Hamburgers and other processed food are central in a scandal where up to 100% horse meat is used instead of the labeled beef. Brits and Irish consumers are shocked and their papers produce horror stories, while other parts of Europe consider it a fraudulent mislabeling and nothing more.
At the root is a cultural taboo where English speakers not only fear diseases, but are most of all shocked by the very idea that their burgers and lasagna´s contains meat of the noble equines. This while large parts of continental Europe consider it a perfect alternative to pork and beef. Horse meat can be found in the best French cuisine and is served in large quantities in countries like Italy.
It´s interesting that this taboo developed so strongly in some countries while the original rejection grounds: cheap alternative to proper beef hence a working class image and a ban by a pope in the early middle ages to stop ´pagan practices´ should have an identical effect all over Europe.
Is eating horse – often described as a sweet and tender meat – an absolute no go in your country or is it just one of the meal variations #EveryDayScience
That is truly the issue – fraudulent mislabeling!
I love(d) horsemeat!
I always find being shocked about this, but just don't caring about the rest of the meat you are offered by the industry, is strange.
Besides, older horses that had a good life, normally give great meat 😉
Horses dying of age often get eaten instead of buried. If not eaten, they make electricity.
http://youtu.be/-wo5TznA5as
I've never seen horse meat offered for sale in the US, but I'd try horseburger if I could. I eat bison, venison, and ostrich, so why not horse?
Yes +Terry McNeil but check the major UK newspapers and they each carry tens of stories while the continental press just mentions the fraud in labeling. Huge difference.
I live in the United States, which is vehemently against eating horse. But I've had it in France, and I quite enjoyed it.
I never thought about the language association, though. I wonder if that holds true for other former British colonies as well.
It's not very usual in Spain, but it's not a problem at all. I have had it a few times and tasted good. I wouldn't mind finding it in supermarkets.
Mislabeling aside, there were places selling horsemeat exclusively until a few years ago here.
In the US, even the thought of the slaughter of horses became so repugnant that for a while horse slaughter facilities were effectively outlawed. Then people began to realize that horses headed for slaughter (anyway) suffered even more by being sent great distances to slaughter in foreign places beyond US standards of supervision. Unintended consequences…
As a US lawyer who loves horses, the critical issue I see here is false labeling of packaging. Not cool.
I remember eating it in my youth in the Netherlands. Only designated butchers were allowed to slaughter and sell it and it was a poor man´s substitute, but I enjoyed it as a kid.
To be honest .. I LOVE horse meat- And NO, it's not SWEET. It is just a very low fat, low cholesterol and very healthy kind of meat. There is no beef tenderloin on the planet able to beat a foal filet.
+Alex Balcázar and here is the US I presume?
Beside chair and table you can eat anything!
No, here is Barcelona, Spain.
Horse meat isn't usually for sale to eat for humans in the UK.
I don't eat ready meals or frozen burgers, I make from fresh, so probably haven't eaten any Horse yet. But I wouldn't mind trying it to see what it was like. I'm guessing it must just taste like Beef haha.
Or, as the Chinese say: "I will eat anything having 4 legs or is able to fly, except airplanes and furniture."
Yes, eating an airplane might call for some intensive use of Alka Seltzer, +Wolf Weber.
Frog legs and escargot are considered fancy (and tasty, I might add), but horse is lower class? Go figure.
Eating an airplane is doable, check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Lotito who ate a complete Cessna 😉
I recall a novel in which someone consumed an even larger plane based on this story.
Its not that its horse meat its about food standards and control. What else is being substituted? I've eaten horse……once! Or so I thought.
+Max Huijgen Eating an airplane is consuming, but not dining, IMHO. 😉
+Wolf Weber I'm half Chinese. I can confirm that there is almost nothing that is off-limits. 🙂
Point taken +Anne-Marie Clark 🙂
+Max Huijgen Horse meat is readily available here in Switzerland. It is served at a lot of restaurants and is sold in most grocery stores. I'm not too found of it but my wife really likes it. The thing I always chuckle about when buying horse meat is that most Americans, aghast at the idea of eating horse, have no idea that the US is a major supplier of horse meat to international markets.
I admit to being emotionally affected by this. I had a Palomino named Candy, a Bay foal named Nugget and an Indian Paint named Patches. They were my friends. Young girls are very romantic when it comes to horses. My mother on the other hand, who was also a horsewoman, thought nothing of feeding horse eat to our dogs. That didn't stop the proverbial S$&T from hitting the fan when Dad butchered her friend, a cow named Michelangelo.
Maybe it depends on whether they have names. Didn't James Taylor write a song about a pig named Mona?
I'm vegetarian, so I'm not an expert about the issue, but I remember years ago my mother bought it every now and then. But, in Catalonia, as +Alex Balcázar said, horse meat was not sold in the same places as other meat. You had (have?) the "carnisseria" (butcher) and the "carn de cavall" (horse meat, meaning the shop where to buy it). I remember my mother saying it was very good because of the iron, I think.
Dogs and horses are not food.
As a hat tip to what +Giselle Minoli said, it is preferable when we eat that we have respect for the creatures we eat and honor their sacrifice in their gift to us. 🙂
+Hrvoje Peranovic Animals are not food 🙂
Personally I don't get why people draw the line between humans and non human animals or between some animals and other ones. The animal / non animal line is much much clear for me.
