Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Horsemeat Scandal. How many new vegetarians?
I was wondering how many people have resolved to become vegetarians as the horsemeat scandal unfolds. And today it's donkey.
Tags for Forum Posts: horsemeat
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Birdy_Too on
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Of course the labeling aspect is concerning, my above comment was a bit tongue in cheek. I work in packaging and there is very stringent EU guidelines coming in soon. I would be gutted in I found some yellow lentils packed in with my red lentils!
Most chocolate is veggie and many sweets are. Haribo do a veggie range as do M&S. In fact the only sweet I haven't found to be veggie is marshmallows, I did by some vegan ones once, a bit poo though.
A very good guide is the Vegan Society Animal Free Shopper.
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Permalink Reply by Abi on
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Yes, it's very hard to make vegetarian marshmallows. I actually did a little research on this when I was working on a foodie title, and it was quite intriguing: I wanted to know why stores that had previously sold veg marshmallows all listed them as 'out of stock', and managed to trace it down to one last vegetarian marshmallow-making machine in Brazil that had 'gunged up' and broken down - seemingly for good, as I've never been able to find such a product anywhere since.
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I think there is a sizeable chunk of the country who don't have the luxury of being able to afford 'freedom', 'organic' or 'local' meat. They could go veggie of course and save a packet
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*nod* it is perfectly, absolutely possible to eat very healthily on a restrictive budget. The problem is not money, but time: many people are very time poor and those working long hours for little pay are most likely to be caught in a trap of wanting a quick meal at low cost. Completely understandable really, I'm sure I wouldn't be in any state to start cooking a lasagne from scratch if I was working night shifts or similar. Within families this will also lead to a loss of skills - if you don't know you can make a meal that tastes miles better than the overly-seasoned £1.50 lasagne you can buy in Tesco why would you bother?
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Permalink Reply by Gordon Curtis on
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The thing is, even if you are overtly concerned about the meat that you buy, the labeling in supermarkets is often intentionally opaque and mis-leading. "Freedom Foods", "Out-door Bred", "Organic".
My understanding is that unless it says "Free-range" on the packaging for Chicken or Pork, it really isn't.
Whilst obviously it's laudable the efforts that big suppliers have made to improve animal welfare, they shouldn't be let off the hook with a half-measure.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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If the likes of tesco and asda with all their resources can't control what goes into their foodstuffs, just think what goes into those anonymous polystyrene boxes going into the cheap food outlets that alternate with the bookies along the High Street. Of course I exclude the ones selling bushmeat as that comes at a premium.
PS Veggie for 42 years, I win.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Nobody "wins" Pam.
Not if our families, friends, neighbours, the kids in the local school, patients in nearby hospitals - and everyone else - is at potential risk from harmful food and can't even rely on labelling to protect themselves and others. Nor - while the Government cuts funding which supports services like Trading Standards - can we rely on agencies which were created to make it safe to shop.
Politicians of both Right and the faux-Left are in favour of deregulation. Removing "red-tape" and any other colour tape businesses dislike. And mouthing platitudes about business being self-regulating.
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Were there ever regulations that would have prevented this (just out of interest, I have no idea)
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I mean I WIn re who's been veggie longest.
And I pity meat-eaters who must be freaking out at some level wondering whether they have ingested Phenylbutamine, and equine infectious anaemia which is endemic in Romania and has meant there is an export ban from there on live horses. Pretending this is not a health issue is a fat lie.
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Permalink Reply by Dick Harris on
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Bless my soul Alan, vegetarians and horsemeat, you really know how to start a long running thread! I hesitate to pick up your reference to the politics of deregulation because, interesting though it is to me, I feel it would not be visible in this tangled web.
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Dick, I think (de)regulation is an issue which very much needs light as well as heat. So I'd like to read your thoughts and ideas.
Many of the points on this thread are making me think again about these issues. For example, observations about the complexity and interrelationship of products in the food industry; and the length of the supply chains.
Perhaps I've been too comfortable in my assumption that knowledgeable local professional staff were an effective safequard. The running down of which was a serious health risk.
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When I was working abroad, I twice ordered horse steak in a restaurant and on both occasions found it quite delicious.
For me, the problem about the current "horse meat in beef-burgers etc" scandal is that it casts doubt upon the effectiveness of all of the controls governing the food we buy. If those selling us the stuff can't properly control what they buy, how can they assure us about any aspect of it?
These particular cases were not discovered because someone got sick after eating the stuff but I don't find that particularly reassuring.
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