According to "Horsemeat found in Ikea meatballs in Czech Republic", finding effective solutions to the problems brought to public notice by the discoveries of horse in many European processed meat products over the past month is something that European Union agriculture ministers will be discussing in meetings now taking place in Brussels (2013). The article says that Ikea, the latest corporate victim of the growing scandal, acted to stop all sales throughout Europe of meatballs that might be tainted with horse meat, which was discovered by inspectors in the Czech Republic.
I inferred from the story that Ikea sells meatballs and other Swedish delights in its famous furniture stores. I've never been inside an Ikea store, so I wasn't sure, but my inference was confirmed by a quick skim of the Wikipedia entry for IKEA ("IKEA", 2013), which the company apparently prefers to write as IKEA, not Ikea as I've been writing it; I'll continue to copy the style of the BBC News and write Ikea. I also noticed that the "IKEA" entry on Wikipedia was updated today, although apparently before the horse meat story broke: there is no mention of horses in the article.
But as I've already said, the horse meat scandal seems to me a bit over-rated. Does it really matter that much if people eat a bit of horse mixed in with their beef or pork? What does seem to me to matter is the dishonesty of passing off horse meat as pig or cow, to which the obvious solution seems to me to start selling more horse meat - horse burgers, equine lasagna, and the like. But then I was surprised: in Australia, horses are generally much more valuable than cattle, and you couldn't really make much of a profit by selling a horse for hamburger mince. I suppose some profit is better than no profit, but I wonder if a meat processor for human food would pay much more than a pet food processor. So, who is dishonestly selling these horses dressed up as cattle or pigs, and why?
Reading the article, I realised that health is one concern, although there doesn't seem to be any evidence yet that any harm has actually been caused to any person as a result of ingesting a bit of horse. I suspect that what's really made it such a big story for the past few weeks is that a lot of people really don't like the idea of eating horses, although the French do it regularly. And of course, most of us don't like being lied to.
My blog post tomorrow will be about a different sort of dishonesty, one far more relevant to us. I thought about blogging that story, also from Europe, today, but it's a bit serious. Maybe I should written about the Razzie Awards, where Twilight was the all out winner.
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References
IKEA. (2013, February 25). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:06, February 25, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=IKEA&oldid=540193751
And according to "Ikea Thailand pulls horse meatballs" just published in the Bangkok Post's Breakng News section, the Ikea meatballs have also been withdrawn from sale in Thailand, although with no admission that they contain horse meat(2013).
ReplyDeleteSince I didn't know they existed, I probably won't miss their removal from the menu options. And I'm pretty sure that there is no Ikea store around my home area.
Reference
Ikea Thailand pulls horse meatballs. (2013, February 26). Bangkok Post. Retrieved February 26, 2013 from http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/337726/ikea-thailand-pulls-horse-meatballs