Dear All
Do you remember the movie Soylent Green?
It starred Charlton Heston and, in his
final film, Edward G. Robinson. It is a classic movie of the 1970’s.
In the movie, the Earth is dying and into
the food chain goes ‘food’ that the people think is the new wonder food
product, the truth is more sinister.
It was people!
However in 2013, we aren’t quite there yet,
instead of harvesting the dead to make a tasty morsel, we are now getting horsemeat
instead of cattle.
And the horsemeat scandal is big, the
security of the food is a concern that all governments cannot ignore for its
population’s safety.
The latest piece of news from the fallout
is that products from a Glasgow food factory have been implicated.
Waitrose announced on Tuesday it had
withdrawn its beef Essential British Frozen Meatballs after pork was found in
two batches.
It seems until this situation is sorted
out, then the public will stop buying meat products or shop in local butchers.
A Waitrose spokesman said:
“Several tests have been done on this
product and, even though the results have been contradictory, we have taken the
precautionary action of removing the frozen meatballs from sale and putting up
customer information notices in all our branches.”
Putting a brave face on it, when more clarity
is called for, right across the board!
And we are seeing Police not only
investigating but actually carrying out raids; it seems that concerns have been
raised of possible criminality on the part of others involved in supplying meat
products.
Meanwhile down south, Conservative Environment
Secretary Owen Paterson will fly to Brussels today for a horse meat summit.
Presumably not on Pegasus, the winged horse
of legend.
He is probably been processed in a pie
somewhere and sitting in your local supermarket.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) clearly
needs more resources and a more proactive role in the food industry.
They have accompanied police swooped on a
slaughterhouse and a meat manufacturer after apparently uncovering "a
blatant misleading of consumers".
Looks like a trial is in the offing for
some people!
Peter Boddy slaughterhouse in Todmorden,
West Yorkshire, and meat processing plant Farmbox Meats at Llandre in
Aberystwyth, West Wales are under investigation and have had records seized.
At present they are temporarily shut down
pending the outcome of investigations into claims they supplied and used horse
carcasses in burgers and kebabs.
Andrew Rhodes, FSA director of operations,
said:
"I ordered an audit of all horse
producing abattoirs in the UK after this issue first arose last month and I was
shocked to uncover what appears to be a blatant misleading of consumers. I have
suspended both plants immediately while our investigations continue."
David Cameron has now promised that anyone
involved in passing off horsemeat as beef will face the full force of the law, ,
seems fine as far as that goes, but didn’t the FSA pick up on these practices
much sooner, why wasn’t the right measures in place?
We know at present the system failed us,
question is why?
Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said:
"This is absolutely shocking. It's
totally unacceptable if any business in the UK is defrauding the public by
passing off horse meat as beef. I expect the full force of the law to be
brought down on anyone involved in this kind of activity."
And that should involved prison and seizure
of assets, these people benefited through deception; therefore they should pay
a heavy forfeit.
What we are finding at present, is that no
one is sure quite how deep this goes, who is involved and when did this start.
The food chain for beef products is
tainted, many supermarkets will lose business from customers and if there is
anything good to say, it is that local butcher’s should benefit.
In the movie Soylent Green was people,
today it’s horsemeat and who knows what!
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow
University
No comments:
Post a Comment