Has the chevalburger incident changed your mind about food or shops you buy it in ?

Edwardia

OH and I switched to organic last March after discovering that Tesco plain pork loin steaks contained 89% pork, 11% water and three additives.

If I wasn't eating organic already I would be changing now, because prior to March 2012 we had eaten the Iceland quarterpounders in summer on the BBQ.

This whole thing makes me feel can we trust any of these supermarkets to give us what we are paying for. The pack I bought said pork loin steaks not 89% pork loin steaks. People bought burgers thinking they were meat plus breadcrumbs and fat. Maybe more offal than steak but meat nevertheless not untraceable horsemeat and animal protein fillers. I was particularly alarmed that Tesco Finest burgers were removed too. Were they not really Finest just burgers with less filler in them ??

It wasn't like this was one processor or one supermarket. Dalepak is a well known name. So does this mean their veggie burgers are made from veg peelings too?

Will you be reading labels more carefully ? Eating less meat ? Using a local butcher ? Switching supermarket ? Or will you worry in the back of your mind ?

gailey_2

Good post edwardia.

feels like im one of the few.

Others think its amusing and nothing wrong horse is fine

despite not knowing here and how got there
that lied to
not knowing what part , if diseased or drugged.

It appears to be the protein filler thats contaminated not the meat.
I dident even realise they used fillers.

I always try make infomed choice on my budget

trusting retailers and buying what I thourght was safe.

Now i feel angry, upset and bit sick,
paranoid and worried about stuff.

will clear freezer what we have ,no horse burgers in there anyway and start organic from friday next payday.

Hoping I can trust waitrose and will vist local farm shop
investigating more veggie recipies.

I resent the implication that people who brought cheap desreved it as you said finest affected too.This makes me thik diffrences between finest, normal tesco and value and few and far between. its all a con.

We treated how we permit ourselves to be treated
uk will accept any old crap and get away with it.

Kirri

I never realised until I read it today that they used 'protein fillers' it gets worse!

A._Badger

I've avoided cheap processed meat products for a long while - but that doesn't mean I haven't consumed some. Mrs Badger and I go to a lot of summer fetes and so on and I'm afraid I'm a sucker for a barbecued burger. God alone knows what I've been eating!

Not any longer!

As gailey says, it's not (particularly) the fact that horse meat was in those burgers, it's the fact that we were, in effect, lied to and that the retailers either knew and didn't care or (possibly even worse) simply hadn't bothered to check what they were selling.

So much for EU traceability! All it seems to mean that after you've been poisoned or sold rubbish, eventually they will work out where it came from. Big deal.

VfM4meplse

Won't make any difference to me at all - will never renounce my vegetarianism.

viv0147

I will no longer be buying my meat from Supermarkets from now on I will buy my meat from a butcher I realise I may have to pay more. I am stopping doing the lottery because they are doubling the cost so money wasted on that will cover any extra cost of the meat

frugal_shopper_2

gailey wrote: »

It appears to be the protein filler thats contaminated not the meat.
I dident even realise they used fillers.

Blood plasma proteins are used to improve the product in a number of ways.
http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/28918/InTech-The_use_of_blood_and_derived_products_as_food_additives.pdf
There are ways such products can be used to mislead consumers hence the reason transglutaminase is banned in the EU however in the case of burgers plasma proteins can be quite beneficial.
If one burger was very fatty, shrank significantly when cooked & had a dry texture when cooked. Another had a lower fat content, retained its shape/size when cooked & had a moist texture when cooked which would you choose to buy? The latter would essentially just have a little bit of extra blood in it, the blood is just refined to separate the useful parts from the parts which impact on taste & colour.

Manufacturers of such protein products would include...
http://www.sonac.biz/en/sonac-markets-products/sonac-products/sonac-blood-products/

VoucherMan

Since I'm alive and healthy, suffering no known issues as a result of eating a variety of meat all my life it's definitely business as usual. So no to all 5 questions.

I don't have processed meat that often anyway, preferring joints, but I'll still have the occasional sausage, burger etc.

Not saying I'm happy with recent revelations but who knows how long it's been going on unnoticed?
I have to cross a busy road today. Buses use it. I may not survive to post on the forums tomorrow. (even though I've been crossing the road for over 10 years) On a worry/concern scale I've filed the latest meat issue somewhere below this.

I must admit I am thinking of having a look at one of the local butchers (again) but this is simply for a price comparison, nothing to do with quality.



As a confirmed Tesco hater I'm enjoying all the discomfort they're getting over this though

Celia

Well - I had been feeling quietly smug because I am vegetarian but now hear that some vegetarian burgers are being withdrawn from sale because they contain uniquorn

stephen77

I am not convinced local butchers are going to be any better. Some will be very good, some will not.
There have been a few cases where butchers have been in trouble by doing no good.

stephen77

Edwardia wrote: »

This whole thing makes me feel can we trust any of these supermarkets to give us what we are paying for. The pack I bought said pork loin steaks not 89% pork loin steaks. People bought burgers thinking they were meat plus breadcrumbs and fat. Maybe more offal than steak but meat nevertheless not untraceable horsemeat and animal protein fillers. I was particularly alarmed that Tesco Finest burgers were removed too. Were they not really Finest just burgers with less filler in them ??

It wasn't like this was one processor or one supermarket. Dalepak is a well known name. So does this mean their veggie burgers are made from veg peelings too?
?

If they added offal to the burger as part of the recipe they would have to declare this on the label. It would not be used towards the steak value.
eg steak & kidney product would be - steak (15%), Kidney (10%). Not steak (25%).

WIth out knowing the process. Finest burgers may have been made on the same line/ machinery thus traces of the value burger may have been present, thus could have ended up in the finest burger.

I thought the veggie peeling, bit beenth the skin was the most nutrient rich bit.:D