Horse Meat Found in Beef: ’Ugly Enterprise Is Trying to Trick Mexican Vendors and Consumers’ Horsetalk
go to original November 1, 2017

The head of the Humane Society of the United States says it is time the horse meat trade was banned across all of North America, after an investigation in Mexico found that 10 percent of tested beef products contained equine protein.

The society’s president and chief executive, Wayne Pacelle, was commenting on a final report released by the Laboratory of Meat Science at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Francisco Ruíz López and his colleagues carried out a brief market survey of horsemeat and a blind horse-DNA testing in meat in Mexico. The research covered six Mexican cities – Aguascalientes, Zacatecas, Chihuahua, Mexico City, Pachuca, and San Vicente Chicoloapan.

Their investigations, carried out last year, extended to butcher shops, supermarkets, permanent street markets, mobile street markets, and others, with four types of meat samples obtained – ground meat, regular tacos, crispy tacos, and thin steaks (bistec), both unlabeled or labeled as beef.

The first part of the study, commissioned by the Humane Society International, involved questioning 339 industry-related personnel. The researchers found that more than 80% of respondents did not wish to sell horse meat and they did not know any horse-meat suppliers.

However, that did not stop horse meat entering the food chain. Results of DNA testing of the 433 samples collected showed that 9.93% of them sold in the different outlets were positive for horse meat - that’s 43 samples.

Mexico City, Chihuahua, and Pachuca had around 12% of positive samples, while Aguascalientes had 11% and Zacatecas had 7%.

Ground meat was the sample type with the highest percentage of positive samples, with 42% containing horse meat.

... Pacelle, in his blog A Humane Nation, said while Mexico was forging ahead on several fronts with animal protection, the slaughter of horses for human consumption remained an area of abuse.

Read the rest at Horsetalk

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