Burger Off

I am not about to get on my high horse about eating meat, whether it be lamb, beef, pork, Dobbin or Rudolf as I have eaten them all . Additionally, although there is nothing more delicious and healthy than fresh, home grown vegetables and fruit grown organically, I am not a vegetarian. Horsemeat does need some tenderising, but in a red wine stew, as a plat du jour in a French workers café, it can go down a treat on a cold day. Reindeer is a little too rich for me, not because of the prices in Finland, but probably it was the accompanying creamy sauce and sweet cloudberries, alongside the gamey taste, that turned me off.

In France and in Finland you eat what it says on the can (well in my case the menu). You know, and the restaurants know, the meat and where it came from. Here in Britain we usually don’t care less about its’ source, so long as food is cheap and cheerful. Most people rarely stop to think what parts of a cow go into a beef burger, (they do assume it’s not horse) or what parts of a pig go into the meat percentage of a sausage .

How many people shopping in Tesco's stop to think about how non British pigs are mass produced or how battery chickens are brutalised. Price is everything, it’s written large, while the precise contents and provenance are carefully hidden in the small print.

You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but we all want to believe that super markets can.

The danger here with the horse burger and horse Lasagne scandal, is not just that large companies have had their food chain corrupted yet again, but who knows what else could be happening up the line with such monumental failures like this. It is alleged in the press that Findus knew of this earlier and failed to declare it until stocks were cleared.

What impurities or illegal preservatives and colourings, that may be carcinogenic, are creeping into our food chain hidden from our view but not of others? Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall insists that we should know from any good butcher precisely where and how the animal has been farmed. If not tell them to Burger off.

Vegetarians cannot be smug either. Unless you eat locally grown, organic food, whose provenance is easily traced (e.g. a local farm or an allotment). Do you know how many weed killers, pesticides and preservatives are still in or on any vegetable? Each chemical on its own may have been tested and not seen to be unsafe, but few chemicals are tested together or over a long period of time and proven to be safe.

The Pesticide Action Network ( http://www.pan-uk.org/food/best-worst-food-for-pesticide-residues) show how  apples, pears and grapes very often contain multiple chemical residues. They also show that non- organically farmed vegetables, particularly green beans, contains multiple residues, which are often above the minimum recommended safe level.
It’s not in vogue to be organic these days as it costs. The carcinogenic and reproductive risks of non organic food, which is not shown on the label, may cost a lot more. We have to take risks, but we need to take them knowingly.

Let’s say burger off to bad labelling, whether it’s on beef burgers or on French beans.