Fast Food Nastiness

[bawang]

you have not experienced heaven until you tasted roasted dog leg with garlic.

[GeneChing]

Where's the beef?

March 1, 2013, 2:28 PM
Horse-Meat Testing Finds Something Even Worse: No Meat
By Jens Hansegard

You’ve heard of “Meatless Mondays.” But you may not be as familiar with meatless meat pies – unless you’re in Iceland.

The tiny nation’s Food and Veterinary Authority, or Mast, investigated a beef pie from high-end natural food company Gaedakokkar in western Iceland to make sure there were no traces of horse meat in the wake of the wider scandal that has ensnared a number of European companies.

The good news: the agency found no horse meat in the pies. The bad news: the agency actually found no meat at all. In fact, there were no traces of animal protein found at all, Hjalti Andrason, a MAST official, said in an interview Friday.

Labeling on the products promised that the pie stuffing contained 30% beef. The agency suspects the filling “could be some sort of vegetable protein, but that is not confirmed,” Mr. Andrason said.

The discovery dealt a tough blow to Gaedakokkar, which employs 10 people and has been around since 1999. Stores carrying Gaedakokkar’s products threw out the company’s products and the company’s phones have been ringing since the disclosure of MAST’s findings.

Gaedakokkar’s owner Magnus Nielsson said the development has punctured his business model.

“It’s sad that MAST takes one pie from one store and then goes out and just kills me in the news,” he told The Wall Street Journal Friday. “MAST went into one store and bought one pie, which they tested. They sent us a mail and I was shocked.

Mr. Nielsson said “we are a small company and everybody’s trying to do their best. We went through our production and discovered that the way we mixed the beef pie stuffing–by hand–didn’t mix the stuffing evenly enough.”

He said the pie stuffing mixing was immediately moved to a machine that mixes the stuffing evenly. But the damage to the company’s reputation is already done and that his company, which makes about 60 different food products without additives, now may go out of business as customers cancel business.

Gaedakokkar is based in in Borgarnes on the western end of Iceland and started out as a company making high-end organic food products. Initially the company’s meat balls contained only meat, but Mr. Nielsson said that after the financial crisis that hit Iceland, the company was forced to add vegetable stuffing and soy protein to its minced meat products to bring the price down for cash-strapped Icelandic consumers.

Following the discovery of the meatless meat pie, Mr. Nielsson says vegetarians have called him and said that the company should focus on making vegetarian pies.

“But we make meat pies and there should be meat in them, that’s what we do,” Mr. Nielsson said.

Now it is up to the Municipal Health Authority in Western Iceland to decide what further actions to take in the matter.

[GeneChing]

... but I was hoping it would be China, not Kazakhstan.

In Kazakhstan, No Horror At Horse Meat
by Peter Kenyon
March 04, 2013 5:06 PM


Signs advertise the type of meat sold in each section of the Green Market in Almaty, Kazakhstan.


Though the thought of horse meat in British lasagna or Ikea meatballs may be stomach-churning to some people, in some cultures the practice of eating horse meat is not just acceptable, it's a treat. NPR's Peter Kenyon just returned from the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan and checked out the meat market at the Green Bazaar in Almaty. He sent back this postcard.

In a cavernous hall, I found a long counter dripping with steaks, chops and ribs. A sign at the end of each aisle advertised the animal on display: lamb, cow, goat and, toward the back, horse.

Those aisles were attracting plenty of customers, despite the fact that horse meat costs more than beef. That's a far different situation than in Europe, where scandal erupted over cheaper horse meat substituted for more expensive beef.

In the Green Baazar, horse breast and ribs are very popular, as is a fatty part of the neck, according to Farida, one of the knife-wielding women working there.

But the ultimate delicacy is kazy, a boiled horse sausage served on special occasions and to honored guests. It's so essential to Kazah cuisine that the country's Olympic team begged to be allowed to bring it to London for the 2012 games.

When I asked Farida about the horse meat scandal in Europe, she made it clear that she's far too polite to make fun of another country's gastronomic foibles.

"The British people honor the horse, and they don't eat it. They haven't got the tradition," she said. "Here in Kazakhstan, our ancestors ate horses, and it is deeply connected to our identity."

Those connections are centuries deep. The Kazakhs' forebears rode across the steppes with Genghis Khan in the 13th century. The army moved with alarming speed, thanks to its sturdy horses, with three or four per warrior. Those horses also provided milk, blood and eventually meat to fuel the army.

