given that findus in france and luxembourg, tescos aldi etc in ireland and north yorks have had horse meat in the processed food chain in very high (100% in some instances) concentrations how many horses have found there way into this food.

given as this just didnt happen last week it must be fair to assume its gone on for some time (2003 was the last time the irish checked for horse meat..) and given that thousands of cattle are slaughtered daily .. just where are the now empty fields of horses..

Every empty field? They’re all empty of horses!

*Poland’s road laws have changed apparently ?

Horses now banned from the roads leading to a lot of “spare” horses

(*unverified source- A bloke I was talking to earlier told me)

There’s been a good few hints that there is a lot more to come before we hear the last of this

To be honest if folk choose to eat processed prepackaged shite what do they expect?, if your dinner generally comes in a plastic tub wi a cellophane lid and can be cooked in 5 minutes or less in a microwave then i have absolutely no sympathy, i may even have a laugh and a giggle..

It’s the Romanians!

i thought dartmoor had less ponys this year, but thought nothing of it…..

To be honest if folk choose to eat processed prepackaged shite what do they expect?, if your dinner generally comes in a plastic tub wi a cellophane lid and can be cooked in 5 minutes or less in a microwave then i have absolutely no sympathy, i may even have a laugh and a giggle..

Why?

I don’t eat that kind of stuff, but it doesn’t make me any better or wiser than someone who does.

Edit:

Actually, I had Chilli in a service station the other day, I’d imagine a cellophane sealed microwave tub will have been involved. So I’d probably have a good think about every meal you’ve eaten recently before being so pleased with yourself.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3GM0GM4fW4[/video]

Rhonddas finest

To be honest if folk choose to eat processed prepackaged shite what do they expect?, if your dinner generally comes in a plastic tub wi a cellophane lid and can be cooked in 5 minutes or less in a microwave then i have absolutely no sympathy, i may even have a laugh and a giggle..

I bet you’re a fun bloke down the pub.

is it just me, or are tesco/findus/whoever missing a trick here? – i’d consider horsemeat an ‘upgrade’ – i’d pay more for it.

To be honest if folk choose to eat processed prepackaged shite what do they expect?, if your dinner generally comes in a plastic tub wi a cellophane lid and can be cooked in 5 minutes or less in a microwave then i have absolutely no sympathy, i may even have a laugh and a giggle..

We should be able to believe what a label tells us is in the package. This is stuff that’s going into people’s mouths. Given the types of meals, I’m guessing that they’re probably bought by those from lower income families. If that is helping you feel a little bit superior today…

Last I heard, the “horse” was actually donkeys.

Ass burgers, anyone?

Ok, so about 10,000 horses were slaughtered in the UK in 2010, and its estimated there are 1 million in the UK. They live, average, 20 years. So that’s 50,000 a year that need ‘disposing’.

Where do you think the rest were slaughtered?

b r – Member
Ok, so about 10,000 horses were slaughtered in the UK in 2010, and its estimated there are 1 million in the UK. They live, average, 20 years. So that’s 50,000 a year that need ‘disposing’.

Where do you think the rest were slaughtered?They might have, you know, died. Just a thought.

I make all my food from scratch using raw ingredients and fresh produce, i earn minimum wage so it definitely ain’t a money issue to buy and prepare fresh food, i care what i choose to eat and i am a 100% unashamed food snob.

Wow. You’re awesome.

Do you think it’s ok to sell mis-labelled food to folk who are less awesome than you, because its “cheap”?

They boil em up at Penrith for all sorts of stuff. Take a deep breath next time you are on the west side of Penrith…

There is a market for live export of horses to elsewhere in Europe. I suspect most others were humanely destroyed by vets on health grounds.
Given backed ponies are going for under £200 in Ireland ( ready to be ridden) I can imagine some unwanted unbacked ponies and horses going cheaper which may give an indication of why it has got into the food chain.

