Tesco burgers...

[Mike Saville]

Low in fat. High in Shergar.

[SiHart]

It's another reason to avoid Tesco.

[Mike Saville]

I've just checked the burgers we've got in the freezer.... AND THEY'RE OFF!!!

Heh heh!


The whole mass production thing really isn't good. I know you really can't say that no local butcher pads out his products with other stuff, but it's more in his interests not to. Tesco and Iceland can absorb the loss, Mr Higgins the sole trader is out of business if he gets caught. I try to avoid the chains for fresh meat, especially the pre packaged crap, and stories like this remind me why.

[duncan]

Despite the scandal, Tesco say that burger sales remain stable and that this story will eventually run it's course.

There was a great headline in today's Metro.....Horses for main courses.

I bet the director's at tesco all had long faces this morning!

Those Aldi horse burgers were nice, but I prefer My Lidl Pony

Oh I could go on all day!

[Jon Masters]

Tesco - every little BIT (of Dobbin) helps.....

I'm not sure that reporting Aldi and Iceland burgers might not be 100% beef is worthwhile

Having said that, I spent 5 years at Uni living off Capital Freezer Center own brand quarterpounders (69p for 4) so I'm sure I must be full of foreign DNA (careful, Tim )

[duncan]

29% of the meat content in Tesco's hamburgers turns out to be horse?! No wonder they gave me the trots!

[Si Hunt]

I am more uncomfortable the more I buy things where you can't tell what's in them. I know when it comes to down to pure meat, you have to take someone's word it is what it is, but I know I trust my local butcher more than I do Tesco, and who knows what they put into processed food?

I mean, this story seems to have made waves because we don't eat horse, but I'm sure they also routinely pad them out with other meats, offcuts, breadcrumbs, fat and whatever else, all legally and openly (if you read the back of the packet). So really, what do you expect if you buy food which is constructed by a mass-retailer? Are they going to fill it out with top quality premium beef or sawdust? What do you think?

Si.

[duncan]

I see absolutely no problem with horsemeat in my burgers, which is why my mane is so glossy and I'm running in the 3:10 at Kempton

[SiHart]

What goes into a burger?

[Stuart Wallis]

Tesco - every little BIT (of Dobbin) helps.....

That's why mums go to Iceland!

[MinaHarker]

I used to go out with a guy whose dad had been a butcher. There were specific things (sausages!) he wouldn't eat because he knew what was in them.

That's the trouble with meat especially - once it's cut up, there is no telling what it used to be.

[Stuart Wallis]

I used to go out with a guy whose dad had been a butcher.

The Lads have done a bit of butchering in their time...

If you knew some of the things that have gone into sausages at some point, you certainly wouldn't look at hem in the same light again!

[Dirk Gently]

Ignorance is bliss....probably why I'm so happy.

[Jason Thompson]

It seems it's worse that we thought. It has now emerged that Tesco veggie burgers may be 29% uniquorn....

(I'll get me coat)

[Dirk Gently]

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Those Aldi horse burgers were nice, but I prefer My Lidl Pony

King of comedy!

I am more uncomfortable the more I buy things where you can't tell what's in them. I know when it comes to down to pure meat, you have to take someone's word it is what it is, but I know I trust my local butcher more than I do Tesco, and who knows what they put into processed food?

See - Torchwood's MEAT was a classic ahead of it's time. Now if only we learned the danger of sex predator alien parasites before it's too late.

[Rob McCow]

Bah!

It's all protein.

From the BBC:

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), which is conducting similar inquiries, said the meat had come from two processing plants in the Irish Republic - Liffey Meats and Silvercrest Foods - and the Dalepak Hambleton plant in North Yorkshire.

So, a widespread practice? Three plants mixing horse and cow. How does a horse get into the system anyway? Where do these guys buy their meat from?

A total of 27 burger products were analysed, with 10 of them containing traces of horse DNA and 23 containing pig DNA.