In the market, 60-year-old Nurseit watched as fistfuls of crushed garlic were mixed with horse breast and salt, and stuffed into sausage casings to make kazy. Nurseit laughed as he remembered bringing some kazy to the United States for his son, a diplomat. At the airport, the sniffer tog twitched and turned his way, but he managed to deliver the prize safely.

After the market, I decided to try it myself, at the Seven Treasures restaurant. I found it delicious, not unlike very tender venison.

But that's not the only horse product on the menu. My translator, Aibar, dared me to try fermented mare's milk, which is known to back quite a kick.

"It's very good, actually," Aibar said. "There shouldn't be that much alcohol in it, probably about 10, nine degrees."

The milk is sour, smoky and gamy all at once.

Actually, through, I feel a sudden urge to conquer the steppes. Maybe after one more bite of this delicious sausage. What is it again?

[Lucas]

[GeneChing]

Alas Andalusia

Legendary horses latest victim of Spain's bust
By ALAN CLENDENNING, Associated Press
Updated 11:30 am, Thursday, April 18, 2013

ALMONTE, Spain (AP) — The southern Spanish region of Andalusia, famed for flamenco and Moorish castles, is also home to a legendary breed of horses that carried conquistadors into battle in the Americas, featured in Hollywood epics and more recently became trophy acquisitions for Spaniards during a giddy economic boom.

On his grassy ranch in the territory's heartland, 73-year-old Francisco Mesa breeds these "Pura Raza Espanola" — Pure Spanish Breed — horses with a passion that comes from years of pampering the elegant beasts known for their intelligence and affection for humans. He enters a muddy pen and is immediately surrounded by mares and foals who nuzzle him with tenderness, oblivious of their almost certain fate: the slaughterhouse.

Barring an unlikely reprieve, Mesa's purebreds will be turned into horse meat for export come July. They are victims of a wrenching economic downturn that has wiped out fortunes, turned housing developments into ghost towns and left more than a quarter of the population out of work.

The Pura Raza Espanola breed has always been popular in Spain but took off just after the start of the country's biggest ever economic boom in the late 1990s. They had already won fame as war horses and gifts exchanged between European nobility, and have been featured in Hollywood films such as "Gladiator" and "Braveheart." The spike in demand over the last decade triggered a breeding frenzy in which the number of horses in Spain rose by the hundreds of thousands, nearly half of them purebreds like Pura Raza Espanola. Spain's newly minted affluent classes couldn't get enough of them.

Then came the bust of Spain's property bubble in 2008. First demand for the horses dried up. Now, as the financial crisis deepens with no end in sight, there's a new dilemma: Horse owners are increasingly unable to pay for the animals' upkeep. It all means that they face slaughter if owners can't find anybody to take the animals off their hands. Until last year, Spanish law even dictated that rejected horses must be sent to the slaughterhouse. That's no longer the case but most still are turned into meat because there's little alternative if nobody else is willing to take the horses in. Owners who simply abandon horses face steep fines.

The number of horses sent to slaughter in Spain by owners and breeders hit 70,000 last year, more than double the 30,000 recorded killed by the country's Agriculture Ministry in 2008.

Mesa grew up on a farm where horses were the machinery before the machines came in, and has been in the breeding business since 1991. He used to sell his purebreds for tens of thousands of euros each, and is now desperately trying to unload his 25 horses cheap or give them away to save their lives. He is horrified at the strong prospect of them being turned into meat that few Spaniards eat, but is exported to other European countries — especially France and Italy.

In these lean times, Mesa says he can't justify spending any more of his monthly government pension, supplemented by rent his son gets from another farm, to pay the cost of the horses' upkeep. So he has set a June deadline for finding a new owner for his horses. If he can't, this is what happens: A buyer who sells horses to the slaughterhouses pays about 150 euros ($200) per animal, and sends a truck to pick them up. The horses then remain in a corral until the local slaughterhouse gets through its waiting list of horses slated for butchery.

"We want them to stay alive and we are trying to see if we can get something back of what we have spent on them," Mesa said. "And if not I fear as a last resort, with all the pain in my heart, we will have to send them to the slaughterhouse. But I am begging for help. I don't want to make any money out of this."

Mesa doesn't believe the market for prize horses that Spain enjoyed for years will come back in his lifetime. It's a view that animal breeding experts and government officials agree with.

"Horses were a status symbol and lots of people bought them, learned to ride, and the horse breeders prospered" said Carlos Buxade, an animal husbandry professor and head of the animal production department at the Polytechnical University of Madrid. "What's happening now is that it costs 350 to 400 euros ($455 to $520) a month to maintain a horse and there's a lot of people who can't" afford that anymore.