I would try horse and probably enjoy it. I live in the U.S.
The mis-labeling is honestly what bothers me most. If they are willing to effectively sell horse meat as hamburger, what the hell are they using for filler? (most fast-food joints 'meat' isn't just that. Taco Bell got busted last year for only having 38% meat in their 'meat'.
+Hrvoje Peranovic that's a cultural preference. I've eaten dog, and probably horse, among a number of other things in other countries.
In the Philippines, for example, there are areas that routinely have dog as their protein. But they make a distinction too – a stray animal is fair game, but no one would even think of eating their pet unless times were especially harsh. And even then perhaps not.
+Víktor Bautista i Roca I'm fine with that too since your no animals covers dogs and horses.
Mis-labeling aside, horse meat is actually very tasty and I enjoyed eating it in France, Luxemburg and Switzerland… Too bad I can't get it in the US. (Born in Luxemburg, University (ETH) in Switzerland, now live in US)
I love rabbit, but I would make an exception for the White rabbit and every rabbit I had raised myself as a companion +Giselle Minoli but then again I have lived close to farmers in the past and they didn´t think twice about eating their companions. Old=meat.
+Max Huijgen I've threatened mine once or twice. But then I've threatened the cats with Vietnamese food for dinner too.
They know… 🙂
Based on the reactions I didn´t reach a representative audience. Where are all those people who consider it a taboo?
+Alain Zarinelli I think there is a canton in Switzerland where they eat dog and cat, too. In some war they started eating them, and then it became such a custom special laws where made to allow it.
I'm in the UK, and have no idea why we don't eat Horse.
I've had it before, and found it quite tasty.
Then again, I also like Goat, Ostrich and Shark, and don't understand why we don't have Cat/Dog on the menu.
In Australia native animal eg kangaroo, wallaby ,emu ,crocodile can be found quite easily in restaurant's and some butcher shops ,horse meat not a big deal
+Víktor Bautista i Roca I went to university in Zurich, and they don't eat dog and cat there. Not sure where in CH they do; haven't heard that one…
+Alain Zarinelli
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat#Europe
«Cats are eaten in certain rural Swiss cultures;[14] the traditional recipe on farms in some regions involved cooking the cat with sprigs of thyme.[15] In January 2004, Reuters reported that, "Swiss culinary traditions include puppies and kittens. Private consumption of cat and dog is permissible. Swiss animal welfare groups say it is hard to estimate how many pets are eaten in Switzerland every year."[16]»
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat#Switzerland
«According to the 21 November 1996 edition of the Rheintaler Bote, a Swiss newspaper covering the Rhine Valley area, the rural Swiss cantons of Appenzell and St. Gallen are known to have had a tradition of eating dogs, curing dog meat into jerky and sausages, as well as using the lard for medicinal purposes. Dog sausage and smoked dog jerky remains a staple in the Swiss cantons of St. Gallen and Appenzell, where one farmer was quoted in a regional weekly newspaper as saying that "meat from dogs is the healthiest of all. It has shorter fibres than cow meat, has no hormones like veal, no antibiotics like pork."[134]»
Sooooooo, it's cultural? Disney had an impact on kids +Max Huijgen…Thumper and Bambi…
While I appreciate the reasoning behind the generalisation, I personally (as an Englishman) have no problem whatsoever with consuming horse meat. In fact, I've been on many trips to European countries – including France & Italy – which routinely include horse meat in their food. Thus, I have more than likely consumed it without knowing. This doesn't bother me. What does bother me is that the food companies involved in this 'scandal' essentially had no idea what they were selling for human consumption. Horse meat is fine, but what else has gone in there without their knowing? What controls are either not working or need putting in place to check what goes into our food?
My 2p.
Alligator meat is very good. If it were based on a scale of cute and fuzzy vs ornery and ugly, you'd think we'd raise and eat a lot more alligator.
+Anne-Marie Clark I've never been able to make it properly tender. It always seems to come out rather chewy for me. 🙁
+Melina M I've only had it in restaurants, but it was always quite tender. The first time, I definitely expected it to be tough.
+Víktor Bautista i Roca: "Personally I don't get why people draw the line between humans and non human animals or between some animals and other ones."
– Personally, I don't get why vegetarians draw the line between animals and non-animal living beings, or between some living beings and some others. To be consistent with their beliefs they should eat synthetic food, synthetic amino acids, ammonia, acetic acid (from abiotic synthesis), mineral or synthetic oil, etc.
As for me, I wouldn't care at all that others ingested the flesh of my body once I was dead. The taboo of anthropophagia (and everything else related to human corpses) is a legacy from the primitive culture of our ancestors with scarce practical value. It's much more likely to die from an intestinal infection or from food poisoning than get kuru eating human flesh. How many people who are alive today could potentially transmit the disease in their flesh? What other diseases or parasites could be transmitted that way? It would probably be safer than the meat most people usually eat, anyway.y.
I don't understand all of this. Cattle are raised on a massive scale. Horses are far fewer in quantity. Why would they do this?
+Zephyr López Cervilla The line is much much clearer between animals and other living beings than between animals themselves. Look at any tree of life.
By the way, all the meat you eat has died by natural ways? (old age, desease, accident…) Because I don't think you would agree to be killed to be eaten by someone who has other food available.
