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Has the horsemeat scandal put you off eating certain things?

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For the last few years now I have struggled to eat meat. If I think about where it comes from, what could possibly be in it, then I can't eat it. The horsemeat business has totally turned me off eating meat, and I don't even want to give meat to my kids anymore...I have practically been a vegetarian this week, doing all I can to avoid meat. When it all dies down again, and I stop thinking quite so much about contents etc, then I might face eating meat again, but until then, I am quite happy to avoid it.
I disagree with being sold one thing, and it possibly containing something else. It hasn't killed me yet, so is that much of a problem...no, but pyschologically, for me, it's a huge problem!
So yes, I have changed my habits this last couple of weeks, but it is helping wonderfully with my diet!!! Takeaways are completely off the menu!
 
Doddy said:
For the last few years now I have struggled to eat meat. If I think about where it comes from, what could possibly be in it, then I can't eat it. The horsemeat business has totally turned me off eating meat, and I don't even want to give meat to my kids anymore...I have practically been a vegetarian this week, doing all I can to avoid meat. When it all dies down again, and I stop thinking quite so much about contents etc, then I might face eating meat again, but until then, I am quite happy to avoid it.
I disagree with being sold one thing, and it possibly containing something else. It hasn't killed me yet, so is that much of a problem...no, but pyschologically, for me, it's a huge problem!
So yes, I have changed my habits this last couple of weeks, but it is helping wonderfully with my diet!!! Takeaways are completely off the menu!
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After a lot of the food scares in the early noughties I went vegetarian for 2 years! 🙂
 
Meat-wise I haven't changed anything thus far, half thinking that we are all bound to have eaten some unknowingly already anyway somewhere along the line, and also as my lad pointed out, horsemeat is probably far more healthy and less fatty than beef anyway. I do hear what people are saying though that this could have come from some old diseased nag, so it won't be prime Neddy.

However, on the veg front, my friend tells me a programme was on a couple of weeks ago, one of these documentary food shows, which would put you off eating carrots for the rest of your life :O So it seems we are all doomed. EVERYTHING these days is genetically modified, treated with pesticides, hormones, goodness knows what, and more and more I think there is no escape from it all. Even our drinking water has so much added to it. Even if you buy organic, what's to say the worms and slugs around it haven't crawled from a neighbouring field having munched their way through a load of genetically modified cabbages first?

Where does the jelly come from in Jelly Babies? Could that be gelatine based? Wasn't that all a bit of a scandal in the BSE crisis? (Or is my addled brain letting me down here?) As I said, it goes on and on and on..........
 
Northerner said:
I realised this morning that I'm now loathe to buy any cheap food, like meat pies or sausages, after all this business - not so much because there might be horsemeat in them, but because the meat may not have passed the tests for human consumption:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21383362

Anyone else altered their buying habits?
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I'm sticking to Soylent Green 😉

I love salami which contains a lot of donkey it seems. But that is known with no pretence about it.

We buy meat at Costco and it always looks good quality and is often American I believe.

Morrisons have been advertising their BRITISH meat credentials, "we own the abbatoirs and processing plants", they claim but when you look at their beef a lot of it is Australian and a lot is Irish.

M&S have said nowt yet have they ? Iceland, Farm foods etc ?

Does the Co-op still own its own farms ?
 
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Does the Co-op still own its own farms ?
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don't know but the company that 'owns' Spanghero is supposed to be a cooperative (Lur Berri) .
They have farmers that are part of it but it is still a multibillion business selling a wide variety of products from red label beef, pork and lamb (supposed to be high quality, single breed etc), to foie gras , to smoked salmon (they have a fish processing/distribution dept in Warminster) to DIY (M Bricolage).
http://www.lurberri.fr/WPages/NosMetiers.aspx
It does demonstrate to me the size and influence of these big outfits, not quite the big global players but huge all the same.

I could buy my meat from local butchers that display the animal number and farm it's produced at. Like most people though cost is a consideration.
 
HelenM said:
.../I could buy my meat from local butchers that display the animal number and farm it's produced at. Like most people though cost is a consideration.
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That's what I do. The butcher's shop I use has been in business for a century now, uses local suppliers and has a sterling reputation. Oh, and my granny used to shop there. I'd rather buy a small amount if something decent than a large pile of unidentifiable c**p.
 
