Swedish Horse Balls, South African Donkey burgers and Water Buffalo Sausage everywhere but the U.S.

[DonRedwood]

I must say, I'm becoming very suspicious....

England, Sweden, Ireland, England, South Africa, Europe, Africa... all those odd meats showing up in the "beef". South Africa today is reporting they are finding goat, water buffalo and donkey in their "all beef" burger and sausages. And now, just on MSNBC they are discussing the Swedish Horse Balls from IKEA. NOT in America, the news keep telling us. This is only effecting the rest of the world.

This is foreign beef. Not in America!!

But I am suspicious. How can it not be in America? Oh, unless the Republicans have continued to cut things like meat inspection.

I'm now wondering if, it IS happening in the US but we don't have anyone testing our meat.

How could horse accidently get into the Swedish meatballs shipped all over the world...except to America. They were sure not to put any horse in the horseballs that were being sent to the U.S.

Because, you know, greedy meat processors would lie to the rest of the world but they sure the heck wouldn't do such a thing to an American.

5 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Unlimited
	I believe in miracles. American beef is 100% pure beef.
	0 (0%)
	There is a slight chance greedy meat processors just maybe slipped up and accidently put a horse or two in your chimichanga.
	4 (80%)
	Shhhhhhh....I have my head down in the sand and I can't hear you over chewing my Swedish Horse Balls.
	0 (0%)
	Hey, my Big Mac tastes like Big Yak!
	0 (0%)
	I don't eat meat....so you disgusting mammal chompers deserve every goat and aardvark you accidently eat.
	1 (20%)
	Shut up Don Redwood and go feed your students their high quality all beef school lunch...cause, really, that's beef. Sort of.
	0 (0%)
	1 DU member did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[malaise]

1. You need one more option

I don't eat meat - gook luck horse eaters

[DonRedwood]

2. I don't eat meat was an option!!

[malaise]

3. Yep

I voted

[DonRedwood]

4. I only eat birds and fish

99.9% of the time. I had a steak for my birthday.

[malaise]

5. We only eat bird and seafood

If snapper kills, we're in deep trouble

[L0oniX]

6. In Australia instead of the "Whopper" they have the "Rooper"......

from Wiki:

The kangaroo has been historically a staple source of protein for indigenous Australians. Kangaroo meat is high in protein and low in fat (about 2%). Kangaroo meat has a very high concentration of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) when compared with other foods. CLA has been attributed with a wide range of health benefits including anti-carcinogenic and anti-diabetes properties, in addition to reducing obesity and atherosclerosis.[3][9][15]

Kangaroo meat is stronger in flavour than the meat from commercially-raised food animals. It is considered to be tender. Minced (or ground) kangaroo meat may be substituted in dishes where minced beef would normally be used.

Kangaroo meat was legalised for human consumption in South Australia in 1980, and in all other Australian states in 1993.[16] Kangaroo was once limited in availability, although consumption in Australia is becoming more widespread. However, only 14.5% of Australians were reported in 2008 as eating kangaroo meat at least four times per year.[17] Many Australian supermarkets now stock various cuts of kangaroo[3][18] including fillets, steaks, minced meat and 'kanga bangas' (kangaroo sausages). Some Australian restaurants serve kangaroo meat.[19]

Kangaroo meat has been exported since 1959.[17] Seventy percent of kangaroo meat is exported, particularly to the European market: Germany and France.[16] It is sold in supermarkets in England[18] and before a suspension on imports of kangaroo meat to Russia in 2009 it was widely used in Russian smallgoods.[20] In 2008, the industry is worth around A$250-270 million a year and provides around 4,000 jobs in Australia.[16][17]

The meat is also processed into dog food.[16] The small kangaroo farming community is a more environmentally friendly meat industry than sheep or cattle farming since kangaroos require no feed, are well-adapted to drought, and do not destroy the root systems of native grasses.[3] However kangaroo farming is economically unattractive due to the start up costs and inability of the farmed product to compete financially against animals that have been killed by hunters under the government quota system.[21]

[sir pball]

7. Missing "I don't really care" option

I've voluntarily and knowingly eaten quite a variety of meats (horse, African porcupine, bear, so forth) - as long as my burger is tasty and doesn't make me sick I really couldn't care less what's in it.