+Olav Folland Taco Bell was sued and the lawsuit was dropped when the plaintiffs lawyers were given an actual breakdown of the contents.
I just hate when people get "trial by press".
It is rare to see in restaurants in Sweden but you can buy it at well sorted butcher shops.
I like horsies between two buns, they are yummy with ketchup.
brits don't tend to like rabbit either for cultural reasons unlike here in spain where they are common fare. Personally I have no problem with meat though I was circumspect of cat and dog on menus in the far east, i suppose it's just culture reversed. They eat whale elsewhere and yet western sentiment considers it cruel. Yet as reported elsewhere the real danger in the nutrition business is not even mislabelled or criminal mafias in food in this instance, but excess wilful consumption of (trans) fats, sugar, salts, and over fishing. (Oh and the horse gags have been brilliant during the last few weeks, in some ways it has served as a common bond of humour among strangers in times of bigger woe, I have found it a cathartic.)
+Paul Gailey Alburquerque Rabbit tends to be served in higher class restaurants here in Britain, along with other 'unusual' meats like Pigeon. That implies the opposite of what you suggest – it's not rarely eaten for cultural reasons, it's because it's expensive!
+Víktor Bautista i Roca: "The line is much much clearer between animals and other living beings than between animals themselves. Look at any tree of life."
– There are no clear lines in biology. For instance, you may probably have heard that about a hundred genes of the human genome are of bacterial origin (I'm not referring to mitochondrial genes or genes derived from these). Should we avoid eating bacteria since we are genetically related to them?
The trees of life have been drawn by humans based on their personal interpretation of the living world, they don't reflect reality as it is, likewise a map has little to do with the actual Earth surface.
How many trees have you seen with hybridisations between separate branches? And horizontal transference between different branches (transformation, conjugation)? Can they represent gene flow between different populations? What criteria they use to sort out which individuals belong to certain group or another? How do they build a tree when only part of a population share their lineage with another? Take for instance Homo sapiens and H. neanderthalensis. Some modern humans are relate to Neanderthals whereas others don't. In what way your life trees represent this situation?
+Víktor Bautista i Roca: "all the meat you eat has died by natural ways?"
– I'm not a vegetarian. I don't have moral concerns on where the meat comes from. I don't eat farm animals, but solely because of hygienic and nutritional reasons.
+Víktor Bautista i Roca: "I don't think you would agree to be killed to be eaten by someone who has other food available."
– I wouldn't agree to be killed even if they didn't have any intention to eat me afterwards.
There're several reasons on why I wouldn't have such deference towards animals. There's no possible negotiation between them and us. They have neither the power nor the support/influence to negotiate the right of not being exploited by humans. They are unable to respect others rights, even if you agreed in respecting the lives of lions, crocodiles, or hippos, they wouldn't correspond respecting your rights in exchange. Animals can't have rights because there can't be a relation of reciprocity. If you want others to respect your rights, you must earn that respect, it must be valuable or beneficial to others. In contrast, the respect towards animals is pointless to our interests.
If you respect the life of a human, he or she may someday save your life or of some of your relatives, if you respect the life of a non-human animal, they may someday kill you or one of your relatives.
I do draw the line at bugs. Arbitrary line… supposed nutrition value… Still.
Agree with +Anne-Marie Clark though my reasons is that I have a huge fear of sppiders and everything even remotely similare to spiders. Such as most bugs and crustaceans.
Otherwise If Anthony Bourdain has eaten it I'd try it, except for raw spinchter and bugs.
In Viking times, apparently horse meat was considered so good, it was only consumed when offering sacrifices to the gods. As a result, after the conversion to Christianity, eating horse meat was banned.
I guess other parts of Europe didn't have the same former usage.
+Max Huijgen Mongols used to eat the horses when really short of any other food in the wilderness. The oldest food taboo among the "Aryan tribes" of the Rigveda was that of eating the horse. The most important yagna or sacrifice of the Aryans was the "ashwamedha" or the horse sacrifice. While the sacrificial horse was indeed ritually slaughtered, and eating the offering was necessary for the "yajaman" or sponsor to get the benefits, they never actually ate it but instead did "symbolic eating" by smelling the same. Here we see the origins of sympbolic ritual sacrificial slaughter and eating that has found its most symbolic form in the Christian Mass.
Its always seemed odd to me that as a major exporter of horse meat, we don't really have much of a domestic market in Australia. But then again, the same went for Kangaroo. Both were mostly destined for pet food. However, supermarkets have now started to stock 'roo, so perhaps we'll see horse on the shelves one day. Though as a rarity, you can bet the price will be exhorbitant.
As for the fuss, sure its wrong that fraud was committed, and labelling laws and enforcement need to be scrutinised. But only the poms would make some kind of cultural issue out of this. Keep in mind this is a country where people won't eat veal, yet have no clue that the result of their squeamishness is millions of male calves being shot at birth.
If people are truly concerned about animal welfare, they should consider all aspects of the food chain. Personally, I think its better to consume an animal that has led a long and worthwhile life, or one that has been culled for the good of its species, than one which has had a short, miserable existence in horrifying conditions. Yet the latter is where the vast majority of our food comes from.
People are so screwed up…
A popular upscale meat here (northwestern US) is bison (also called buffalo, raised on domestic ranches).