In addition, 31 beef meal products, including cottage pie, beef curry pie and lasagne, were analysed, of which 21 tested positive for pig DNA.

[Si Hunt]

Does it really matter? Why is cow okay but horse not. What have you got against the cows?

the Dalepak Hambleton plant in North Yorkshire.

The Dalepak Hambleton Plant sounds like a suspicious anagram of "The Dalek Masterplan". Could Skaro's rutheless aliens be behind all this? Chief of food Hygiene at Tesco, Mister Dave Ross was unavailable for comment.

Si.

[MinaHarker]

Well, horses aren't kosher for a start. The horse/pork in 'beef' burgers is a big issue there.

It seems that British people see horses as more of a "pet" than a "meat" animal.

[Jason Thompson]

Does it really matter?

Yes it does. As Mina says, certain religions do not permit the consumption of certain foodstuffs. A lot of Jewish people, for example, are going to be very unhappy to find their beefburger has pig and horse meat in it for that reason.

And related to that is the fact that consumers have a right to know what it is they are (in this case literally) consuming. If the burgers were advertised and packaged as mixed meat with an ingredients list that included pork and horsemeat there are doubtless people who would still happily buy them. They may not be a hugely popular product but you could probably still sell them in this country even with our apparent cultural aversion to horsemeat. They're not, though. They're advertised as beef burgers, and the failure to list horse and pig among the ingredients deprives the consumer of the information they should have to base their choice of whether or not to eat it on. Since there are a large number of people for whom that choice is based in religion and culture, that is not an acceptable state of affairs.

If a burger contains offal, or bits of the animal I wouldn't normally think of as tasty or even desirable to eat I don't really care, to be honest. If it contains material from a different animal, then that is a problem.

[Si Hunt]

If a burger contains offal, or bits of the animal I wouldn't normally think of as tasty or even desirable to eat I don't really care, to be honest. If it contains material from a different animal, then that is a problem.

Interesting. I would say the opposite. I'd be happy if it contained horse if it was decent meat, I'd rather eat that than bit of anal scrapings and chicken heads swept up off the factory floor.

Si.

[Jason Thompson]

It is interesting. If you put a lung, brain, intestine, eyeballs or whatever in front of me I'd almost certainly balk at eating it. Once it's all cleaned, processed, chopped up and mixed with other things to make a burger or a sausage, I'm not too fussed. It all just becomes 'meat' in the generic sense as far as I am concerned.

It's an intriguing psychological element, and I do occasionally reflect on how irrational it is. I noticed it particularly at a wedding reception when I was a teenager, when they had a menu that included fish and prawns all served still looking like they did when they were caught. I couldn't eat any of it. I like prawns. I don't mind fish. If it's looking at me as I eat it, I get put off.

Many would say, quite rightly, that if you are going to eat meat you need to accept that it was once part of a living animal. I find it interesting to reflect that in my case I can do that in an abstract sense but not when it is served up in my face.

[MinaHarker]

Yes, that's true Jason. I think it is quite common for people to be put off eating something that still looks like the animal it was - the "it still has a face" thing.

I don't understand why some meat eaters get upset when their meat is referred to as being a "dead animal". As Jason says, if you are going to eat it why deny what it is?

By the way, does anyone know how this was discovered? Is DNA testing a routine thing for burgers, or was it a whistleblower?

[Si Hunt]

I often think, when I'm doing my monthly chicken chop, at how absurd the situation is. I'm standing, cutting up dead flesh, and yet that just doesn't register even though I know it's true. It's like I don't believe it, on some level. Yet I have still have the flesh in my hands as I chop it up, I can't feel the alarm or disgust I should at rifling through the remains of a dead creature. If it was a human arm, I'd be repulsed, but what's the difference?

Si.

[MinaHarker]

Hmm, some kind of disconnect. Personally, I do feel that disgust around meat, but naturally I keep it to myself.