Re: The European meat recalls (Horse DNA)
 

It just makes people nervous when they aren't eating what they think they are. That's totally understandable. If I were in Europe right now I'd just assume that all the ground beef is mixed with something else because it seems like they keep finding it in new places. I wouldn't be surprised if meat suppliers in the US aren't doing the same thing. A short time ago there was a similar discovery that seafood was being mislabeled, selling cheap fish labeled as expensive fish. There was a funny story in Iceland where it turned out that some beef item didn't contain horse meat, or any other kind. It was vegetable protein being sold as beef.

Re: The European meat recalls (Horse DNA)
 

I'm sure you're aware of other products that "secretly" may contain very small amounts of pork, like some candies, desserts, yogurt and even medicine capsules. Gelatin has proportions of pig skin.

Gelatin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It does seem rather hysterical for others if every possible 0.1 % trace is being hunted, but I suppose the literal strict interpretation of this religious text isn't going to be revised.

It's an open secret that the tuna fish cans you buy don't necessarily contain fish that is even related to tunas. They can still just mark it as tuna atleast here. That doesn't seem to be enough for an eww-reaction though.

Some news outlets suggested that revulsion to horse meat may derive from medieval times. European pagans used to consume horse meat, but during christianization it became a taboo.

But it's not like those slaughterhouses are nice places anyway, so if one really wants to examine the food they're consuming it might be a bit unpleasant in any case, regardless if it's mixed meat or not.

Re: The European meat recalls (Horse DNA)
 

In the UK and other countries, eating horses is considered a taboo by a lot of people. There are no health risks (horse meat is actually beneficial in a lot of ways), but some people here put it on the same level as eating your pet dog. I couldn't explain why, even though I live here, but the look of utter revulsion I saw on people's faces when this news first broke was surprising. It was as though they'd just found out they had been eating human flesh.

Personally, I don't really see the problem with eating horse meat*, but I do see the problem with buying a beef burger and then finding out that a significant percentage of it is not beef, when it was not labelled as having such. While for some this is an issue of taboos and morality, for me this is just an issue of transparency.

It's also a good argument for buying good quality food from a proper butcher, rather than shitty supermarket-branded mystery burgers.



* Having said that, though, I have to say that while I have no sentimental attachment to horses, know that there's nothing wrong with it and that it's actually healthy (and supposedly tasty), now that I think about it I would probably still hesitate it you slapped a plate of horse steak in front of me. And I don't know why.