+Fulvio Gerardi you might find it amusing that I have in some supermarkets, of a national chain (ICA Supermarkets) in Sweden, seen both: Kangroo, Emu, Crocodile, Bbison and oddly enough python/boa/hugesnake. All in the "Wild Meats" department together with Deer, Elk and Wildhog.
Most interesting, +chris vighagen. That's quite a range, and reminiscent of a pie shop in Queensland that has about 20 types of exotic meats.
+chris vighagen +Fulvio Gerardi Carnivores heaven
Dunno about that, +Able Lawrence. Yes, I'm an omnivore, and yes, I find humans who pretend to be herbivores ridiculous. But heaven???
+Fulvio Gerardi I would love to have a pilgrimage there. I too am an omnivore but carnivore has shock value. At least it indued a response from you
A pilgrimage here is an excellent idea. Not so much for exotic meats, most of which just taste like chicken anyway, but for oh so many other great reasons. Everyone should spend at least a few months in Australia before they die.
Crock tastes a bit like chicken… kinda… like odd chicken its hard to describe..
If you want to experience different interesting tastes of meat and textures of meat, then Sushi is hard to beat.
I like meat and all but I tend to use it as seasoning more than a main course. Of course if I find my self at the liberty of a good steak I do love them rare, blue rare even. This is not very often as I do love veggies.
And while I do respect vegetarians a lot, I have a hard time understanding vegans of the ideological persuasion who are against all animal husbandry.
This might sound silly but I has as of yet of 6 years asking this question never gotten a serious answer. What are we to do about cows after we stop eating them and using their milk?
I am especially curious about the milk part.
They are hard pressed to live with out human help as they produce a lot more milk than they need for calf’s. And if you have never heard or seen a farm of 150 cows that the farmer missed milking time by 30 minutes. The NOISE is awful and filled with angst and pain.
+chris vighagen We Indians in general use meat as a side dish and not main meal. I am like you – love my meat with lots of salads and greens
The taboo possibly relates to Jonathan Swift, Houyhnhnms.
I have to admit to a major weakness for potatoes. I could live on them exclusively, not that that would be a good idea of course. But yeah, +chris vighagen, I can't comprehend the whole Vegan thing either. I mean, I can understand tastes vary, but when food gets politicised.. sorry, that's just wierd. And yes, I've heard a shed full of unmilked cows. Not cool. 🙁
+chris vighagen you are not wrong about cows. Furthermore they fart a tonne of methane. Beef production end to end is a big pollutant.
That's true about the methane. Second biggest source of greenhouse gasses, after mowed lawns.
+Paul Gailey Alburquerque: "you are not wrong about cows. Furthermore they fart a tonne of methane."
– Actually cows don't fart methane, they burp it:
<<It shows that ruminants, particularly cattle, are belching greenhouse gas factories. They stew up and ferment fodder in their four stomachs as they chew their cud, absorb the nutrition, and expel methane (mostly out the front end, not the back).>>
theaustralian.com.au/news/features/animals-under-fire-in-methane-blame-game/story-e6frg6z6-1225818573869
+Fulvio Gerardi: "Its always seemed odd to me that as a major exporter of horse meat, we don't really have much of a domestic market in Australia. But then again, the same went for Kangaroo. Both were mostly destined for pet food. However, supermarkets have now started to stock 'roo, so perhaps we'll see horse on the shelves one day. Though as a rarity, you can bet the price will be exorbitant."
– I have some pairs of shoes made of kangaroo leather, it's an exceptional material. It seems that unlike cow leather, when you shave kangaroo leather to get a thinner layer more flexible and lightweight, the result remain similarly resistant to tension forces and abrasion:
<<Most animals have two distinct layers in the cross-section of the skin – the grain and the corium. The majority of the strength comes from the corium, where the fibre bundles are much more dense. However, on certain animals, and in particular bovine substrates, a large amount of the corium is shaved off to gain a lightweight thickness, resulting in dramatically reduced strength characteristics. However, kangaroo skin has a very thin grain layer and it’s thickness can easily be reduced without detriment to the strength of the final leather, owing to the fact that the natural thickness of a kangaroo skin is mainly found to be in the range of 1.0 to 1.2 mm.>>
packerleather.com/kangaroo-leather.html
– Looney M et al. Enhancing the unique properties of kangaroo leather. RIRDC Publication (2002) RIRDC Project No CWT-1A (RIRDC Publication No 02/105) pp. 1-53
rirdc.infoservices.com.au/downloads/02-105.pdf
I remember a 3D representation depicting the internal structure of the skin of kangaroo versus cattle but I can't find the picture now with a search engine, it must have been buried under tons of PeTA crap (kangaroo-industry.asn.au/morinfo/viva.html).
Also, you can wash these shoes in the washer and the leather won't get hardened after it dries, although the process used to tan the skin may have also something to do with this too:
<The K-100 Motorcycle gloving leather has been engineered with a permanent water repellence technology based upon hi-tech polymers. The treatment will resist the action of wetting both in dynamic and static conditions keeping the hands drier and warmer for extended periods of time. Furthermore, this technology allows the leather to dry faster if ultimately it is wetted and dry soft and retain its original shape.
Another point worth noting is that the abrasion resistance of wet leather is commonly reduced when it becomes wet. Thus this technology offers an added benefit for abrasion resistance as well.>>
packerleather.com/k100.html
I have been wearing regularly a pair since early 2010, I have run and walked in them probably more than thousand miles, and while other parts have started to fall apart the pieces of leather have remained strong other than some scratches after rubbing the leather against rocks and steps of staircases.