Spain is in "crisis for everything that is luxury, and horses are a luxury," Buxade added.

The Agriculture Ministry horse census counted 660,889 horses in Spain this year, down from a high of 748,622 in 2011 — but the number is still much higher than the 435,598 counted in 2007 just before Spain's economic boom imploded. Veterinarians and horse experts warn that the high number of horses being killed in Spain could continue for years. Government officials have taken notice but there doesn't seem to be any solution to prevent the slaughters.

It all boils down to simple economics: Horses have useful lives of 10 to 12 years, and many of those alive now were born just a few years ago for a market that has disappeared. Many breeders have gone out of business and those that remain are breeding fewer horses, said Leopoldo Fernandez, president of the Spain-based Union of Breeders of Spanish Horses association.

"The inventory is being diminished and breeders are being diminished," said Fernandez, who founded Spain's huge Telepizza restaurant chain and runs a large Pura Raza Espanola breeding operation in Segovia, about an hour from Madrid. "You have the breeder who throws in the towel, and the breeder diminishing the amount he is breeding. Horses are either being sold at a very low price or going to the butcher. We don't know how many people are digging holes in the ground and putting their horses there."

Fernandez said he's seen evidence of some Spanish breeders underfeeding their horses amid their struggle to make ends meet. And animal rights activists say the crisis has sparked an increase in the number of abandoned horses despite the threat of fines.

But Buxade said the slaughterhouse is still the more common fate. The reason: Most Spanish horse owners complied with a government mandate requiring microchips that include ownership details to be surgically implanted into horses. That means owners who abandon their horses can be tracked down and assessed penalties ranging from hundreds to thousands of euros.

"It's much better for a horse owner who can't pay for his horse anymore to send it to the slaughterhouse so no one goes after you, but it's not something that makes money for the owner because the horse is worth a lot more than the meat," he said. "Sending it to the slaughterhouse just saves you the day to day costs."

Breeder Francisco Jose Rodriguez has given away two of his Spanish purebred horses to friends in recent months and has no plans for breeding the mare that just a few years ago produced offspring he could sell for between 4,000 euros and 12,000 euros each. Letting her give birth to more foals now would just add to his horse feeding and veterinary costs.

The breeding business Rodriguez started on the side in Almonte from his fruit growing operation has turned "into a hobby, a pastime."

"If you can't eat because you don't have any money, the horse is going to get a lot less," Rodriguez said. "I want to avoid sending my horses to the slaughterhouse, but if my work dries up, I'll have to do it. It was a business before, now it's destruction."

A few kilometers (miles) away at his ranch, Mesa is trying to unload a stallion that would have fetched 20,000 or 30,000 euros a few years ago for 4,000 euros. He's ready to give that horse and the rest of his away if he can't sell them by the end of June.

He's set that deadline because it coincides with the annual pilgrimage of Catholic faithful to a nearby hermitage to see the small carved statue of the Virgin of El Rocio. The event frequently draws a million people, many on horseback or in horse-drawn carriages, in keeping with tradition.

Mesa said he'll use the event to advertise his horses for one last time to a crowd that appreciates them — and might want to spare his from being slaughtered.

"I'm a horse lover, and I'm doing everything I can to save their lives," he said.

[GeneChing]

At this point, BK should just give in and offer a horsemeat Whopper. They could call it the Whinny.

Federal Approval Near for Opening of Horse Meat Processing Plant in New Mexico
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 30, 2013

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — The southern New Mexico plant that has been fighting for more than a year for permission to slaughter horses will open soon, unless Congress reinstates a ban on the practice, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Tuesday.

In a telephone interview on Tuesday, Mr. Vilsack said his department was working to make sure the process was handled properly for the opening of what would be the first domestic horse slaughterhouse in six years.

“We are going to do this, and I would imagine that it would be done relatively soon,” he said.

The Valley Meat Company sued the Department of Agriculture last year, asserting that inaction on its application was driven by emotional political debates and that the delays had cost it hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The department reinspected the plant last week.

“It will open unless Congress restores the ban on horse slaughter that they had in place,” Mr. Vilsack said. “If that doesn’t happen, then we are duty bound to do what needs to be done to allow that plant to begin processing.”

The Obama administration opposes horse slaughter. Its recent budget proposal eliminates financing for inspections of horse slaughterhouses, which would effectively reinstate a ban on the practice in which horses are processed for human consumption. Congress eliminated that financing in 2006, which forced a shutdown of domestic slaughter facilities. But Congress reinstated the money in 2011, prompting Valley Meat and a few other businesses around the country to seek permission to open plants.

