Food Safety (by sarah)
As the horse meat issue rears it's head once more, we are faced with a bigger problem than most people realise. As I said before when this first came out - food needs to be what it says it is as if it doesn't it can kill or make people sick through food allergies and the like.
The issue is not that it is horse meat but that it is an unknown in there and the horse meat has turned out to have drugs in it that are not safe for humans. This is an issue on two levels - first off it means they are not food animals, have not been raised for it and have been medicated with things that would not be given to livestock. Such meat should not enter the food chain - wasteful perhaps in some eyes. And secondly where on earth have they been getting the animals from did they just fall from earth from space??!
People are saying that this is a reason to buy from your local butcher which is great except a lot of people can't afford to do this - this is the point; it is the cheap foods that are being hit. Families that are struggling anyway are now being hit with the fact that the cheap food they can afford is not what it says it is and good be harmful to their families.
Also from an economic point of view it gets worse - people understandably will stop buying the products affected or a lot of people will. It has hurt the brand name which is good in same ways as it might well drive business back to the local farmers and butchers but... it could have a knock on effect resulting in all meat producers being hit.
Hopefully there will be an upsurgence in ethical farming practice and better food standards but how long has this been going on?
The people who investigate the food - Trading Standards have steadily had their funding cut so that they can't police everything the way they used to. And beef is not the only thing that is iffy.
I'm seeing lots of veggies going 'hahaha see you should all be veggi' - but how many of them really know what they are eating?
There have been instances of meat turning up in veggi processed food, as Alaric said - who's to say that your veggie mince doesn't have horse meat in it - has anyone checked?
But worse there is an entire swathe of counterfeit foods in this country ranging from cheese analogue (not cheese at all it just looks like cheese and though you may think this sounds good and vegan it is harmful).
And it is not just the cheaper foods that are affected, things like Extra Virgin Olive Oil are often fakes as well - not good if you are trying to control what fats and oils you are eating.
Ok so as I myself have said the only way to be sure of what you are eating is to make it yourself from scratch but more than that you have to grow the products on a patch of land that isn't itself contaminated by something. This is not realistic for most people - I wish it was, but modern life does not allow this.
My personal suggestion is give away free veg and put a tax on processed food. It is stupid that processed food cost less than fresh. Add in a policy to try and get as many people as possible growing rather than building on the allotments. Make more of them - people want them - there are huge waiting lists!
And yes I realise this would have an economic knock-on but then so does horse meat in the beef burgers.
Free cooking lessons at community centres and the such like would be good too so that people are not afraid of ruining the food they have just bought.
Also importing less food would be good for our economy, due to not having to convert our money to buy and transport costs and so on. It would be good for the environment too.
Sat 9th Feb 2013 1:18 pm 
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