The food fraud story has now progressed from somewhat humorous with the undersized Subway footlong subs, to the highly disturbing with the revelations of horse meat and fake tuna, to the really creepy with the now potential emergence of dog meat in UK lamb curry. No you can’t print lamb folks, which is exactly why many humans are now eating worse than their pets in the Western world.
A mystery meat, which has defied the best efforts of scientists to identify it, has been found in a lamb curry as part of an investigation into food fraud.
The discovery raises new questions about just what is going into the nation’s takeaways and processed foods.
The meat in a Beef in Black Bean Sauce dish turned out to contain high levels of chicken material including blood, while a burger contained no beef at all, other than blood and heart.
However, most alarming of all was a curry. A spokesman for the programme said: ‘Just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse, the results came in for an Indian Lamb Curry.
‘It did contain meat, but that meat was not lamb, not pork, nor was it chicken or beef. Not horse, and not goat either.
All of the many tests to date by the lab used by the programme have failed to identify exactly which animal was the source of the meat.
Most meat eaters may be unaware that more than 70% of all beef and chicken in the United States, Canada and other countries is being treated with poisonous carbon monoxide gas. It can make seriously decayed meat look fresh for weeks. The meat industry continues to allow this toxic gas injection into many of the meat products people consume on a daily basis. The question is, how many people have become ill by this chemically altered meat that is being sold to families all over the world?
Carbon monoxide (often referred to as CO) is a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas, one measly oxygen molecule away from the carbon dioxide we all exhale. But that one molecule makes a big difference in that it does very, very bad things to the human body at very, very low concentrations. CO is toxic because it sticks to hemoglobin, a molecule in blood that usually carries oxygen, even better than oxygen can. When people are exposed to higher levels of CO, the gas takes the place of oxygen in the bloodstream and wreaks havoc. Milder exposures mean headaches, confusion, and tiredness. Higher exposures mean unconsciousness and death, and even those who survive CO poisoning can suffer serious long-term neurological consequences.
The Canadian Meat Packers Council recommends that the internal meat temperatures not go above 39 degrees Celsius or 4 degrees Fahrenheit. That has also been defined by other international meat regulators as the optimum storage temperature of meat. Even small increases of one or two degrees can cause a huge increase in bacterial growth. For example, an increase in the temperature of -1.5 degrees Celsius to 2 degrees Celsius would cut the shelf life of meat in half.
Scientific tests on some beef products found low levels of horse DNA
But one offering from Tesco’s Value range had 29% horse meat
Company has lost £300m off its market value today
Equine DNA also found in Dunnes Stores, Lidl, Aldi beef products
Asda and Co-op remove frozen products as ‘precaution’
Today, fast food giant Burger King revealed it uses same supplier
However, Burger King said its meat has not been affected
Irish scientists discovered contaminated burgers in late November
But carried out three rounds of tests to ensure data was correct
UK Food Standards Agency launching investigation into the findings
PM calls scandal ‘a completely unacceptable state of affairs’
Suppliers in Holland and Spain blamed for contaminated ingredients
Three more supermarkets have started clearing shelves of frozen beefburgers after it emerged they use the same supplier that sold Tesco products containing up to 29 per cent horse meat.
Asda, the Co-op and Sainsbury’s were not among the four retailers found to be selling contaminated food but say they have pulled some of their ranges as a ‘precautionary measure’.
It came as it was revealed horse-tainted beefburgers could have been on the shelves for almost two months after it was first discovered they contained equine meat.
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You can’t be reassured by the label of origin. and it’s not only the origin, but also where the feed is from..
bought beef at a supermarket in Yaita city, Tochigi. The label of origin says it’s from Hokkaido, but the tracking ID says it was in Minamisoma city from 12/25/2010 to 10/30/2011. Shouldn’t they label it as from Fukushima ?
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You can’t be reassured by the label of origin. and it’s not only the origin, but also where the feed is from..
bought beef at a supermarket in Yaita city, Tochigi. The label of origin says it’s from Hokkaido, but the tracking ID says it was in Minamisoma city from 12/25/2010 to 10/30/2011. Shouldn’t they label it as from Fukushima ?
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Radioactive cesium levels above the government’s new limit have been found in beef from Miyagi Prefecture, the prefectural government said.
Meat from a cow shipped by a farmer in Tome was found to contain more than 150 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram, the Miyagi Prefectural Government said Wednesday.
The stricter limit of 150 becquerels for beef and rice took effect Oct. 1. The previous limit was 500 becquerels per kilogram.
[...]
Miyagi Prefecture told the farmer not to ship any more cows until the investigation is completed, and asked nearby ranchers to suspend shipments voluntarily.
Cattle farmers in Fukushima Prefecture have resumed beef exports to the United States for the first time in 2 and a half years.
Farmers celebrated the shipment of 3 cattle with a ceremony on Sunday. The leader of a local agricultural cooperative said the resumption is a tailwind for Fukushima farmers who have been suffering from the effects of the nuclear accident.