The debate over whether to return to domestic horse slaughter has divided horse rescue and animal humane groups, ranchers, politicians and Indian tribes.

At issue is whether horses are livestock or pets, and how best to control the nation’s exploding equine population. Supporters of horse slaughter point to a 2011 report from the federal Government Accountability Office that shows horse abuse and abandonment have been increasing since 2006. They say it is better to slaughter the animals in humane, federally regulated plants than have them abandoned to starve across the drought-stricken West or shipped to inhumane plants south of the border.

The number of horses in the United States sent to other countries for slaughter has nearly tripled since 2006. And many humane groups agree that some of the worst abuse occurs in the slaughter pipeline. Many are pushing for both a ban on domestic slaughter as well as a ban on shipping horses to Mexico and Canada.

Mr. Vilsack says the administration understands the concerns and “needs to be more creative” in finding alternative solutions to horse overpopulation.

[GoldenBrain]

They could call it the Whinny.

Bwaaaaahahahahaha!

As long as it's served as the mane course.

[Brule]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...946_story.html

[GeneChing]

I think I just choked on my horse meat.

Dubious School Lunch Ingredient Spotted in China – Rodent Meat
yesterday by Mike


Surely we all used to joke about the poor quality of school cafeteria food, but a Chinese high school student wasn’t joking when he posted this picture of his school cafeteria breakfast, which appears to contain a fully cooked mouse or rat nestled snugly in his rice ball, to Weibo – China’s native social media site.

Somehow, the post got by the skittish Chinese cyber police, who are known to close down unsavory searches and online postings. One would think depictions of rat meat being fed to unsuspecting kids would pop up on their radar pretty fast.

Other users followed the post with depictions of meals containing everything from rat bones to insects, supposedly from the same Wenzhou meal provider.

Given China’s somewhat dubious history of bending international copyright laws, I’m almost surprised the company in question didn’t claim the rodent-infused rice ball was some grotesque Disney collaboration.

[GeneChing]

What part of the chicken is the nugget anyway?

Was Your Chicken Nugget Made In China? It'll Soon Be Hard To Know
by Maria Godoy
September 05, 2013 6:41 PM

Here's a bit of news that might make you drop that chicken nugget midbite.

Just before the start of the long holiday weekend last Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly that it was ending a ban on processed chicken imports from China. The kicker: These products can now be sold in the U.S. without a country-of-origin label.

For starters, just four Chinese processing plants will be allowed to export cooked chicken products to the U.S., as first reported by . The plants in question passed USDA inspection in March. Initially, these processors will only be allowed to export chicken products made from birds that were raised in the U.S. and Canada. Because of that, the poultry processors won't be required to have a USDA inspector on site, as The New York Times , adding:

"And because the poultry will be processed, it will not require country-of-origin labeling. Nor will consumers eating chicken noodle soup from a can or chicken nuggets in a fast-food restaurant know if the chicken came from Chinese processing plants."

That's a pretty disturbing thought for anyone who's followed the slew of stories regarding food safety failures in China in recent years. As we've on The Salt, this year alone, thousands of dead pigs turned up in the waters of Shanghai, rat meat was passed off as mutton and — perhaps most disconcerting for U.S. consumers — there was an outbreak of the among live fowl in fresh meat markets.

What's more, critics fear that the changes could eventually open the floodgates for a whole slew of chicken products from China. As the industry publication notes:

"It is thought ... that the government would eventually expand the rules, so that chickens and turkeys bred in China could end up in the American market. Experts suggest that this could be the first step towards allowing China to export its own domestic chickens to the U.S."

The USDA's decision comes with a backdrop of long-running trade disputes over meat between the U.S. and China. In a nutshell: China banned U.S. beef exports in 2003 after a case of mad cow disease turned up in a Washington state cow. Then, when the bird flu virus broke out widely among Asian bird flocks in 2004, the U.S. blocked imports of Chinese poultry. China challenged that decision in front of the World Trade Organization, which in China's favor in 2010.

And, chicken lovers, brace yourselves: There's more. A report suggests chicken inspections here in the U.S. might be poised to take a turn for the worse. The Government Accountability Office this week it has serious "questions about the validity" of the new procedures for inspecting poultry across the country.

Basically, these changes would replace many USDA inspectors on chicken processing lines with employees from the poultry companies themselves. The USDA has been piloting the new procedures, which will save money and significantly speed up processing lines, in 29 chicken plants. As The Washington Post , the plan is to roll out the new procedures eventually to "most of the country's 239 chicken and 96 turkey plants."