No i don’t?, not in the slightest, do you find it acceptable to sell mechanically recovered produce as “100% Beef”, far to many folk in this country consider it suitable to “ping” their meals, perhaps if we had a more continental structure regarding the importance of food then we would not be in this situation where we have ever increasing health issues in the UK due to poor diet.

.

somafunk – Member

To be honest if folk choose to eat processed prepackaged shite what do they expect?,

Which cow do you get your milk from?

They boil em up at Penrith for all sorts of stuff. Take a deep breath next time you are on the west side of Penrith…

I think you’ll find that’s just the locals.

In an effort to lose weight, I’ve started getting Quorn mince instead of beef mince. Horse would be an improvement…

lol. The memory of a ‘Wildriggs’ day at school is still with me. 😐

A soya cow naturally 😉

What I don’t get is the traceability angle.
I work in flour milling which is pretty low risk in the grand scheme of our food chain and yet we have to provide traceability at the drop of a hat to our customers for each wheat used in a grist right back to the farm & field it came from!

Now I would say meat is a “slightly” higher risk yet they don’t seem to have anything like the standards we have to adhere to?

I agree – mrs_oab used to work in a creamery supplying all sorts of stuff – she could look at a pack of UHT or MacD’s thick shake and tell you exactly when it was made, on which line – and with a few mins on a computer – which farm the milk came from, on which tanker and which of the lab staff tested it on arrival, production and departure, and what the test results were.
SURELY meat has similar testing regime – or are we about to see some huge companies admit some serious failings or fraud?

No i don’t?, not in the slightest, do you find it acceptable to sell mechanically recovered produce as “100% Beef”, far to many folk in this country consider it suitable to “ping” their meals, perhaps if we had a more continental structure regarding the importance of food then we would not be in this situation where we have ever increasing health issues in the UK due to poor diet.

What I find acceptable to eat or not eat is neither here nor there. FWIW, I eat a mainly veggie diet due to being married to one but I’d probably buy the odd “premium” steak & ale pie if it was on offer in the supermarket. It seems that until this all blows over, I can’t trust the labelling on my supermarket shelves. So much for my “organic” veggie lasagne. And did those mushrooms really come from Jim’s farm in Lincolnshire? I just want honest labelling and traceability in the food that’s sold. I may feel personally superior for eating the way I eat, but it doesn’t mean that those that can’t afford or cook “proper food” somehow deserve to be hoodwinked. If a high-street butcher did what Tesco et al have just done, he’d be shut down in a heartbeat.

They might have, you know, died. Just a thought.

Majority of horses are put down before they die, or just ‘taken away’.

Based on the numbers there are probably 10-20k been shipped alive pa.

It’s all meat right, what’s the fuss?

matt – Was that KBT Creamery , it’s been flattened now and about to be built on for social housing.

And i don’t feel “superior” for eating/cooking all my own food, i enjoy cooking as i know exactly what goes into my food and it works out far cheaper than buying prepackaged meals – i made a big pot of spinach/chickpea/cauliflower curry last night which will do me for 2 nights tea and 8 meals in the freezer, sat night i made a large pot of roasted veg pasta arrabiata sauce that can be used as a base for many meals or watered down for soup etc, must have at least 10 portions in this alone – this country seems to take an obscene pleasure in being wantonly illiterate when it comes to cooking for yourself which is confusing when you consider the popularity of cooking programs – look at what Jamie Oliver tried to do to school meals?, perhaps the government will listen to him now instead of serving up frozen meat balls or turkey twizzelers of untraceable origin to kids – that is indefensible in my opinion.

Yes, all your cooking sounds awesome. All very impressive. You made out in your first post that folk somehow deserve to have mis-labelled food sold to them if they buy cheap, pre-packaged stuff. Now you’re on to a polemic about the state of the nation’s diet. Which is a different discussion to be fair.

Somafunk – yep. You worked there back in the day? Should be down next week…

i thought dartmoor had less ponys this year, but thought nothing of it…..

you ain’t seen me…. right?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6jYoagXmZE[/video]

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIIAQME1Uhg[/video]

I don’t even want to talk about what I found in my Tesco value vegetable soup at lunch time..

