Post Horse-burger-gate.

I'm writing this blog post, post Horse-Burger-Gate, which as you are all aware from the incredible amount of press coverage, quickly spread past the original TESCO shame and into a general pervasive infiltration of our food sources.

It was generally agreed that it wasn't so much the fact that many thousands of people had unwittingly eaten horse meat, (after all it is a very viable source of protein) but that we had lied to. We had been fooled into thinking we were eating one thing and yet our food was full of something else - and what if it wasn't just beef mince? What if it extended to all of our processed foods?

Initially, I sat quite smugly thinking I would be unaffected by the scandal but then I opened my fridge and looked at the Chirizo sitting there innocently - How could I be sure that it didn't contain horse, donkey, dog or any other animal of cheap choice? Or what about my fresh carton of mince meat - yes it looked like beef but then it could be any pink meat, couldn't it? And so it went on until I was rendered a  hesitating, nervous mess of a fridge raider and I ended up holding onto an organic carrot like it was a life raft on a sinking ship.

You see, as a nation we have largely abdicated responsibility for what goes into ours and our childrens' bellies. I am as guilty as the rest; there is no point hiding the Waitrose and Tesco finest lasagne's that have been in my freezer for those odd occasions when we've been travelling or working late. We have wanted to have our big chunky burger and eat it, and now we are paying the price.

The consumer has forced the price of food down and down until the supermarkets have been forced to seek lower and lower grade meat in order to make a profit. (Not that I'm blaming the consumer individually) It has become a cultural norm to eat 'meat' everyday - we are still a classic meat and two veg nation whether that is in the guise of a crispy beef pancake, chips and baked beans or pork chop, carrots and mash - regardless, that three part meal habit refuses to die.

So what have we learned (or more to the point, what cynical suspicions we had all along have been confirmed?)

• Large supermarkets cannot be trusted: they may pretend to offer us a lifestyle choice, support our family way of life and promote the nourishment of our bodies but they're all about profit - and the bigger they get, the more they crave. They'd sell your granny if they thought they'd make a quick buck. 
• If you WANT TO REALLY KNOW what is in your food, then MAKE IT YOURSELF. 
• If you want to afford quality meat, then eat more vegetables - not every meal needs to have meat as it's main attraction. (Eating vegetarian meals WILL NOT KILL a CARNIVORE)
• If it's made in a factory then it's likely to be factory food - which means it's been fiddled with, conveyer belted, machine processed and possibly had all kinds of things added.

Only this week, The Daily Mail have run an article on the disgusting practice of Prawn Farming in Asia, something that food campaigners tried to raise as a concern several years ago, along with farmed salmon and sea-bass. 

None of this is new to any of us, we're probably all sick to death of hearing it from the likes of Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fernley-Wittingstal but as annoying as they may at times be (bless 'em) they've been proved right.