keep selling cheap and nasty food. It's only simple supply and demand.

I really should leave the maths alone until Monday mornings

The consumer is paying £2.30/kg for this meat. 17.6p of the make up of the product ( including profits etc)

I totally agree with you, consumers should take more of interest in what goes into their food. Check back of packs see how much meat your gettting, see if it has added water. Check where it comes from.

Labelling needs addressing in the UK

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