Posted on 03/01/2013 10:55:17 AM PST by Red Badger
FOOD giants Birds Eye, Taco Bell and caterers Brakes all confirmed today that horsemeat has been found in their beef products.
BIRDS EYE confirmed two products withdrawn as a precaution last week have tested positive: a spaghetti bolognese and beef lasagne all made in Belgium.
US-owned TACO BELL has had to withdraw ground beef from its three Mexican-themed diners in the UK and nine in Spain.
The meat was used in its tacos, burritos, gorditas, chalupas and Nachos.
A spokesman admitted the chain knew LAST WEEK that there was a problem and withdrew the meat.
But it only decided to go public when the Food Standards Agency revealed the positive test today.
The suspect meat came from “Europe”, the spokesman said.
Ten tests on the products returned results of more than one per cent horsemeat, the agency said, and all have been withdrawn from sale.
Taco Bell has two restaurants in Essex and one in Manchester.
BRAKES BROTHERS which supplies schools and workplace eateries also confirmed horse had been found in its spicy minced beef skewers, lasagnes and a line of frozen burgers.
At the same time MCDONALD’S said all products on its fast-food menus were completely FREE from horse.
Taco Bell is owned by YUM BRANDS - which also runs Pizza Hut and KFC.
Its website boasts that the chain uses only “high quality ingredients” and “100 per cent premium beef”.
This is “seasoned with our signature recipe”.
In a statement the chain said: “We were very disappointed to learn that some batches of ground beef supplied to us tested positive for horsemeat.”
The tests are the latest blow for a food industry reeling from the Horsegate scandal - which erupted on January 15.
Horse meat gives the Taco Loco the kick
Would you like that with the cottage fries or rice pilaf? (Night Court)
They leave the hooves in?........Crunchy!......
“There is no health reason that I know of related to eating horse meat so really do not see the need for all of the fuss except for the meat not being as advertized.”
I’m one of the few that can’t eat it or so I’m told. When I was 16 I got hit by a pretty big rattler and after a weeklong series of Antivenom shots I had a severe reaction that put me back in the hospital for another week. Extreme hi fever, hallucinations and severe kidney problems. They said it was the fact that they use horses or did at that time to make the serumm and that was what I was allergic to. They said that if i was were to ingest it I could have the same reaction.
New sound track: "Moo! Neigh!"
Why does everybody cut down Taco Bell? I think their beef-flavored styrofoam pellets are delicious. At least they’re not serving us Soylent Green yet. As far as we know.
Yes, that is a big, gaping hole in the story. Multinational companies like Birds Eye, Taco Bell, etc can't back-trace who exactly the supplier was for the meat used in a particular batch of product? It strains credibility.
It’s because horses that live as companion animals or work animals are not tracked individually from birth like cows are. They also get lots of meds during their lives that wouldn’t be allowed in meat animals like cows and pigs. The horses in question are being sold to slaughter when they’re too old to work or ride anymore, and none of them have the sort of history data that meat animals accumulate. In the U.S. horses don’t go into meat but some U.S. horses are sold to Mexico and the meat is shipped to Europe where there -is- a huge market for horsemeat. This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg on this scandal.
Many horses in question are beautiful wild horses the BLM rounds up and sells to slaughter buyers from Mexico. Gorgeous animals, symbols of freedom. Eating one would be just like throwing another American Eagle on the barbie.
Many wild horses have been tamed....and used for pack animals, other user-friendly purposes. No excuse whatsoever for slaughtering and selling American icons as junk. No living being is junk.
You are right. After the mad cow incidents several years ago the theory is that meat can easily be traced back to the source so if there is another outbreak it can be contained right way. Seems it is just a theory...
LOL Next we’ll find out that Chick fil A is serving alligator or something. “tastes like chicken”
That's not what I meant. What I meant was that, a modern major manufacturer is generally expected to keep logs (usually on computer) of what they use. So I would expect that, when they make a batch of meat raviolis, they would log that batch ABC123XYZ used meat from shipment 1735278 from supplier "George's Meat".
Thus, when horse meat is discovered in batch ABC123XYZ, they can look up the log, call up "George's Meat", and scream at them about that specific shipment, and point the police investigators at the supplier.
In these days, with easy-to-use bar code scanners and cheap compute power and cheap disk space, it's negligent to NOT log things.
They probably do have that information and they’d be doing that investigation now.
We will see. I would expect to see arrests in the next day or two. If they had the logs, they would have known the supplier within minutes of knowing there was horse-meat in a specified batch of product. The lack of developments this long after the event is troubling.
“I guess for the same reason we don’t eat dog, both are man’s best friend.”
Dog is an Okinawan delicacy.
Up here, they are Taco Bell/KFC. I always thought the taco meat tasted like it contained chicken giblets.
For what you pay at TB, you can get a really delicious, full course meal at a nice Mexican restaurant here................
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