[modi123_1]

As it is I live in an area concerned about our red meats - there has been chatter about 'those silly brits and their horse-face filled meats' masquerading as beef.

Has anyone here sampled said questionable meats? Is it really that bad? Did you find yourself outraged (at yourself, the seller, or the processing plant) about when you tore the facade off the packaging you got an eyeball of how much you were being misled?

For sometime I wondered how long it would go until the subtle shift from one product to another as it is being slowly added (or I guess added in spades elsewhere).

I mean heck - last year we had test tube beef

I know there's this whole push for "know where you food comes from", but damn... I don't want to actually have to raise my own baby cow (named Norman), feed it, massage it, and after how ever many years kill it. That takes too much of my time, but then is there any reliable way for us to get the transparency in the food industry that would make us happy?

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Tesco have used full-page adverts in national newspapers to apologise for selling burgers in the UK that were found to contain 29% horsemeat. Traces of horse DNA were also detected by the Food Standards Agency of Ireland in products sold by Iceland, Lidl, Aldi and Dunnes.

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But a beefburger rarely contains 100% beef.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has two classifications for burger products - standard and economy.

A standard beefburger can only be classified as such if it comprises a minimum of 62% beef. Similarly, a chicken (or other poultry) or rabbit burger must contain a minimum of 55% meat, and a pork burger 67% minimum pig meat.
...
An economy beefburger must contain 47% meat, a chicken burger 41% and a pork burger 50% pig meat.

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[creativecoding]

Does it matter much? I mean, if it tastes like beef, looks like beef, has the some nutrition as beef, does it really matter /that/ much? I could understand some aspects of it, but in reality it seems to me like people are complaining about nothing. "Oh the cheap brand of beef I bought only has 62% beef" - I mean what do you expect?

I don't go shopping or anything, but I would assume there's at least one brand focused on the purity of their products? Stop buying low-priced products and you won't get low-priced results.

Of course I may be wrong and all and this is a bigger deal than I'm making it out to be. I'm no expert.

This post has been edited by creativecoding: 21 January 2013 - 03:00 PM

[jon.kiparsky]

I suppose you could go to an actual butcher for your animal parts. For example, not far from me is this guy who seems pretty cool. I don't exactly constitute his core market, but I love that he's there and any Boston meat eaters have at least one good place to get meat that they can be pretty sure is what it says on the label.

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I don't go shopping or anything, but I would assume there's at least one brand focused on the purity of their products? Stop buying low-priced products and you won't get low-priced results.

This of course is the real issue. As long as consumers focus primarily on price, what they get will be absolute crap. Consider the airline industry: since we started buying our own tickets on line, price has become the absolute dominating factor, and flying has become more and more hellish every year. Meat's no diffferent: as long as people buy based on price, you'll get the absolute cheapest thing that can be labelled "hamburger" - meaning "100% mostly hamburger-flavored ground beef and other meats product with pre-mixed-in-additives so you can can't tell that it doesn't really taste right!"

So yeah, just find a real butcher and pay for what you really want: a real steak that came off a real cow, real recently. Costs a bit more, but maybe that means you buy a bit less and put more veg on the plate, which doesn't suck.

[h4nnib4l]

Yeah, if you aren't responsible for your own nutrition and/or that of another human being (namely, you don't grocery shop for yourself and/or others) then of course you wouldn't understand the importance. Food with a bunch of shit on the label that most people can't pronounce is generally going to contain things that you shouldn't eat (all the stuff you can't pronounce). This can be even more important for people with allergies, like celiac. The fact that "beef" can contain enough gluten to cause somebody problems is kind of humorous to me in a sick, jaded sort of way, but not for people who are intolerant to gluten. My family is trying to stick to foods with labels that don't look like chemistry nomenclature exams, but it's difficult and expensive. As to the "purity of their products" comment: there are plenty of brands out there. Whole Foods carries a lot of them. So do farmers' markets.

[modi123_1]

It reminded me of Digorno's wyngz.

[Ticon]

Well I don't exactly want to eat half horse and beef burgers. But if thats so, I've been eating it all my life and I'm doing pretty well.

But that doesn't exactly mean i'm happy about it

[strawhat89]

About a month ago, I was walking by this place where me and my friends went for chicken kebabs when we got plastered and saw a deskinned, eyeless body of what looked like a kitten. We dont go there anymore.

[jon.kiparsky]

strawhat89, on 22 January 2013 - 01:22 AM, said:

About a month ago, I was walking by this place where me and my friends went for chicken kebabs when we got plastered and saw a deskinned, eyeless body of what looked like a kitten. We dont go there anymore.

What, because they don't carry kitten any more?

Maybe if you put in a special order...

[strawhat89]

I thought I was eating chicken which in reality was dog meat. I felt cheated when I found it was cat.

[ishkabible]

If you have a college/uni near by you might check to see if they have a place where they sell meat, eggs, milk, and such. I go to a uni that has a big agriculture department(might actually be a college); we have a place that has THE BEST meat, ice cream, milk, and eggs EVER! The meat is almost on par with Omaha Steaks if you've ever had a subscription; I think Omaha Steaks ages their meets before shipping however. Eggs are "real" eggs; at home I can get same thing from neighbors. The milk is amazing. you can even get unpasteurized milk if you ask for it. They also make ice cream with the milk and cream from there.

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About a month ago, I was walking by this place where me and my friends went for chicken kebabs when we got plastered and saw a deskinned, eyeless body of what looked like a kitten

Have you ever seen whole rabbit? That's what they look like. My only complaint with rabbit is that it's really lean.

This post has been edited by ishkabible: 22 January 2013 - 07:15 AM

[Craig328]

In a sort of semi related topic, friends of ours called up several months back asking if we'd like to buy in on a grass fed cow they were going to have slaughtered and butchered. We used to have a nice freezer in the garage but, for whatever reason, the wife gave it to my mother in law a few years back, otherwise I'd have definitely dropped some change for some free range beef.

The price was only slightly higher than what you'd pay at the store for it but I've sampled some since and the taste is superior. Better quality and it's nice knowing that what you're eating wasn't pumped full of steroids and antibiotics.

It's not something that's readily available everywhere but if you can get it, and can afford the outlay, it's worth doing.

[Apokio]

I think this just shows that people really don't care about what is in their food. They don't know what goes on behind the grocery store shelf and don't care to know. When some people find out they get all outraged when if they would have done some research they could have figured it out much earlier.
I raise pigs for food and my kids know that we are going to haul them off to the processor so they can become meat for us to eat. I know I am going to eat that pig so I treat it right and give it a good life. I respect that a living thing had to die for my nutrition and I want my kids to learn that too.

[Kilorn]

If horse meat is good enough for the Dothraki, then it is good enough for me.

[jon.kiparsky]

For the what now?

[strawhat89]

ishkabible, on 22 January 2013 - 02:09 PM, said:

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About a month ago, I was walking by this place where me and my friends went for chicken kebabs when we got plastered and saw a deskinned, eyeless body of what looked like a kitten

Have you ever seen whole rabbit? That's what they look like. My only complaint with rabbit is that it's really lean.

Yeah I'm pretty sure that wasnt a rabbit. This place was way too small to afford rabbit meat.

@Jon Seriously? I thought it is known.