Horse burgers

It appears that our Food safety Authority were the first to spot this. Here is an opportunity for Ireland to capitalise on the fact that we have a good food inspectorate.

I would be interested to know why the FSA decided to chek these burgers in the first place. Was it a new piece of kit that they were trying out? Was Pat having his lunch and decided to drop a piece of his lunch in to the machine during his lunch hour? Did they get a tip off?
 
Complainer said:
SHock horror - traces of beef found in some retail beef burgers today.
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Well they were talking about donkey (BBC) yesterday so that's an improvement. I'm just waiting for rabbits, cats or dogs. So far I can live with horse and rabbits, but cats or dogs - oh no.

And what's really amazing is the labyrinth way that meat goes through so many brokers who all presumable take a cut (no pun intended) and one does wonder how what you purchase at the end of all this can be so 'relatively' cheap and of good nutritional value.
 
Bronte said:
And what's really amazing is the labyrinth way that meat goes through so many brokes who all presumable take a cut (no pun intended) and one does wonder how what you purchase at the end of all this can be so 'relatively' cheap and of good nutritional value.
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Indeed, it is amazing, and the same thought had struck me. Funnily enough, the same thought has also struck me about some of the people-trading brokers! I came across a scenario with an IT contractor working in one of the large multi-nationals. However, between him and the main multinational, there were at least three layers of 'brokers' contracting and sub-contracting services, and all taking their slide out of the value he was creating.
 
Yesterday I was shopping in one of the largest chains in Europe and decided to look in the frozen food section for beef productts of which there were pleny. There are beef burgers from different brands (I forgot to look for findus) still in the freezer compartments here. I looked at the ingredients and one of them was 47% beef, all the rest was not meat. This story hasn't fully hit outside UK/Ireland and product has not been removed or else consumers are not that put out about horse.
 
It's not only processed meat which is being incorrectly or fraudlently labelled! My OH used to work for an international hotel chain in Ireland who imported all food products from the UK as they are cheaper.

On the market list, various steaks and cuts of beef were listed as UK beef. On one consignment which arrived the supplier had put a new label over the existing one and this was only discovered when the vacuum pack was opened and viewed from inside.

The meat was originally from Brazil and had been relabelled in the UK as UK beef.
 
Complainer said:
Indeed, it is amazing, and the same thought had struck me. Funnily enough, the same thought has also struck me about some of the people-trading brokers! I came across a scenario with an IT contractor working in one of the large multi-nationals. However, between him and the main multinational, there were at least three layers of 'brokers' contracting and sub-contracting services, and all taking their slide out of the value he was creating.
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This happens a lot and it's usually down to two things: the company purchasing the services can't (or won't) burden their HR departments with the extra admin work - lots of individual contractors on different rates, with different durations, renewing contracts, dealing with different agencies etc. In addition, it can be a cover-your-behind move by the IT manager/director - safer (should something go wrong) that a large, well-known consultancy be hired.

In my experience the end result is usually better for the IT contractor - the rates match the market rate but there are other benefits..

Anyway, we digress..
 
Bronte said:
And what's really amazing is the labyrinth way that meat goes through so many brokers who all presumable take a cut (no pun intended) and one does wonder how what you purchase at the end of all this can be so 'relatively' cheap and of good nutritional value.
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+1 Bronte, I was shocked at the number of different processors involved in producing a burger!

Bronte said:
Yesterday I was shopping in one of the largest chains in Europe and decided to look in the frozen food section for beef productts of which there were pleny. There are beef burgers from different brands (I forgot to look for findus) still in the freezer compartments here. I looked at the ingredients and one of them was 47% beef, all the rest was not meat. This story hasn't fully hit outside UK/Ireland and product has not been removed or else consumers are not that put out about horse.
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I don't really get your point here Bronte? Are you saying all beef burgers should be pulled from supermarkets as a result of this? Are you saying you never realised the meat content was so low in some burgers? As RonanC said, have a look at the cheap sausages (30% and possibly lower!). There is nothing new in any of this. The issue here is whether or not the 47% beef in those burgers is actually beef or not.
 
In general I don't buy processed food so I never had occasion to look at the ingredients. I've never ever bought a frozen burger, pre made lasagne etc from a supermarket as I generally cook from scratch - my main exception to this is fish fingers. So yesterday I only looked at the ingredients to see what was actually in them.