What I don’t get is the traceability angle.
I work in flour milling which is pretty low risk in the grand scheme of our food chain and yet we have to provide traceability at the drop of a hat to our customers for each wheat used in a grist right back to the farm & field it came from!

But you don’t track every grain from the field to the bag of flour yourselves – someone in the chain of supply could lie to you – the grain you see when you look and the grain you get when you are not looking could be different – for all you know. There was a case a (fair) few years back of a company on the continent buying and selling grain, by the warehouse-load. When they bought it it was ‘grain’, when they sold it it was ‘organic grain’. No doubt they could show a trail back to an organic farm to anyone who asked, but only when they were asking.

Nah, i stay within a stones throw of the site but a few mates did work there though….I say work but to be honest they did bugger all day in/day out and they’d be the first to admit that as well 😉 . Did your wife work with a youngish girl called Tara in the Lab?, old friend of mine back then – you worked out at Barcaple wi Andy H (Now 7stanes trailbuilde extraordinare) didn’t you?. The closure of the place has decimated the town, and the site was earmarked for workshops and a small industrial estate with EU funding for small rural business start-ups but that was sidelined by the local council and the local Housing Association, now we’re getting 36 “affordable” homes but what’s the point of providing homes with no jobs in one of the poorest areas of Scotland?, but that’s another rant altogether.

Apologies darcy but it was not meant to be taken in such a condescending way, I should have formatted my rant rather more succinctly but to be honest what can you expect if you buy such cheap mass-produced products to begin with?, i can eat rather well on my budget of £30 a week and whilst it does take a modicum of knowledge when it comes to preparation of meals and food that in no way absolves folk who choose to eat plastic food from taking ultimate responsibility for what they choose to consume.

I did a stint at a major food supplier. We could persuade people that the food was traceable and we did due diligence. However, we worked with ‘trusted suppliers’ so didn’t analyse every batch. We tested some, audit ted their site at random but for the 300 odd days no one was monitoring they could supply anything.

I heard some stories from an ex sugar technical guy about what they used to find in deliveries. You’d get horse DNA in that as well.

to be honest what can you expect if you buy such cheap mass-produced products to begin with?, i can eat rather well on my budget of £30 a week and whilst it does take a modicum of knowledge when it comes to preparation of meals and food that in no way absolves folk who choose to eat plastic food from taking ultimate responsibility for what they choose to consume.

Either you are being obtuse, or that recent ‘WHOOSH’ was the point missing you completely.

There are legal requirements for the labelling of food in this country. No matter what someone buys, they should have 100% faith that it is correctly labelled, no matter their social status, educational level or even personal choice. If you believe that people who buy cheap, processed food deserve to be lied to, then you are on a level with those perpetrating these crimes, aren’t you?

Do you label your home-cooked meals as containing high levels of Smug?

Was not the good point if the one above if this was a high street butcher not Tescos they would be shut down. When I was a kid the butcher would have his carcasses hanging up in the back of the shop you could genuinely see what you were getting . He chose the animal pre slaughter from local farms He sold the entire animal in a range of cuts and products to suit every budget . He had respect for his supplier his product and his customers . We now use multinational supermarkets who as the freemarketeers on here like to claim have only one duty to maximise profit for their shareholders . As a result they buy the cheapest meat to present as the most expensive and view the law on labeling and content in the same light as tax payments .

To a certain extent we have got exactly what we have bargained for when we choose the convenience of the superstore over the local highstreet . But I do agree that we should be able to trust labels which ultimately means the directors of supermarkets should be held personally liable for the companys actions . just as a sole trader is.

industrial food will always be open to ‘adulteration’— nobody noticed a different taste, maybe you either accept your spinal tissue, eyelids, cartilage is not from bovine source,but equine–maybe its better to go into one of those butcher places and buy the real thing?

I heard some stories from an ex sugar technical guy about what they used to find in deliveries. You’d get horse DNA in that as well.

mostly dog, horses would fit in the sluices