+Zephyr López Cervilla thanks for the correction. All along i thought cows were farters but alas they merely talk out of their arse. Whatever. Animals are not as innocous as they seem. Hippos are Africa's biggest human killers and they are not even carnivores.
+Harald Tveit Alvestrand alhough the Scandinavian case is special, the pope forbid it in the 7th century as it was considered a pagan habit so it was related.
Now where are those people who consider it a taboo?
Do they only exist in the imagination of British newspaper editors?
+Zephyr López Cervilla fascinating info about roo leather. It seems every day I learn something new on G+. Now I know why the yanks use the stuff for baseball mitts.
Its funny.. here is an animal perfectly suited to the environment, which does minimal harm to the land, breeds in vast numbers, and produces excellent meat and leather. Yet instead of farming them, we destroy the land with imported farm animals which have been destroying the continent. And why? Because people think you can only eat cattle, pigs and sheep.
Nino Culotta had it right.. "They're a Wierd Mob"
Probably, +Max Huijgen. Either that, or they're all over on FailBook posting pictures of their pet horses or something.
This whole Mafia-run Anglo-French scandal reminds me of that Sci-Fi film Soylent Green . I mean, when grandpa goes through that red velvet curtain in the crematorium then we assume what happens. We assume that his body is stripped of any precious jewellery and that his coffin is sneaked out of the back door to be sold to another grieving family for £500.00 + VAT. But what about grandpa's body? Is it possible for the Mafia to run an Anglo-French human body scam?
+Max Huijgen What a bunch of smart and well informed folks on this post. I've circled everyone here…but reading back through everyone's comments I am now convinced that To Eat Or Not To Eat A Particular Creature is definitely cultural. Bans or taboos on something, it seems to me, come from some sort of collective gathered consciousness about a habit that, perhaps, someone outside the clan questions and it gathers for. While dog is not questioned in China as part of the diet, Americans will never go for it because they are primarily considered pets. Cows, on the other hand, are primarily considered farm animals and sources of food. Revered in Indian for religious reasons that we don't have. Thus our lack of homage to the cow with the exception of the tenderness of its meat.
So too with bugs +Anne-Marie Clark (I agree with you about this one), which tribal and forest peoples eat because they are high in nutrition.
Our food habits are controlled by a lot of things, one of which is the Chef…if you have a hot Chef who is into Offal, suddenly it's the Food du Jour. If nutritionist win in any given year, it's in with the Fishes and out with the Pelted Beasts.
And I do think Hollywood plays a big part her in the States. It has a way of immortalizing certain creatures. Which I'm not sure is a bad thing. However, hunters with guns seem not to be affected by anything…but What's For Lunch?
It's definitely cultural. A friend of mine told me he had a horse steak in Iceland and it was really delicious. It's odd that we in North America will eat cow meat and pig meat (both from affectionate, intelligent animals) but not horse. (Note: I'm a carnivore myself and I'll try any food once.)
+Fulvio Gerardi: "Its funny.. here is an animal perfectly suited to the environment, which does minimal harm to the land, breeds in vast numbers, and produces excellent meat and leather. Yet instead of farming them, we destroy the land with imported farm animals which have been destroying the continent. And why? Because people think you can only eat cattle, pigs and sheep."
– I agree with that. In fact, some scientists like Michael Archer (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Archer_(paleontologist)) have suggested a progressive replacement of the Australian herds of cattle and sheep with kangaroos since unlike ruminants, kangaroos produce virtually no methane, a gas with a strong greenhouse effect, and kangaroos are expected to cause less detrimental environmental effects on the local ecosystems since they are well adapted to graze the Australian native flora:
Kangaroos and Greenhouse gases
<<On 5 August 2008, the Society for Conservation Biology in USA published a report by AWS that describes how kangaroos on the extensive rangelands could be utilised to help reduce Australia’s methane emissions. It proposes that using kangaroos in lieu of cattle and sheep to produce meat on the rangelands will help slow climate change. The article was referred to in the Review to the Australian Government by Prof Ross Garnaut published on 30 Sep 08.
