They're Off!

The horse meat scandal continues to rumble on with the revelation that UK horse carcasses containing the banned pain treatment 'bute' may have entered the food chain in France (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/14/horsemeat-scandal-bute-food-chain?INTCMP=SRCH). The whole exercise now seems like a game of 'pass the parcel' with governments, agencies, supermarket chains, meat processing plants and abattoirs all dashing to blame other countries and their meat-producing activities. Perhaps the basic conclusion is that the drive to generate cheap food (when you are basically dealing with an expensive ingredient like 'beef') has gone too far. If it is cheap, it's possibly compromised. The sad thing (as has been said repeatedly) is that it is the poor who are likely to suffer most.