How about a toxic dose of horse medications to go with that spaghetti? While many people are saying "ew" simply because they have an aversion to tucking into Black Beauty, they should be worried about what drugs are contained within the meat.
Horse meat has now been detected in Swedish meatballs packaged by Ikea. Who knew that Ikea was into food manufacturing? Another mystery solved: the sawdusty-taste of store bought, processed meatballs.
While horses have not been physically slaughtered here in the US for the past five years, they are transported to Canada and Mexico for that very reason.
"In 2011, about 140,000 American horses were eaten abroad. But they weren’t slaughtered in the U.S. When America closed its last horse slaughter plants five years ago, American horse buyers turned their trucks north and south to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada. From there, most of the meat goes to the European Union.
But American horses are given drugs that humans should not consume."
I wonder how much of this meat is finding its way into the American and Canadian food supply, and for how long?
A tip o' the hat to Aridog, our much loved and respected Cranky Old Fart Extraordinaire.
SOYLENT GREEN IS... TRIGGER!
ReplyDeleteI never buy pre-made meals/hamburgers/meatballs etc. and I grind my own beef from fresh beef steak.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm pretty sure I've neigh eaten any giddy up :)
:))
ReplyDeleteWe buy our meat at a meat market, but haven't bought hamburger for quite some time. I'm not paying $3.49 for meat scraps.
One solution - eat Kosher! Seriously. Kosher meat is thoroughly supervised and watched from slaughter through processing to packaging and sales. You'll pay more for the privilege (unless you come to Israel where it's standard) but at least you know you're getting what it says on the package.
ReplyDeleteUnless it says Kosher Horse... img:"http://www.myemoticons.com/emoticons/images/msn/our-favourite/ill.gif"
LMAO! :))
DeleteYou do have a good point though. I know there is a synagogue in Springfield; I'll bet there's a kosher meat market too. I intend to find out! :)
Oy! You have cloven hoofed horses in Israel that ruminate? Who knew :D !
DeleteGenerally, no matter what nation, if you didn't witness the growth of livestock in an organized husbandry, or at least part or all of the butchery, you must just go on personal trust alone....not-with-standing religion, which I really wasn't part of until recently. Kosher really does have some v-e-r-y sensible protocols.
For example...when I need ground beef or any other ground meat, such as lamb, I go to a butcher shop...in my neighborhood that would be Halal...and have it ground from whole muscle stock, not scraps, and I have them add 15+% fat in slices. For "burgers" I ask for ground once, for sauces I request ground twice...all done in front of me. This has been my method since I was about 6 years old accompanying my father to butcher shops in the 40's....except for times overseas, I have not varied from it. At various times, when volume was needed, I both had raised (such as steers from a dairy farmer near my horses' location where they kept the calf for me instead of selling it) and witnessed the slaughter and butchery of our meat stocks. Call it Irish Kashrut I guess.
Now as for commercial prepared meats...Lewy is right, Soylent Green can be Trigger or who knows what. In the snout to tail mentality of the commercial world, you can have brain and nervous system pieces and scraps in ground meats, which is a prime source for Prion based Bovine spongiform encephalopathy ... aka Mad Cow Disease ... in humans, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. Not common in humans, yet, but it could be...fact is I am convinced most of the wild progressive liberal loons in politics are afflicted with Mad Cow Disease...they formulate and enact policy and law in that manner.
Now, "horse meat" per se...most of it, whatever country it shows up in, comes from the USA and since horses are not husbanded for food stock in the USA, almost all of that meat is a super duper source for phenylbutazone, pyrantel pamoate, ivermectin and praziquantel. Oh, and contrary to popular mythology, wild horses, aka "Mustangs", are also dosed up with the above, as well as birth control items like gonadotropin, on selected ranges. You can't know which after an auction...and you just gotta love gonadotropin, eh? Not to mention if you dine on Trigger you will be unlikely to come down with worms, heart, blood or tape types....never mind the side effects of medications prohibited for humans.
With all the fuss now about horse meat in Europe, I find it impossible to believe it hasn't also occurred in the USA. Ikea anyone? What? You think Ikea prepares its meatballs and divides them up, horsey for Yurp and goat ass for Yanks? Never mind. :D
Lady Red...there is a difference between "meat market" and "butcher shop" ...in a proper butcher shop the meat is all prepared in front of you, in plain sight. Just my pedantry for today :-)
DeleteAridog, LOL! Cloven footed horses indeed. They chew the cud too! And you should see them in a yarmulka :D :))
DeleteYour description of your "Irish kashrut" is actually very close to the real thing. As for kosher butcher shops vs. kosher meat markets, as far as Kashrut (the laws of kosher food) is concerned, the 2 are inter-changeable, because both require a supervisor in order to qualify for their kosher certificate. I buy my meat here in the supermarket, but there is a kashrut supervisor at the meat counter watching over the buying, storage and selling. This is why kosher food is more expensive - it's because of the supervision as much as the quality - but when we have scares like the horse meat thing, or mad cow disease for that matter as Aridog said, then I'm jolly glad we can keep clear of these problems.
Of course there have been the odd cases of fraudulent kosher certificates but those are pretty unusual. (I hope...)
Kippah on a horse, eh :D
Deleteimgw:"http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X5UDl6cG_Bk/UISD2jMKCxI/AAAAAAAAAbc/S9eKdlckZWI/s1600/IMG_3548.JPG"
LMAO! Where DO you find these hilarious pictures Aridog? :))
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