The paper was the most accessed by the journal in 2008. It was referred to by the Times of London, the New York Times, BBC TV, and News Scientist amongst others. A popular version ‘Roo diet placed on the Greenhouse menu’ has been published by Australasian Science and can also be downloaded.>>
http://www.awt.com.au/publications/#r1
– Wilson GR and Edwards MJ. Native wildlife on rangelands to minimize methane and produce lower‐emission meat: kangaroos versus livestock. Conservation Letters (2008) vol. 1 (3) pp. 119-128
http://www.awt.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/GHG_Roo_paper.pdf
– Wilson GR and Edwards MJ. Roo diet placed on greenhouse menu. Australasian Science (2008) pp. 36-37
control.com.au/bi2008/299roo.pdf
– Higgins, Ean. Animals under fire in methane blame game The Australian January 13, 2010
theaustralian.com.au/news/features/animals-under-fire-in-methane-blame-game/story-e6frg6z6-1225818573869
awt.com.au – Methane emissions from animals
By grw. January 14, 2010
http://www.awt.com.au/2010/01/14/methane-emissions-from-animal
abc.net.au – Animal farming and greenhouse gas emissions
Robyn Williams (The Science Show, ABC Radio) interview to Ellice Mol. August 9, 2008
abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/animal-farming-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions/3198918#transcript
abc.net.au – Kangaroos greenhouse emissions better than cattle
Robyn Williams (The Science Show, ABC Radio) interview to George Wilson. August 9, 2008
abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/kangaroos-greenhouse-emissions-better-than-cattle/3198928#transcript
<<If you look at agriculture in Australia today, it looks pretty much like agriculture anywhere else. Cattle and sheep are kept in herds. Wheat is planted in the fields. But Dr. Michael Archer, the Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of New South Wales, wants to change all that. He's arguing that the best way to sustain agriculture in Australia is to turn to native plants and animals as food sources; for example, ranching kangaroos, or growing gum trees. He's even suggesting that Australians trade their cats and dogs for native animals as pets.>>
cbc.ca – Farming Kangaroos
Robyn Williams (Quirks and Quarks, CBC Radio One) interview to Dr. Michael Archer (Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of New South Wales). April 21, 2007
cbc.ca/quirks/episode/2007/04/21/the-great-canuckaussie-adventure-farming-kangaroos-tasmanian-devils-face-cancer-marsupial-lions-the
______________
– Some years ago some researchers tried to characterised the kangaroo's gut flora with the intention to alter the ruminal flora of some other herbivores like cattle and sheep with little success.
It seems that the anatomical differences between kangaroos and ruminants have a greater effect on the profile of their internal microflora than the origin of the founder inoculate.
The links from the Queensland Government are broken, and the interviews removed from the archives. I could just find this and a couple of papers.
<< rumen microbiology and function, including investigations into the impact of bacterial viruses in rumen, the production of an inoculum to prevent Leucaena toxicosis in cattle, the reduction of methane emissions from rumen fermentation, and documentation of novel bacteria present in the foregut of kangaroos >>
— Australian Genome Research Facility Ltd.
(http://203.210.126.185/dsdweb/v4/apps/web/secure/docs/3756.pdf)
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– Ouwerkerk D et al. Characterization of culturable anaerobic bacteria from the forestomach of an eastern grey kangaroo, Macropus giganteus. Lett Appl Microbiol (2005) vol. 41 (4) pp. 327-33
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16162139
PDF freely available: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1472-765X.2005.01774.x/asset/j.1472-765X.2005.01774.x.pdf?v=1&t=hwpckgaj&s=850f8a49d2f41cfae11bc625c47d88a7fa9bbeb6
– Gilbert RA et al. In vitro detection and primary cultivation of bacteria producing materials inhibitory to ruminal methanogens. Journal of Microbiological Methods (2009) pp. 217-8
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20005266
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167701209003856
<<Kangaroos and cows have a lot more in common than you might think. Namely, they're both grazers and both depend on microbes in their digestive tract to help them breakdown their high-fibre diet. The difference is that cows produce high amounts of the greenhouse gas, methane, in the process. Kangaroos, on the other hand, produce almost none. Dr. Athol Klieve, a researcher with the Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries in Queensland, Australia, is studying the gut bacteria of certain species of kangaroo, in the hope that they can be transfered into the digestive system of cattle; and, in doing so, significantly cut back the amount of greenhouse gas they produce.>>
cbc.ca – Kangaroo Burps
Bob McDonald (Quirks and Quarks, CBC Radio One) interview to Dr. Athol Klieve (researcher with the Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries in Queensland). February 2, 2008
cbc.ca/quirks/episode/2008/02/02/shields-up-kangaroo-burps-bee-dancing-geothermal—the-energy-underground
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+Zephyr López Cervilla THAT is fascinating. But honestly, speaking as an American, you would have to send vast number of people into therapy to get them to go along with switching out cows and sheep and pigs for horses as sustenance. I'm not quite sure but Bison used to be a big meat for indigenous Indian populations. But it was also revered and respected as part of the culture. Only now in the last 20 years is it showing up on supermarket shelves. The meat is relatively fat free and far, far healthier than cow meat. But it has taken Americans a long time to warm to it. We are very conflicted about things meat here. You will find Venison on menus, but when we speak of hunting and culling the over population of deer it sends people into a frenzy. I think this is because we have gotten so very far away from understanding that people used to hunt in order to eat. I am for vegetarianism for anyone who prefers that diet. I do. But…I also realize that it is an unrealistic diet for many people in many parts of the world. So moving cultural beliefs is a tough call.
Interesting that +Giselle Minoli brings up bugs. Insects are far and away the most concentrated natural source of protein available, they don't have any of the health downsides of domestic mammals, and they are far, far more plentiful and renewable than any other food source.
Yet, while much of what we condescendingly call the third world have them on the menu, we in the west are thoroughly revolted by the very idea of eating arthropods. Well, terrestrial ones anyway. Marine arthropods seem perfectly acceptable delicacies.
My own mother, when fed some delicious sweets in Libya as a child, was quite ill when told they were in fact chocolate-coated ants. How can something so delicious suddenly become so revolting just because you can hang a label on it?
Food taboos have many origins of course. Middle-eastern aversion to pork came about because it was quite unsafe before refrigeration. Enshrining this aversion into religious practices was a deliberate form of social engineering to achieve better health. And not eating your pets seems fairly deeply ingrained in most of us. But how did we get to this point of such extreme pickiness regarding which branches of the vast tree of life are out of bounds? And why are some branches, such as plants, birds and marine creatures, far more delectable to us than almost all mammals and reptiles?