I do a spot of fishing, (trout) and do a bit of hunting, rabbit, hare and pigeon (i help a farmer control the pests). I eat what i catch and shoot, and for a couple of years people have called me desgusting. But at least i know the pray has had a good life, is fresh and i know what i am eating. Saying that its very low in fat as well.
 
megga said:
I do a spot of fishing, (trout) and do a bit of hunting, rabbit, hare and pigeon (i help a farmer control the pests). I eat what i catch and shoot, and for a couple of years people have called me desgusting. But at least i know the pray has had a good life, is fresh and i know what i am eating. Saying that its very low in fat as well.
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I remember all those things used to be quite commonly eaten when I was a child 🙂
 
I love ikea meatballs. They are the only thing we buy that I could see there possibly being a problem with 🙂
 
I like a nice rabbit casserole and I love fresh trout. And, of course, we have a great salmon river almost on the doorstep. Although I can't physically fish anymore I still have cousins who do, and at least one is a poacher so I often benefit from their activities. 😉
 
As long as it takes nice, I dont care lol
 
I think in the UK , it's often easy to disassociate meat from it's source. Even butchers no longer have carcasses hanging up. Often people don't like meat that looks like meat let alone offal.

Our barn and out building have about 30 rabbit cages in them. I don't think that many still keep them for food nowadays but you occasionally see live rabbits in the market .The other day we saw an elderly 'paysan' taking a rabbit from the cages just his backdoor.
All my neighbours keep hens and ducks, a few keep pigs.
We have a yearly fete in our hamlet which though it only has about 40 people caters for 500+ . Dozens of chickens are dispatched, plucked, drawn and prepared with great efficiency. The first time I was teased about my reticence 'you eat it don't you?' I'm a bit braver now and at least I can pluck a chicken even if still a bit squeamish about the rest.
Of course many of the local men hunt (with shot guns rather than UK style, can be a bit risky going for a walk sometimes) Apart from foxes I think it all gets eaten.

Maybe I should open up the rabbit cages , re fence the chicken run and enrol OH in the chasse.
 
The meat scandal is driving people back to the local butchers, one report this week suggested a 10% increase in sales, trouble is there's very few on the high street now thanks to the big supermarkets:(

Horse or beef if it tastes the same I don't care, just don't like the thought of eating something pumped full of drugs or something that hasn't been rigorously checked before slaughter.
 
I quite like horse. They sell it in Switzerland, but you have to go to a "horse butcher". You can't buy it in the supermarkets.
I had it for the first time at a mountain restaurant a few years ago though, I didn't grow up eating it.

I agree though, if it says beef, then I expect it to be beef and not horse
 
Whats wrong with the horse meat?🙂 It doesnt bother me as i dont buy any ready meals. I dont think ive ever had any horse meat but I would be happy to try. I agree its unfair to labelled it as a 100% beef .Having diabetes i really i need to trust the lables
 
One of my childhood memories is of seeing some pieces of meat in a butcher's window (in a suburb of Montreal) with chunks of fat tied to them. When I asked my mother what they were, she told me they were horsemeat steaks and that the fat was added because horse is too lean and to cook it without fat makes it tough. She never bought any because it was too expensive.
 
The thing in the green and plesent, seems to be what the animal looks like, Horses ,rabbits and ducks to name a few are quite cute to look at, and my mrs for one wont touch them because there "cute" a few others have said the same. As HellenM said we "disassociate" meat from its source and eating these things makes us realize we are eating the flesh from a carcus.
 
megga said:
The thing in the green and plesent, seems to be what the animal looks like, Horses ,rabbits and ducks to name a few are quite cute to look at, and my mrs for one wont touch them because there "cute" a few others have said the same. As HellenM said we "disassociate" meat from its source and eating these things makes us realize we are eating the flesh from a carcus.
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Rabbit, deer, duck - all very yummy.
My girls won't eat any of that, because of the same reason - too cute
 
I must be more of a country girl than I realised, I don't care how cute it is. I just want to be sure "what" it is before I bite into it.
 
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