Horse meat: Would Peter Boddy please feed a burger to Cordelia Gummer?
THE horse meat story has resulted in arrests. Peter Boddy, 63, of Peter Boddy Slaughterhouse in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, has been arrested on suspicion of fraud. The man whose factory takes in horses fatally injured at Aintree racecourse – venue of the Grand National – is accused by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) of providing horse meat for British kebabs and burgers.
A racecourse spokesman has gone on the record:
“We are as confident as we possibly can be that no unfit meat ever reaches human food.”
So. Not confident at all, then.
We await that magic moment when a racecourse owner dandles a jockey on his knee and encourages him to eat a burger. If John Gummer’s not too busy, perhaps he could reprise the role that made he and his then four-year-old daughter Cordelia famous. At the height of the BSE “mad cow” scandal in May 6 1990, Gummer, the Agriculture Minister, took Cordelia to a boat show in Suffolk Cordelia and encouraged her to eat a burger.
In all 32 people had died of CJD, the human from of BSE. Cordelia lived.
In other developments, Dafydd Raw-Rees, 64, owner of the Farmbox Meats processing plant in Aberystwyth, and another man aged 42 have also been arrested on suspicion of fraud.
Andrew Rhodes, the FSA’s director of operations, suspended work at both plants, saying: “I was shocked to uncover what appears to be a blatant misleading of consumers.”
Fears are that veterinary drug phenylbutazone, also known as bute, has entered the food chain.
Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer assures us:
“If you ate 100 per cent horse burgers of 250g, you would have to eat, in one day, more than 500 or 600 to get to a human dose.”
Which, of course, is why the stuff is banned…
Posted: 15th, February 2013 | In: Reviews, The Consumer Comments (4) | TrackBack | Permalink