+Fulvio Gerardi many, many habits are based on need. A woman who is poor will clean toilets. Once she is better off she will hire a housekeeper to do it for her. A man will mow the lawn until he can afford to pay someone else to do it for him. What was once "man's work" becomes suddenly beneath him. So, too, with animals. If one is starving, one will eat what is available in order to stay alive. Once one is no longer starving, caviar tastes better than ants. If, however, ants were as expensive as Beluga…would people lose their aversion to it? Not sure. Some of this is definitely culturally ingrained, but some of it could well be the "DNA" of being born into certain "tribal" habits which are not questioned as one is being raised.
Hmmm, a lot of sweeping generalisations here and I don’t intend to add to them, I’ll speak just for myself and not for Ireland ! I too am shocked at mislabelling and I am angry that a cheaper substitute for Irish beef was used. I really don’t give a toss if it was pork/horse meat/bull’s balls or whatever you’re having yourself 😀
BTW the cheap substitutes were used in frozen burgers, I don’t eat frozen burgers, I’ve never eaten frozen burgers and I don’t know anybody who eats frozen burgers so it’s not really a matter of great concern for me!
Excellent bit of research, +Zephyr López Cervilla. The other thing that should be a factor is animal welfare. Whereas domesticated farm animals are pretty much cogs in a factory assembly line, and lead stressful and artificial lives, Kangaroos live their lives in the wild and meet a sudden and stress-free end from a high-powered rifle. Entire populations are not decimated to a preordained schedule of so many days from birth to abattoir. Rather individuals are culled with little impact on the remainder of the population. A far more sustainable form of agriculture than the whole grain-fed feedlot thing.
Hmmmm… +Eileen O'Duffy I think everyone here is of the opinion that the mislabelling was wrong. But when you say its not a matter of concern for you because you don't eat frozen burgers, you may be missing a point.
To wit, I present Pink Slime, and an excerpt from the Wiki page on it:
"Pink slime is the common name for a controversial beef product. The name used in the meat industry is lean finely textured beef (LFTB)[3] and boneless lean beef trimmings (BLBT).[4] It is also known by the dysphemistic slang term soylent pink.[5][6][7][8] Pink Slime is a processed beef product that was originally used in pet food and cooking oil and later approved for public consumption.[9] BPI has has claimed this to be false and launched a lawsuit against ABC news for its reporting of these facts.[10] In 2001, The United States approved the product for limited human consumption and had now begun to be used as a food additive to ground beef and beef-based processed meats as a filler at a ratio of usually no more than 25 percent of any product. The production process uses heat in centrifuges to separate the fat from the meat in beef trimmings.[11] The resulting product is exposed to ammonia gas or citric acid to kill bacteria.[11][12]"
"The product is sold in the U.S. to food companies which use it as a filler product in ground beef production. It was reported in March 2012 that approximately 70 percent of ground beef sold in U.S. supermarkets contained the additive at that time. In March 2012, ABC News ran a series of news reports about the product, which generated significant controversy and led to increased consumer concerns. Following the controversy, some companies and organizations discontinued the provision of ground beef with the additive, while others continued to provide beef with the filler."
The point here being that we don't "really" know what is in the processed food we buy. TVP, grain fillers, and who knows what else get passed off as beef or other meats. Some years ago the Australian export market was badly hurt when the yanks discovered kangaroo meat in a shipment of beef, and this horse affair is only the latest in a long and doubtless continuing saga.
Wouldn't we all be better off if we accepted these other meats as legitimate food sources in their own right, and thereby removed the financial incentive for these frauds?
+Fulvio Gerardi I was referring to +Max Huijgen 's post above and the ‘cultural taboos’ and how Irish/Brits differ from the ‘rest of Europe’ I’m not sure where the Pope came into it either 😛 (Sorry Max)
It is a valid point +Fulvio Gerardi. However, I, for one, am neither embarrassed nor ashamed of my own "cultural bias" toward not consuming horsemeat. My introduction to these animals as a child was that they were my companions. I could not eat them. That someone else may find fault with that reality in my life I would find odd. I am sure we could pick apart all of our cultural biases toward anything food stocks or not…poetry, religion, hair style, music…and never get anywhere. The labeling issue for me is that people have a right to know what is in the food they are buying. If they are "disgusted" by the contents, that, too, is their right. I have one stepdaughter who hates mushrooms and a stepson who hates cooked blueberries. Eat to his own taste, which sounds better and more elegant in French…also a conceit.
Are we putting Popes on the menu now? 😉
Yes, please! +Fulvio Gerardi! As in the Pope's Nose…a part of a chicken, Yes?
+Fulvio Gerardi, I think Pope Hitlerjugend I would be too bitter and stringy to be good eating. 🙂
I've always heard that referred to as the Parson's Nose, but I guess that's the same thing really. I totally disgusted a couple of ladies at a party once by eating one. Go figure. 😉
And don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing people aren't entitled to their own preferences. There's a very long list of things I won't eat, and I'm sure everyone has their own lists. But there's nothing cultural about it. And frankly, I think being revolted by something because someone else told you to be is really really silly. Yet that seems to be precisely what we're doing, at least in the anglicised corners of the globe.
