The horsemeat scandal

The French Consumer Affairs Minister has announced that a slaughterhouse in Romania is to blame for mixing horsemeat in with ground beef which was then sold throughout Europe and Britain. But the scandal is far more widespread than just one rogue slaughterhouse; it has roots in multinational corporations located across the globe.

Ever since this story first broke a few weeks ago, tainted beef has been found in more and more packages. This problem has been truly widespread, affecting all manner of ground beef products. Most recently, a frozen foods packager named Findus has had to pull their beef lasagna, after its French supplier of ground beef alerted the company to "high levels of horsemeat."

Following the chain of liability just shows you how complicated our global food distribution system has become. Findus had been assured that their ground beef came from certified French sources. But it turned out that the ground beef came from a Luxembourg factory that had been supplied by a French firm, which had bought their meat from a trader in Cypriot, which had bought their shipment from a Dutch trader, who had bought the meat from the Romanian slaughterhouse.

Was this an act of staggering incompetence, or an international conspiracy? Much like the situation in America with mislabeled fish, I think the answer is certainly "both."

It seems like ground beef is one of those things that's constantly being tainted, whether it's by meat from a different animal, or bacterial contamination. If you are concerned about the state of your ground beef (and you probably should be) your best bet is to buy your meat at a butcher shop or a store with an in-house butcher.

You can buy any cut of meat you like, then ask the butcher to grind it up for you. It only takes a few minutes, and it's usually free. That way you can ensure you're getting what you're paying for.

Image courtesy Flickr/ilovebutter