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 KatyT on
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Insects ;-) lost of the food we eat are full of bits of them. And other nasty things.
And, I'm not 'picking holes'. As I've already stated - I don't agree that 'meat is meat'. But if a vegetarian believed that - one might beg the question regarding the eating of insects......
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Permalink Reply by Bethany Burrow Atherton on
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Personally (and this is really down to personal choices now, and bearing in mind I'm a meat eater anyway), I don't have a problem with eating insects - and there has been plenty of speculation/study etc in recent years about how they might be a future primary food source across a lot of the world. The only issues for me are the same as with horse meat - is it safe, and do I know what I'm eating?
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Permalink Reply by Gordon Curtis on
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Brought a Donkey Meat Saucissan in Toulouse last year. It tasted of fat and salt and so was delicious like all other saucissan.
There may be a cultural clue in not referring to donkey/horse meat by it's Latin name like we do with Cows/Beef & Pigs/Pork, so etymologically at least, something as a nation that we've been squeamish about for some time - who are we to argue with tradition?
Possibly the most worrying thing is what it means for the welfare of animals generally. If you can't rely on what meat you're buying, what chance do you have of relying on a decent level of care and slaughter to bring it to your plate?
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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Gordon, doesn't that cultural distinction derive more from the Anglo-Saxon v Norman French status? Anglo-Saxon peasants bred, reared and slaughtered their kine and pigges so their Norman Lord could enjoy his boeuf et porc. Surely a French chevalier wouldn't be so asinine as to eat his own cheval? Surely good old English suspicion of froggy foreign food with ridiculous foreign names must have originated somewhere?
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ah, that's it, I was trying to remember where I'd heard it before. Though Latin "Porcus" root of the Norman "Porc", so almost there...
Not sure there's much wrong with cultural squeamishness about different food stuffs, we're just products of our environment after all...
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Permalink Reply by Abi on
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Gordon, you're simply wrong about most cheese not being vegetarian. I mentioned artisan because a few of those might not be - but by 'most of the time' I meant anything you'll find in a supermarket, e.g. good old-fashioned lumps of cheddar. These are now almost all vegetarian in the UK.
And I really hate the way this interface nests things. Grr.
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Agree that most Supermarket Cheese may be with veg-based rennet - I have no idea, but in my defense you did say "Even UK-based artisan cheeses have vegetarian rennet most of the time", which is what I took issue with.
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Permalink Reply by Ruth on
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It's good to know that most cheese these day veggie :)) that is what I have been finding out as I ask in supermarkets and shops. and yes it can be hard to follow the thread of discussion the way things get placed.
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Well yeah, they've been that way since I was a teen (I went veggie as a young child). It was only difficult to get vegetarian cheese in the early 80s and before that - since then veggie rennet is standard in British cheeses. I assume it must be cheaper.
However, you do still see an odd hangover to the old days, as many convenience stores still sell a product called 'vegetarian cheese' despite the fact that identical-looking cheeses in the same line (the elusive 'tasty cheddar' being one of them) are labelled as suitable for vegetarians and sold alongside it with different branding. I'd love to know why this is!
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I'm a meat-eater and the only thing I think is bad/wrong/dodgy about the inclusion of horse meat in products is the mislabelling. I would feel a bit squeamish about eating cute pussycats or doggywogs because I have a cat as a companion animal (and see him as a member of the family), but I completely recognise that this is a bit irrational given that I'm happy to eat cute lambs and calves and pigs. I would be more concerned about the "scandal" if, for example, a particular faith had an issue with eating horse and had unwittingly consumed it, but I can't see any issue at all with eating horse, as long as (a) it's labelled as horse, so I don't think I'm eating something else and (b) as with any other food, there are no food safety issues relating to it.
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Time to revive that most admirable Anglican Dean's 'A Modest Proposal'? I notice on my western perambulations a surfeit of obese Muswell Hill babies up to 2-year old spilling obscenely out of their Bugaboo Cameleon Strollers.
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It'll start with the babies and end with the Houyhnhnms...
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