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darknation

Horse DNA found in UK Tesco Burgers

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So my dad says that he tried some alligator meat last night when meeting with an old friend at some restaurant downtown. According to him, it didn't taste as good as he expected and felt like something artificial. I bet I probably would've reacted the same way. Meh.
I'd rather eat another rabbit. :p

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Captain Ventris said:

Elk is delicious. It's like Deer, but, like, moreso.


So, many, commas. Only real "gamey" thing I've eaten would be venison cutlet :*

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I think the point is that it's mis-selling, not that it's horse meat per se. Everyone, even the BBC, has been guilty of boarding this "British won't eat horses" tardwagon. That's not the point.

We do actually eat all sorts of things, ostrich, alligator, I've seen it all in supermarket. Some people may choose not to eat horse on anthropormothic grounds, but I think many would try it.

The point is that putting mostly horse in, and calling it a beefburger, is totally fucking unacceptable, and demonstrates why you should never really buy economy meat of any sort, because for every one story that hits the paper I can guarantee you many more incidents will go uncovered.

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pritch said:

The point is that putting mostly horse in, and calling it a beefburger, is totally fucking unacceptable, and demonstrates why you should never really buy economy meat of any sort, because for every one story that hits the paper I can guarantee you many more incidents will go uncovered.


Actually, horse meat is generally more expensive and considered more "gourmet" than beef, so that would be more a case of "positive mistake". It's just like buying a can of mackerel, and finding out that it contains salmon instead ;-) Someone might not like salmon, but that's not the point here.

Interestingly, the mackerel-salmon example is often used when teaching cost optimization problems: assuming that a fish canning factory has a certain probability of misidentifying mackerel as salmon (and viceversa), and thus some customers may end up paying for salmon and getting mackerel (an undesirable outcome with a high cost, as they end up getting less prestigious fish), or paying for mackerel and getting salmon (more preferable outcome with a smaller or even a negative cost , as very few would complain about getting higher-class fish at a lower price).

The "optimization" lies in finding a way to calibrate the mackerel/salmon sorting machine so that "good errors" balance out the "bad ones", while keeping the actual fishery costs reasonable (not all salmons can be mis-sold as mackerels, as they are obviously more expensive!)

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Maes said:

Actually, horse meat is generally more expensive and considered more "gourmet" than beef, so that would be more a case of "positive mistake".

except you can be 99% sure it's not the "gourmet" horse meat snobs buy to feel interesting and less bored ("panda meat, yum!"), because horses aren't kept for meat. it's almost certainly forced slaughter - injured or old horses. i'll take beef over horse.

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dew said:

it's almost certainly forced slaughter - injured or old horses. i'll take beef over horse.


Doesn't matter: horse meat is still harder to come by compared to beef, poultry, mutton, etc. precisely because horses are not being raised specifically for this purpose, at least not with the usual intensive methods used for more common meats, and in fact a lot of horse meat slaughters will be "collateral damage", as you said. To a horse meat aficionado, the source doesn't matter, and in fact the origin of the horse is seldom -if ever- stated or differentiated: it could be an old horse, it could be an injured former-racer, it could be a feeder etc.

Harder to come by == rarer == "gourmet" by comparison, regardless of how highly or lowly one may think of it. So it's quite unlikely that someone used -comparatively- "de luxe" horse meat as a filler for common beef. A much better profit could be made by selling it on its own (even as an export), not by using it to "cut" beef: you can't use something more valuable as a filler for something less valuable, it would be like cutting talcum powder with heroin, not the other way around.

Whatever really happened to the "horse beef" in question, it was probably a freak accident.

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Maes said:

Whatever really happened to the "horse beef" in question, it was probably a freak accident.



EDIT: A funny quip left in the comments section:

steelwasp said:
Meanwhile in the Tesco burger factory...

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Clonehunter said:

I feel a need for Duke Burger textures to make their way in here. Wish I had it on hand.

Someone should definitely make a sprite replacement patch to change that cute puppy found in the basement of Duke Burger into some big ugly horse! So that the next time when I come around to ever playing that level again then I wouldn't need to worry about accidentally shooting a cute puppy to death.
Killing some ugly horse by accident wouldn't make me so squeamish/sad cause I've never had a pet horse. LOL :p

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people in britain don't like to eat horsemeat. we charge all over the countryside and chase foxes atop the noble, majestic horse. it would be rude to eat them.

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The Guardian said:

More than 10m beefburgers are thought to have been removed from sale because of the scare, although authorities in the UK and Ireland have repeatedly said they posed no threat to human health


It's really a pity: perfectly edible -actually ENRICHED with MORE PRESTIGIOUS and GOURMET ingredients (horse meat)- burgers will probably meet the landfill...or, at best, be sold in a more suitable market as "100% pure equine gourmet burgers"

The Guardian said:

... further tests of the Polish ingredient concerned showed up to 20 percent horse DNA content relative to beef


If I could have even 20% horse for the price of beef, I'd definitively take the opportunity. I don't get these people: it's like complaining that your run-of-the-mill cod fish sticks were found to contain 20% lobster.

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Maes said:

It's really a pity: perfectly edible -actually ENRICHED with MORE PRESTIGIOUS and GOURMET ingredients (horse meat)- burgers will probably meet the landfill...or, at best, be sold in a more suitable market as "100% pure equine gourmet burgers"

The trouble is they're not 100% anything, so you'll fall foul of product labelling laws somewhere or other. Anyone want an Applejack burger?

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How do you know it's disgusting? Maybe it makes them better. Maybe you'd like them even more with people in them. Hard to know unless you try.

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Some people...just enjoy your enhanced-ingredient burgers and thank that they don't charge you extra for the gourmet meat!

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Probably wind up being re-processed as petfood, so it'll mainly be people clinging to the bottom rungs of the economic ladder who'll have an opportunity to sample it.

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If it was gourmet, why would they not announce that it's horse meat? It was most likely old barely chewable meat.

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j4rio said:

If it was gourmet, why would they not announce that it's horse meat?


Because of values dissonance ;-) For an Italian: gourmet meat. For a Briton: hunting dog chow.

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Danarchy said:

Pones are not for eating.


Depends on the recipe.

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