Would you eat horsemeat?  A lot of people would not. Should you have the right to know if the meat you are eating contains horsemeat?  The answer to that question is a resounding yes – and that’s why the current scandal in Europe over horsemeat reveals a lot about the push to get better labels on the food we eat.

If you don’t want to eat horse – why? What is the problem?  If you eat meat, then why not horse? After all, many people around the world do eat it. Horse is on the menu or in the kitchen in many nations including Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, Tonga, Iceland, Germany, Sweden and Holland. So whatever you think about eating horse, it isn’t safety that makes you disgusted at the very idea. 

Still, Europe is in the midst of a huge scandal involving horsemeat showing up in a lot of the wrong places. Testing has revealed that much of what has been sold as beef or pork in restaurants, schools and hospitals as well as in frozen meat products in grocery stores such as lasagna contains horsemeat.  Even the furniture giant Ikea had traces of horsemeat found in the meatballs they were selling in their restaurant stores in some parts of Europe.

Why is the discovery of horse meat in food such a big deal?  What is so troubling to Europeans that there have been protests and outrage against food companies in many nations where mislabeled meat has been found?  To understand the furor generated by consumers finding out there is horse in there you need to look elsewhere.  The South Philadelphia restaurant Monsu provides a clue.

The head chef of BYOB Monsu announced last week that the restaurant's menu would soon include some selections of the equine variety. But the day after announcing horse was going on the menu, the restaurant received a serious threat. “They called into the restaurant and said, ‘You guys start cooking horses, I am going to blow up your restaurant,’” Andrews said to NBC10.com.  Clearly, some folks feel very strongly that horses belong in a paddock, not a plate.

Food is much more than safety, and it is much more than nutrition – we see this  when we get into fights about labeling genetically modified food, or requiring that meat from cloned animals be clearly marked or that organic food really be organic to merit the description the European scandal over horse meat.  Food is culture.  Food is family.  Food, in short, is values.

Those who get into fights about labeling food thinking it is just an issue of safety never tried to put horse on the menu in South Philadelphia or deal with an outraged customer in England whose beef stew was more than that.  The ethical and policy lesson for regulators, industry and farmers of putting horse meat where it is not supposed to be is very simple--when it comes to food we should be able to find out anything and everything we want to know about what we eat.  To do otherwise is to deny informed choice about a subject -- food -- that is too complicated to permit any other standard.

Related: 

Horse meat found in Ikea meatballs, Czech officials say

By Charlie Dunmore and Adrian Croft
Reuters
The European Commission has proposed increased DNA testing of meat products to assess the scale of a scandal involving horsemeat sold as beef that has shocked the public and raised concern over the continent's food supply chains.

"The tests will be on DNA in meat products in all member states," European Union Health Commissioner Tonio Borg told reporters after a ministerial meeting in Brussels to discuss the affair.

The initial one-month testing plan would include premises handling horsemeat to check whether potentially harmful equine medicine residues have entered the food chain, Borg said, with the first results expected by mid-April.

The scandal erupted when tests carried out in Ireland revealed that meat in products labeled as beef was in fact up to 100 percent horsemeat. Operators in at least eight EU countries have since been dragged into the affair, raising fears of a pan-European labeling fraud.

Officials have said no risk to public health from the adulterated foods has been identified at this stage but testing for horse medicine in meat is being undertaken to be sure.

The suspected fraud has caused particular outrage in Britain, where many view the idea of eating horsemeat with distaste, and exposed flaws in food controls.

"This is impacting on the integrity of the food chain, which is a really significant issue for a lot of countries. Now that we know this is a European problem, we need a European solution," Irish farm minister Simon Coveney told reporters before the meeting.

At the urging of ministers, Borg said the Commission would accelerate work on potential changes to EU labeling rules that would force companies to state the country of origin on processed meat products.

Currently the requirement only applies to fresh beef, and is expected to be extended to fresh lamb, pork and poultry from December 2014.

But EU officials have warned privately that the complexity of supply chains would make the requirement almost impossible to implement in practice.

EU and national authorities are still trying to uncover the source of the suspected horsemeat fraud.

"All those countries through which this meat product has passed of course are under suspicion," Borg told a news briefing earlier on Wednesday. "By the countries, I mean the companies in those countries which dealt with this meat product."

He added that it would be unfair at this stage to point the finger at any organization in particular.

Not just horse?
On January 15, routine tests by Ireland's Food Safety Authority found horsemeat in frozen beef burgers produced by firms in Ireland and Britain and sold in supermarket chains including Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer.

Concerns grew last week when the British unit of frozen foods group Findus began recalling packets of beef lasagna on advice from its French supplier Comigel, after tests showed up to 100 percent of the meat in them was horse.

The affair has since implicated operators and middlemen in a range of EU countries, from abattoirs in Romania and factories in Luxembourg to traders in Cyprus and food companies in France.

German supermarket chain Real, part of the world's fourth largest retailer Metro, said tests revealed traces of horsemeat in frozen lasagna on Wednesday. Real, which operates more than 300 stores across Europe's largest economy, said it had already removed the ready-meal from its shelves on Friday.

The first evidence that the labeling scandal could go beyond horsemeat also emerged when the upmarket British grocer Waitrose said its testing found that some of its frozen British beef meatballs might contain pork.
The firm, part of the John Lewis Partnership, has withdrawn the product from sale.

Horsemeat is traditionally prized by many consumers in EU countries such as France, Italy and Belgium.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Lewis in Brussels, Maria Golovnina and Victoria Bryan in London, Alexandra Hudson in Berlin; Editing by Mark Heinrich)