The problem? According to the GAO, the USDA did a poor job of evaluating the effectiveness of the pilot programs it has in place.

As a result, the report concludes, it's hard to justify the USDA's conclusions that the new procedures will do a better job than current approaches at cutting down on the number of dangerous bacteria like salmonella that pop up on the birds that will later end up on our dinner tables.

Still, the USDA maintains that the changes will, in fact, boost food safety. In a published on Food Safety News, USDA food safety and inspections administrator writes, "If finalized and implemented broadly, this new inspection system would enable [USDA inspectors] to better fulfill our food safety mission. Nothing in the GAO's report contradicts this basic fact."

[GoldenBrain]

Yummmmmy, pressed chicken parts! I'm sure it'll be safe to eat after they decontaminate the chicken parts with ammonia.

It doesn't surprise me that they are going to allow this. The FDA for instance has known about the addition of arsenic to chicken feed which bulks up the chickens and enhances the color of the meat. I guess as long as everybody, from the commercial chicken farms to the doctors (who will be the ones to treat the disease from all the arsenic) are making money, and our economy is chugging along then it's all okay.

http://www.naturalnews.com/040556_ar...amination.html


Cows aren't exempt from this treatment. They are commonly given feed laced with bata-agonists such as zilpaterol and zilmax, which are basically growth promoters. They feed cows these chemicals toward the end of their life cycle to bulk them up for sale.
I believe Merck has recently pulled zilmax off the market due to health concerns, though it has been used globally for the last 17 years, so who knows what damage it has already caused.

It would be really cool if home owners would reallocate much of the over 40 million acres of lawns in the US to grow their own food. Not only could could it be grown organically but it would save something like 7 billion gallons of fuel, 30-60% of the countries fresh water which is used for irrigation, and 3 million tons of fertilizer.

Now that's food for thought!

[David Jamieson]

Horse meat is pretty good.
I think this shock story probably only shocks the people who don't know what the heck they are putting in themselves anyway. lol

[GoldenBrain]

Horse meat is pretty good.

I'll take your word for it. I hear it's lean and sweet, but it's prone to parasites and what comes from the US, at least until recently when the USDA approved it for slaughter, is filled with equine meds which are not intended for human consumption. Also, for the devout bible thumpers out there it's considered an unclean animal due to it chewing cud but not having split hooves, so eating it is a no-no.

I think this shock story probably only shocks the people who don't know what the heck they are putting in themselves anyway. lol

Indeed. That's pretty much the point of the thread. Companies getting caught selling food where the meat is different than what's on the label. It's bad enough to eat those fat-burgers voluntarily but to be served one thing when you think it's another is just wrong.

[Jimbo]

I'm glad I no longer eat fast food. My gluten sensitivity forced me to eliminate a lot of junk from my diet, even though I'm not necessarily a health food nut, either. So while it's kind of a hassle, especially when it comes to eating out, or visiting, etc.; I do feel a lot better. I also cut out beef and pork about 18 years ago.

A bit OT, but I'm cutting out seafood due to the contamination pouring into the Pacific from Fukushima. The major news media says it's safe, but if you really look into it, things are really a *lot* worse.

[GoldenBrain]

I'm glad I no longer eat fast food. My gluten sensitivity forced me to eliminate a lot of junk from my diet, even though I'm not necessarily a health food nut, either. So while it's kind of a hassle, especially when it comes to eating out, or visiting, etc.; I do feel a lot better. I also cut out beef and pork about 18 years ago.

A bit OT, but I'm cutting out seafood due to the contamination pouring into the Pacific from Fukushima. The major news media says it's safe, but if you really look into it, things are really a *lot* worse.

I don't think a person should be labeled a health nut just because they use common sense when eating. I applaud you sir!

It's to bad about what happened to Fukushima. I ran across a study the other day that showed a pretty scary model of the radiation plume heading for North America. It appears that the plume is not dispersing in the ocean as much as they would have liked and so it may be more concentrated than expected when it hits the coast. That along with the crap loaded into the Gulf of Mexico and I can understand you not wanting to eat seafood.

Forgive me for saying "you should" but if you want to continue to eat clean seafood then you really should consider a small home aquaponics system. If you have any room on a balcony or porch or in the yard then you can set up a small 250 gallon system which would supply you with all the fish and leafy green veggies you could eat. If you raise tilapia then you can grow up to one fish per gallon, though I'd only recommend about 50 - 100 fish for that size tank. Also, you can set up another small tank to grow duck weed or spirulina which would give you all the fish food you need.