Indeed. Probably even easier to make a meatball (you don't need egg for either).

But we have (quite widely) been deskilled over, say, two and a half generations. Even, in my experience, a mother who was dutiful about preparing fresh meals every day for her family was also reluctant, for whatever reason, to teach either of her own children any kitchen skills other than a few chores – scraping new potatoes, prepping sprouts, drying (but never washing) dishes, peeling a boiled egg.

It's taken me 10 years to get to the point I'm at now,

I'm guessing that the idea won't be to test every batch of burgers before it goes on sale but to test randomly. The idea being that if the supplier knows the test is happening they will desist from including the wrong species.

As Tesco (and I'm not picking on them) are hardly independent in the matter, I'd infinitely prefer it if a few quid of state budgets went back into state agencies doing the random testing, as led to the discovery in Ireland, as opposed to this country, where funds were apparently withdrawn for this sort of thing ages ago, presumably in some round of budget cuts, and on the basis of light touch regulation, and "we can trust Tesco can't we".

As for making your own burgers, yes it is easy. If money is no object. As for making your own burgers that work out at the same price as what you can buy economy burgers for, no, it isn't easy. Even if you use the cheapest of cheap mince - but that you couldn't do, of course, since once it's a container of mince, without testing you couldn't know whether any horse was in the mix.

This is absolutely what's been happening, with everything from food hygiene to trading standards.

Mind, I was expecting many of the newspapers to insist that self-regulation is obviously the way forward.

IIRC it was someone at the Irish FSA who thought "hang on, we've got a couple of bob left in the budget, let's get the lab to test for horse DNA". If it hadn't been for that, some would still be chomping on Trigger in blissfull ignorance

Well i heard it was part of the ongoing hunt for Shergar.

Was it this thread or another where they said that too much shergar in your diet is bad for you?

Speaking of Ireland and horses I just watched the Graham Norton show with Clare Balding, and there was a clip of a racing commentary where a horse was involved in a close finish, named "Hoof Hearted". Bloody funny.

Well Lasagne trumps burgers anyday: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2KFfUpITr

Well Lasagne trumps burgers anyday: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2KFfUpITr

Have you tried to catch a racehorse

I saw a horse caught once.

I laughed yesterday when I saw the local butchers latest sign "our burgers won't give you the trotts"

Findus are getting loads of free advertising on the BBC News channel.

Yeah, but Frankel-ly they're flogging a dead horse.

Someone has obviously thought, "Ah, we'll stick a bit of horse in there, they'll never Findus out."

The fact this is now so widespread is a bit of a concern. If the meat suppliers that big companies such as Findus and Tesco use are needing to put horse meat into the meat, you have to wonder what else they are doing. As someone else on here already mentioned, good quality horse meat is very expensive, certainly more expensive than the beef products they were supposed to be supplying. So one has to assume these horses are not from official sources or a less than top quality. So if they are doing that, what else are they doing?

Of course you know what cheese they've been putting on top of Findus lasange. Mascarpone...


Just don't ask what's in the bechamel sauce

But rest assured. According to the FSA there is "no evidence" of a risk to health. Well, no. They could add "... because we have no evidence - apart from the fact it's horses - as to how the meat was sourced, how the animals were kept, what diseases they had, how they died or how or where they were slaughtered, how the meat was transported or stored or for how long, and we know nothing about the standards of hygiene compliance or safety of any organisation involved in the supply chain of the horsemeat from start to finish".

I have no evidence either. But i would bet a lot of money that what ended up in Findus lasagne was not 100% compliant with all European and UK food safety legislation.

What they should have said is there is no evidence of a SPECIFIC risk. Clearly there must be a very huge risk, though, given all the unknowns. Unless you can say, "we now know all about the meat, and so can say it poses no risk to health" the statement is just horse.

don't go giving Lidl ideas!

Quite so.

Plus ...

According to the Q Guild of Butcher on Twitter this morning: "@q_guildbutchers: We have seen a 10% rise in trade and 30% rise in burger sales. Consumers trust the Q Guild, we can guarantee 100% beef".

One of the issues is whether – because as you rightly say, this cannot be good-quality horse meat – is whether any of the veterinary drug phenylbutazone ('bute') has entered the food chain. If an animal has been dosed with that, it's banned from entering the human food chain.

there'll still be a small number on the fiddle, unfortunately it's human nature.

Let's not beat about the bush here, this horsemeat WAS NOT fit for human connsumption for the very simple reason that a person able to sell horsemeat for human consumption would do so, instead of selling it at bargain bucket rates as filler for the cheapest of cheap beef meals.

Aye.

[url=http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/topics/food-safety/horse-meat-findus-lasagne-problem-may-have-gone-on-for-six-months-claims-mp/236398.articleSeems that Findus might have known about a problem for six months[/url.

Exactly.

But surely, a la FSA, they could say they "had no evidence" of any risk to health, on the same basis that they had no evidence of anything bar the fact their products may not be what it said on the horsebox?