Wherever I go I can’t seem to escape the scandal that is ‘horse d’oeuvre‘. Even in our fabulous hotel lobby there seems to be nothing else in the papes but the latest on the horse meat gate.
It had to happen…with the UK’s supermarket industry working all out to undercut its competitors and with the credit crunch forcing the average man in the street being to buy food as cheaply as possible manufacturers were always going to try and cut corners.
Horse meat gate has become international news ending with most mums now turning their backs on ready meals and hurrah for that. This episode shows just how little we actually know about the ingredients within pre-prepared food.
The fact of the matter is that people have been eating horse meat all over the continent for hundreds of years and I am told that it is tasty, nutritious and good for you. I think I may have tried it once and I’d be eager to taste it again. The issue here is more about labelling than what consumers have actually (unknowingly) been eating. People have a right to know what is in their Tesco burgers and they certainly shouldn’t be misled into thinking that it is beef when it is something entirely different.
For me, however, the real issue here is about the drugs that these horses might have been given. Horses are often treated with the anti-inflammatory painkiller Bute. These animals should never enter the food chain because it can cause a potential fatal blood disorder in humans. Scary stuff.
What people tend to ignore is that many of our domestic farm animals receive regular injections of drugs to keep them disease free, healthy and in some instances to make them bigger and better ready for the supermarket shelves.
I will be voting with my feet, buying British and helping to support the local economy so I know where my food is coming from. It might cost a bit more but ignoring the crisp and biscuit aisle for a few weeks might give me a few more pounds in my pocket!
Yes, we are all tired at the end of the day. No, we don’t want to start planning a three-course meal with all the trimmings but knocking together a simple stir fry takes 20 minutes – almost as long as it takes to grab a frozen lasagne and pop it in the microwave.
It is a shame that it has taken something like this to push people into doing what they should have been doing all along – buying basic healthy ingredients and making their own. One thing’s for certain I won’t be looking at a Findus beef lasagne in quite the same way again!