[MattBaggins]

19. It's like when people try to "inform" me of all the "parts" in sausage

I start salivating and moaning with pleasure.

[sir pball]

21. Scrapple and boudin noir are some of my favorite foods

Andouillete...not so much.

[RebelOne]

42. Do you know what scrapple is made from?

Scrapple, also known by the Pennsylvania Dutch name pon haus, is traditionally a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and wheat flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices. The mush is formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf, and slices of the scrapple are then panfried before serving. Scraps of meat left over from butchering, not used or sold elsewhere, were made into scrapple to avoid waste.

[sir pball]

44. "scraps" is a euphemism

The proper way to do it is to boil the head, organs, and butchered carcass for a few hours to make a delicious broth, then strain it and pick what you can off the parts..meat, tenderized gristle, ears, nose, tail, you waste nothing. Then use the broth to make grits, mix in the finely minced meat and seasonings, pour into a pan and chill. Slice, dredge in flour, sear until crispy and drizzle with real maple syrup...mmmmmmm! We did this more than once during butchery class in culinary school.

Boudin noir is far worse...blood, fat and herbs poured into intestines, tied off and simmered till coagulated. Slice, fry and serve with a poached egg, grain mustard and bread...there is a God.

[X_Digger]

26. +1

I grew up on ground hog, venison, squirrel, and wild turkey. I've also eaten ostrich, zebra, horse, frog, bear (blech), caribou, moose, antelope, rattlesnake, alligator, nutria, and rat.



eta: and lamb, goat, camel..

[Warpy]

29. I'm used to seeing non standard meats in international groceries

and blew all my fuses over those. There is all sort of frozen critter out there in US markets and the stipulation is that it has to be labeled correctly.

Now about those meatballs: it would make more sense to have a kitchen set up in the US using meat from US providers instead of European, the other ingredients coming from Europe. European providers were the ones caught red hoofed.

That isn't to say an unscrupulous jobber here and there doesn't have burger that whinnies. It means the main slaughterhouses where living animals go in through one gate and leave at the other end as packaged steaks and burgers use the critters they're set up to slaughter and butcher. The line moves fast enough that slipping an occasional horse in there would be dangerous to both equipment and workers and the last thing they want is for the disassembly line to stop.

[sir pball]

34. More or less what I think

Horse is officially in the food supply chain in Europe so it's a lot easier to sneak it into the beef if you have a load of it that isn't selling or whatever...here you'd have to divert it from the pet food industry which I pretty much can't see happening.

And yes, IKEA frozen meatballs are US produced according to the bag in my freezer. I hear in Switzerland they sell reindeer viande sechee..

[Arkana]

8. Mmmmm...goat and aardvark.

*Homer Simpson drool*

[Gorp]

9. Then there are Jack-N-The-Box kangaroo tacos.

[Puzzledtraveller]

10. Call it Equine and people will want to try it.

Sounds French and savvy, Chez Equine 5 Stars!!!

[Warpy]

30. Ragout du cheval?

Are you kidding? Gourmands would flock to it and expect the lower classes to drool with envy.

[The Straight Story]

11. My choice: Media Moguls have a lot of stock in meat companies

Are selling it, then will short it and report it.

[DonRedwood]

24. ah....now that is a real possibility

[Recursion]

12. I've worked in the meat industry. We have far and away the best food inspection regime in the world

It's been whittled away at, yes, but I still trust the quality of American meats over basically anywhere else (though I prefer non-aged beef). The meat industry has a lot of problems, but our meat inspection system is very, very good.

Even hot dogs: if they say all-beef, they are in fact all beef. No lips, no assholes. Just beef.

[MattBaggins]

20. All beef hotdogs are an affront to the sausage gods

hotdogs are supposed to have pork and be made from lips and assholes.

[RebelOne]

43. I am a vegetarian, but when I was a meat eater

and found out what was in hot dogs, i never ate them again.

[DonRedwood]

25. cows have lips and butts.

