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| Not for human consumption: the presence of horse meat in burgers has resulted in a blame game Photo: ALAMY |
The discovery that millions of British and Irish beefburgers are riddled with
horse meat prompted a host of witticisms about supermarkets bolting the stable
door, or whether uniQuorn would be available for vegetarians. Yet the episode
should be taken with the utmost seriousness – not least since it provides a
worrying insight into our system of industrial agriculture. Today, many burgers
are bulked out by “filler”. Since this is far more cheaply made from horses than
from beef, a substitution was made. The filler passed from the Continent to
processing plants in England and Ireland, and on to supermarket shelves. To the
alarm of Jews and Muslims, the assembled burgers also contained traces of pig
meat, presumably from cross-contamination in the factory.
All sides now profess ignorance and astonishment: the retailers blame the
processors, who blame their suppliers. But urgent questions remain. Why did no
one at the supermarkets check what was in their products? Why did it take the
Irish to alert Britain’s Food Standards Agency, and why the delay in doing so?
Can it really be the FSA’s job to monitor food’s safety, but not its contents?
And given the tiny number of burgers inspected, how many other surprises are
lurking in our shopping baskets?
It was contamination within the food chain that helped cause the BSE crisis,
from which Britain’s beef exports have still not recovered. That disaster led to
the FSA’s creation – which in turn lulled us into a false sense of security
about what we were eating. But while we may have been happy to pay rock-bottom
prices, this scandal has driven home the fact that cheap meat can have a truly
unsavoury cost.
More from The Telegraph
More from the web
PM: Horsemeat Scandal Harming Ireland’s Reputation 05 Feb 2013National Memo
Source: The cost of cheap meat
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