When I was an undergraduate in college, my colleagues and I would joke about the meals served in the dorm cafeteria as containing "mystery meat". At the time, I was fresh off the racetrack, and I viewed the identity of minced meat – "hamburger" in the USA – with scepticism. Shortly thereafter, I stopped eating meat altogether.
Even though I love horses and now am vegan (except one or two days per week when I give in to my lust for sheep cheese), I don't have a problem with people eating horsemeat – no more than I have a problem with people eating any other sort of domestically raised meat. But the current horsemeat scandal points to important issues that should concern everyone, not just those who do not want to knowingly eat horsemeat if given the choice.
One issue was raised by my friend and blog colleague, Henry Gee. He just published this essay about the public's peculiar perception of risk as it applies to the potential presence of phenylbutazone – "bute" – in their horseburgers.
Bute is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug commonly used in horses to relieve pain or fever. Bute is not approved for use in humans in either the USA or the UK because it may possibly suppress white blood cell production or trigger aplastic anaemia in susceptible individuals.
But the amount of bute present in horsemeat – if it's even there – is infinitesimally small and thus, unlikely to cause any adverse effects in any human consumers. Or, as commenter Bob O'Hara points out in that essay's comment thread: "only homeopaths need worry."
Indeed.
But this sentiment applies only to the "bute problem".
In fact, the horsemeat scandal is a scandal because it points to the lack of oversight as to what exactly ends up in the human food chain.
"The contamination of beef products with horsemeat raises issues of false labelling, food quality and traceability in the EU food chain," according to a statement by the European Food Safety Authority.
The fact that horsemeat is being sold as "beef" tells us a lot about the general lack of ethics, transparency and respect for consumers. This scandal also emphasises how dangerous budget cuts are to financial and human resources needed for adequate food inspection and sampling. In fact, these are the main issues that I hear people talking about most often – not bute.
People have a right to know what they are eating. If meat is labelled as "beef", then that's what it should be, not pig, not dog, not horse. The fact is that people may not want to eat certain sorts of meat (Jewish law, for example, forbids consumption of horsemeat) and that wish should be respected regardless of the underlying reasons. Selling "beef" that contains horsemeat is unethical and raises the spectre of what other meats may be lurking in one's hamburger or lasagne. So it's horse today, perhaps it'll be dog tomorrow? Dare I mention soylent green?
Since this meat has obviously come from unscrupulous sources, there are a host of questions that we don't know the answers to – questions such as where these horses came from and how they were handled in the days and weeks leading up to their slaughter. Some of these concerns are addressed in this video:
Beef production and slaughter is regulated and – one hopes – the animals are healthy and treated humanely prior to being slapped onto your barbecue grill. But horses don't fare so well. Instead, horses that are sent to slaughter are mostly old or sick. Some may be stolen. They are crammed into huge trucks and shipped hundreds or thousands of kilometres without food, water or the chance to move about for days. This is not only stressful and inhumane, it is indefensibly cruel. Do we want to support this sort of behaviour every time we purchase meat for a meal?
The moment of death is not painless, quick or humane, either: the slaughterhouse equipment used to kill these horses is designed for cattle, not horses (or worse; minimal equipment is used). This is inexcusable. This is just revolting.
Of course, since horsemeat is slightly cheaper than beef, there are profit motives, which also deserve careful investigation. Is organised crime involved in this, as has been mentioned several times? Do we want to give our hard-earned money to the Mafia in exchange for a hamburger?
This scandal has one redeeming value: it is causing us to openly question what is on our plates and how it got there. The public is beginning to realise that corporate food manufacturers and producers are only concerned with maximising profits and thus, do not deserve our unquestioning trust. Hopefully, this scandal will convince the EU of the folly of cutting funding to agencies that oversee and monitor the foods that end up on our plates.
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