My other half sometimes buys sausages in Ireland, I don't buy sausages as I made my mind up years ago that they are full of rubbish. But one of my kids best friends when staying with us if very picky and will only eat a particular type of sausage this is spicy - so on those odd occasions I did succome and purchase them and will not do so again. And yes I've been to say a BBQ and I've eaten a burger or sausage. And yes I like a burger from Supermacs, and have been known to eat a kebab from Abrakebabra - my kids have never been inside the door of those or the big M either. I try not to instill my bad habits in them.

In answer to the question should all processed foods be withdrawn, yes anything containing beef, pork, lamb etc until there is absolute clarity on what is in them and then some. And however bad I was before I'll be ten times worse now on processed food. But I never ever got during the beef scare a few years back why steak was ok but a T bone was not. And technically I don't have a problem with horse in a burger as long as I'm told and have the choice.

And if a sausage has only 30% meat, that isn't necessarily a bad thing, what is important is that it's good meat and that the filling is also good whatever it is. I personally don't like a lot of meat so a 'vegetarian' sausage with low meat content if well made can be good.

Delgirl - that's just more proof that labels cannot be trusted. I do hope your OH reported it to the HSE.

And most unfortunately for me in order to support the ski trip of the 11 year olds at my kids school they have a buy lasagne sponsorship each year. And my fridge is packed with it and I'm seriously comtemplating throwing it out, but then it's a shame to waste what is perfectly good food - we'd eaten it on two days before this story broke. As outlined I'm convinced it's full of horsemeat but I can live with that.
 
Bronte said:
I generally cook from scratch - my main exception to this is fish fingers.
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Hi Bronte,

Fish fingers made from fresh cod are yummy and simple to make. There's a decent fish mongers down here in Cork called Good Fish and last week they had 3 cod fillets for a fiver. Bought a bag of cod and the freezer is full of fish fingers now :D. We even had them ourselves for dinner as they were so good.

Here's what I do:

Cut the Cod into "fingers", dip into beaten eggs and roll in breadcrumbs. I wrap mine individually in tin-foil to avoid them sticking together.

Firefly.
 
Firefly, I tried an alternative coating that was delicious.
Cut the Cod into "fingers", dip into flour, then beaten eggs and finally roll in crushed cornflakes, yummy! :D
 
Ceist Beag said:
Firefly, I tried an alternative coating that was delicious.
Cut the Cod into "fingers", dip into flour, then beaten eggs and finally roll in crushed cornflakes, yummy! :D
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Yes, I make chicken nuggets with crushed Cornflakes and the kids love 'em.
 
Firefly said:
they had 3 cod fillets for a fiver. Bought a bag of cod and the freezer is full of fish fingers now :D. .
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When that good food is so cheap you'd wonder why anyone has to buy burgers at all. Cod is near on 20 to 25 Euro a kilo here. Sole is 30 to 40 Euro a kilo. But I'll give your receipt a go. They are not so enamoured with my cod tajine which is really really delicious. New ideas for fish are always great.

I watched a podcast of RTE and the guy from the Food safety authority gave me no faith in their competence whatsoever. All the evidence points to the exact opposite and it was clear as day complaining to them is a waste of time. As for Ted Walsh, you'd think all horses went to horse heaven. My OH was often asked to buy a leg of a horse down through the Celtic Tiger and more recently he's been offered the whole animal for zero such is the desire to get rid of them.
 
Bronte said:
When that good food is so cheap you'd wonder why anyone has to buy burgers at all. Cod is near on 20 to 25 Euro a kilo here. Sole
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Wow..that's really expensive! Cod is usually 12.99 a kilo here and 9.99 the odd time on special.
 
Bronte said:
I watched a podcast of RTE and the guy from the Food safety authority gave me no faith in their competence whatsoever. All the evidence points to the exact opposite and it was clear as day complaining to them is a waste of time.
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You mean the one food safety authority in Europe that managed to first pick up this European-wide problem - that's the food authority that you have no faith in?
 
Anyone see Panorama last night? The guy from Iceland was unbelievably arrogant. He stated that their beef burgers only contain beef (that's B E E F he said quite emphatically). When the presenter stated that the Irish FSA found 0.1% horse meat in them his answer was "well that's the Irish isn't it"! I could just hear all the owners of Iceland franchises in Ireland groaning!
 
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