Monday, 11 February 2013

Quick notes on the horse meat scandal

Woke up today to snow and another great rant from Ermine of Simple Living in Suffolk.

Mr Ed - one of the greatest horses ever. He wouldn't put up
with this crap.
Thought I'd jot down my notes about this before it all gets consigned to history like previous food related tragedies, BSE and Foot & Mouth.

1. Like Ermine, I'm astonished we can't tell the difference between Horse and Beef any more. Have our taste buds become so eroded over time that all food tastes the same? Or is processed food just full of so much water, fat, sugar, and salt that it all is essentially the same and the 'product' is just the bulk now.

2. Where are all these horses that are being killed? There are bugger all horses hanging out in fields, so where are they hiding?

3. Man's capacity to do ill to one another never ceases to amaze me. Why would anyone kill a horse, drop it into a beef abbatoir, and then pretend it is beef?

What else would such a person do? Would they drop rats, squirrels, badgers, dogs, cats, etc. in? Of course they would. Would they then move on and use scrapings from the floor to fill up the required quantity? Yep, almost certainly. Processed food has real problems.

4. The willingness of corporations to lie to the general public about what their product is or contains is frankly mind-boggling. Behind every faceless corporation that releases a PR statement are real people. Real people who go home at night to their families and have to look at them and genuinely try to feel good about themselves. How do people sleep at night?

5. We will never stop corporations doing bad things to the general public in pursuit of greater profits until criminal cases are brought against individuals. Fines against companies are useless. If they are a huge company they just pay the fine. If they are tiny they go under and no-one gets the money. The threat of a long prison time would (I hope) certainly help in making people think twice before they lie, swindle, cheat, or manipulate.

Lastly, there have been a number of really good jokes on the subject but as this is mostly a finance / investing site, then I've selected one that ties in with that. Nice one Paul Lewis.

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