+Giselle Minoli: "I'm not quite sure but Bison used to be a big meat for indigenous Indian populations. But it was also revered and respected as part of the culture. Only now in the last 20 years is it showing up on supermarket shelves. The meat is relatively fat free and far, far healthier than cow meat. But it has taken Americans a long time to warm to it. We are very conflicted about things meat here."
– You would need large extensions of grassland to reintroduce a large population of bison (unless you grow them in barns with animal feed).
On the other hand, since bisons are ruminants, they probably produce a fair amount of methane, like cows, sheep and goat (pigs also produce methane despite of not having a rumen, and also horses, that ferment their food majorly in their cecum).
Another interesting species to reintroduce would be the passenger pigeon. It may be currently extinct but there are enough samples (even a whole frozen individual) to try to determine genome differences with other pigeons, and later develop a new strain using other pigeons by means of genetic recombination techniques.
It'd be probably expensive, though. In addition, you would probably need to generate thousands of individuals before releasing them in the wild, since it seems that their gregarious behavior makes it difficult to breed when they live in small groups (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Pigeon#Attempts_at_preservation). On the other hand, from all the known extinct species, the passenger pigeon is one of the most suitable candidates to be recovered since
1. there are plentiful of recent and relatively well-preserved samples,
2. there are closely related species from which cells lines can be genetically modified to obtain viable passenger pigeon cell lines, and the adults of those species can also be used to grow and mature the newly formed eggs,
3. their original habitat hasn't been altered too much so they could probably still survive in the wild,
4. they could be comercially exploited since they were very prolific, and could be easily accepted by the consumer. In fact, their extinction was caused by the overhunting (and overharvesting using nets) to be used as cheap source of meat.
Tender? Sweet? Maybe my mom didn't prepare it well, but as a kid I didn't like horsemeat at all. Iron-y, dry..
The primary problem is food chain control. Horse meat needs to be tested for different kinds of medicine, used for horses but harmful for humans.
I'm from the UK. It's kind of taboo to me but I'm not vehemently opposed to it. It's simply that eating horse is an alien concept to me because it isn't part of my culture. Cats and dogs likely produce lovely meat, but in my culture they are beloved pets and not food. Listen to people who have horses and they love them and care for them. The concept of eating them would be repugnant to such a person.
Yet I am aware that eating these and other animals is a perfectly normal part of other cultures, and that's fine.
However, while I do not fall into the "outraged by the concept" camp, I also think that this cannot simply be dismissed as merely a fraudulent mislabelling issue: this has implications.
The fact that horse meat is not usually eaten in the UK means that horses are not reared here for food. They do not go through the usual farming methods or the usual safeguards for ensuring safe, healthy meat as the end product. Beef, mutton, pork, and other regular meats go through stringent quality checks, (especially beef, since the BSE crisis). The same cannot be said for this mystery meat that has been sneaked into our food and lied about. Where has it come from? If it is indeed safe and has been properly and carefully sourced, then why has its presence been concealed and lied about?
These are the questions that are concerning people.
+Michael Astley I'm as bothered by it as you are. Horses are companions to me as well. In fact I think this goes way beyond issues about proper labeling and whether it has been carefully sourced. I think this is about denial itself. We like to think human beings are completely rational and that statistics thrown at us will shift our inner beliefs about every little thing. But this is not the way human beings work and belittling them for now bowing to the "it makes logical sense" argument about farming horsemeat is, essentially, ludicrous. It's a denial of all sorts of things – cultural differences, habits, practices, history, training, availability.
Frankly, I think that what bothers people the most is that they don't want to confront how culturally shaped their own habits are. There is no difference, no difference whatsoever behind these two statements, both of which have been shaped by something beyond the individual: "Eating horsemeat is perfectly acceptable in my country." "Eating horsemeat is repugnant in my country."
+Giselle Minoli Perhaps I am being a little hypocritical here. Let me give another example: I love lamb, Irish Spring lamb is my favourite meat. When I go to the dinner table to eat lamb I conveniently forget the cute little lambs that I adore so much and I don’t bother myself with my conscience. I love horses too but I suppose I have never deliberately eaten horse meat.
I don't think you're being hypocritical at all +Eileen O'Duffy. I think in fact it illustrates exactly how quirky and unexplainable each of our opinions about this is to each of us. The phrase you used was "conveniently forget." That is what I mean by denial. Chances are that if each of us spent time analyzing why we believe everything we believe and do everything we do we would become stuck like flivvers in the snow. It is almost unfathomable. Or maybe completely fathomable.
+Giselle Minoli -with Hollywood playing a part I guess you refer to the broader portrait of animals like in the Black Beauty novel (which more or less started it), but how come it mostly affected Anglo-Saxons?
I guess it's a totally cultural thing. Horses, just like dogs, were an important survival element in our culture for centuries. They became literally part of the family. And just like the Sharks in "Finding Nemo" a lot of people still grow up with the mantra "We don't eat friends"
Cultural DNA + Spiritual Dynamics = Being Accepted By One's Tribe +Max Huijgen. Which equals survival. Just as a starting point…
The point is that millions of people have been deceived into buying a product that is not what is described on the label and the whole of Europe now has no trust in people who sell ready meals. I'm now worried about the authenticity of gold, silver, petrol, clothes, drinks and every thing else accredited to ISO 9001 and ISO 9002.