[tarheelsunc]

13. I'm just not going to think about it. If it tastes good, it tastes good. Ignorance is bliss. eom

[wandy]

14. If labeled as such, could horse be worse than mutton? nt

[JI7]

15. does it matter as long as it tastes good ?

but seriously i think it's just because we might be more strict when it comes to food .

and we really should use this issue as an example of Govt being good .

[hobbit709]

16. Water buffalo is a bovine

[bluestate10]

17. I don't eat processed meat or processed meat dishes. I buy, examine all meat that

I eat and I grind meat for burgers when I have burgers, and when I do eat burgers, they are turkey burgers. I don't buy strange shaped meat or meat that has a color other than what I expect of fresh meat.

[antigone382]

18. Edit this poll.

Goat is delicious. No seriously; try it some time.


Otherwise I refuse to participate.

[Silent3]

22. Perhaps "guest" meat might be less frequent here because some of those non-beef meats...

...like horse are more commonly available, labeled as what they really are, in other regions, this more readily and cheaply available as substitutes.

It might make US beef cost more, not less, to put horse in it.

It's a silly question to ask yes, does this happen here in the US, or no, does it not. It's going to be a matter of how commonly and in what quantity you get meat other than what you were expecting.

It's not out of the question, however, that we may indeed inspect meat better than they do in other countries, or that other regional conditions make it using substitutes for beef less viable as a cost-cutting measure.

[Enrique]

23. honey badger chalupas

[southernyankeebelle]

27. Well I have to say I ate horse meat when I visited my cousin in Italy. It was way back

years ago but I remember it was delicious. We just aren't use to having horse meat.

[Cleita]

28. Makes me long for the days, when I lived in South America.

I used to think it was gross when we went to the butcher. The dead and skinned animals were hanging there. My mother would tell the butcher which cuts she wanted off the steer, sheep or pig carcass. We took our chickens and rabbits home live and the cook dispensed with them, swiftly and efficiently. The fish were whole and carved and gutted right in front of us. I always hated being that close to my food, but now I am beginning to appreciate the fact that at least I knew what I really was eating.

[OriginalGeek]

31. Not sure what this says about me

I voted "I believe..."

but the vegetarian option made me laugh out loud.

[Trailrider1951]

32. I don't want to vote the vegetarian choice

Because I really don't want to call my carnivorous friends "disgusting mammal chompers ".

This is one of the reasons I eat only veggies (some from my garden), eggs from my daughter's hen house, cheese from identifiable sources (Tillamook), and will not buy anything that is "mechanically separated". And now we cannot expect that label on the thing to tell us what is REALLY in there. Man, I don't even want to go there......

What we are witnessing is the triumph of the ideal that says that the individual's monetary and other profit is the only consideration, and the spectacle of the wholesale destruction of the rule of law in this country...otherwise none of this makes any sense. When did the mafia take over my country?

[backscatter712]

33. How about some Hungarian-style Lofasz?

For all you know, that's ending up in your pink-slime-burgers...

[Historic NY]

35. What about all the exotics we do eat here?

antelope, ostrich, buffolo, bison, alligator, snake, squirrels, rabbit, nutria, bear, deer, possum, etc.....

[pansypoo53219]

37. you need to try a southern wild game dinner.

ostrich is good for you i hear.

[Historic NY]

39. They make a omelets for a whole family.

[pansypoo53219]

36. no giraffe?

[Honeycombe8]

38. I'm not gonna worry about it. I gave up red meat about 18 yrs ago. Lbp, normal cholesterol,

perfect blood work, no red meat puts me in a lower cancer risk category, etc. Lots of good things happened, when I gave up the red stuff.

In fact, the goat meat, I would guess, is healthier than beef. I wouldn't kill a goat, though.

[Historic NY]

40. I'm into lamb..

out local farm market makes lamb burgers with rosemary & garlic..lots of garlic.

I love them not well or they are dry...with a bit of mint sauce.

[struggle4progress]

41. >>>> we don't have anyone testing our meat <<<<

[Generic Brad]

45. We have the USDA protecting us

At least we do until the sequester cuts their funding.