Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

Horse meat in burgers might not be as harmless as you think

This week’s discovery that some burgers sold in UK supermarkets contain up to 29 per cent horse meat was met with a combination of concerns about the labelling and sourcing of food, and jokes about the burgers’ ‘Shergar content’. But the fact that people are inadvertently eating horse meat isn’t the only worrying part of the finding; an additional concern is the provenance of the meat.

In many equine-consuming countries, horses are bred specifically for their meat, in the same way that livestock are in the UK. If you go to Auchan in Calais and pick up a horse steak from the ‘boucherie’ section, then your meat should be perfectly edible and, I’ve been informed, delicious. As a wimpy horse-lover, I’m more than happy to take their word for it. However, the horse meat in British burgers might not have such a reliable source.

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