Saying neigh to meat

_**‘We apologise’**_

**Reads the home page of Tesco’s website in large, bold font, the notice going on to explain how ‘a number of products tested from one of our suppliers contained horse meat’.
Cue gasps of anguish and disgust as people consider little Patch being slaughtered in an abattoir and hung up to dry before being grossly fed through a mincer and heaped onto your dinner plate.**

But how has this shocking news affected Warwick students?

I asked a number of Warwick students about their reaction to the news and whilst some students seem to have a blasé attitude to what’s in their food, one person telling me that _‘you get what you pay for, carcass is carcass’_, others are genuinely worried by the revelation, admitting, _‘it worries me what’s in other stuff – as a student who has no option but to shop in Tesco, and no choice but to buy the basics range due to budget, I’m now concerned about what else they’re selling us without us knowing!’_ They also said that _‘this isn’t just an issue for Tesco customers either, as many supermarkets use the same suppliers.’_

This concern is legitimate. One student who shares a kitchen with me in halls was cooking Tofu for her lunch, telling us that it was due not to a concern for animal welfare but over what was in the meat she was buying from Tesco.

But the issue is perhaps not as serious as it seems – in reality horse meat is sold in European countries such as France and Germany and they consider eating this meat in the same way as they would consider eating lamb or beef. So really, the issue that Tesco has is with their labelling. As another student related, ‘the problem is just one of labelling: if they had been labelled as meat burgers there would have been no problem’ while another told me that, ‘I’m not too bothered by the horse meat itself, it’s not like it’s bad for you, the only issue being that they should have listed it in the ingredients.’ Luckily, a large proportion of the country has remained unperturbed, something which has emerged from the fact that there is a Twitter page, @horsepuns, dedicated solely to jokes about Tesco’s most recent mishap, and a humorous website (http://www.mydeals.com/horsecalculator/) which allows you to calculate what percentage of a horse you will eat in your lifetime based on the average number of burgers you eat per week.

In reality, very few people seem unduly worried. One student pointed out that since Hindus do not eat beef and Muslims cannot eat Tesco burgers because they aren’t Halal, a large proportion of the students at this culturally varied university remain totally unaffected by the discovery. Furthermore, another student said, ‘I ate a horse burger in Germany and it was really nice’, so clearly not everyone is set against the inclusion of horses in their dinner. He then went on to add, ‘it’s still probably healthier than the rat’s testicles you’ll find in a Big Mac.’

So really, what the issue boils down to is one of consumers simply wanting to know what they are eating, as opposed to having a genuine issue with eating horse meat. Pragmatically, one young man suggested that, aside from the issue of labelling, there was perhaps a benefit to using horse meat in processed foods such as burgers, the idea being that by buying cheap processed meat there will be recovered meat in the product. ‘That is not wrong,’ he says, ‘provided you know what you are buying and you are prepared to eat it. It means that as much of the animal as can be used or consumed, will be used or consumed.’ He adds, as a final question, ‘That surely has to be a good thing?’

However, the shadow environment secretary, Mary Creagh, recently revealed in the Commons that carcinogen-contaminated horse meat could have entered the food chain. Race horses are treated with an anti-inflammatory called phenylbutazone which eases pain and fever in horses but can cause cancer in humans, and it is this carcinogen which may have made its way into the food chain as it was discovered that some horse meat tested in UK abattoirs had tested positive for the drug.

While the previous comments from students stand true, that Tesco’s issue was with labelling, a more serious issue seems to prevail in the sourcing of cheap meat in general. While there is nothing to suggest that the carcinogen-contaminated meat products were used in British supermarkets, it alludes to the problem of what else really is in the meat that students buy thinking that they are getting good value for their money. These recent discoveries seem to suggest that meat really doesn’t come cheaply without some sort of hidden price to pay, and whilst having a little horse meat in some of your burgers isn’t such a problem, perhaps the other things in your meat that you don’t hear about are far more worrying.

If it is so difficult to know what you are really eating when it comes to cheap meat products, perhaps it would be even cheaper, and far safer, to cut meat out of your diet altogether and then when news stories such as these come out you can sleep far easier at night knowing that little Patch is safe from your dinner plate.