Source: By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent for The Telegraph
PARENTS of children at an Edinburgh primary school have reacted angrily after a batch of frozen mince was found to contain between one and five per cent horse meat.
Six schools received the same batch of mince, and it is not yet known whether it was served to pupils.
The city council confirmed the discovery after testing meat taken last month from the shared kitchen of Pirniehall and St David’s primary schools.
The contaminated product was also supplied to Oxgangs and Craigroyston primaries and Braidburn and Forthview secondaries.
A letter has been sent to parents of pupils at each of the schools, advising them of the test results and reassuring them that there was “no risk to health from consuming horse meat”.
Cllr Cathy Fullerton, vice convener of education, said: “It’s very important to emphasise that there is no risk whatsoever to people’s health from consuming horse meat, but obviously we all want to be certain that we know exactly what we are eating.
“This is why the council chose to seek extra assurance that our external suppliers were not providing any products containing horsemeat by carrying out our own testing.
“Parents can be reassured that we have taken absolutely the correct course of action in immediately making sure there is none of this frozen mince remaining in school kitchens.”
Food at the schools is procured by a public-private partnership (PPP) contractor, which sourced the mince form the food wholesaler 3663. It recalled all batches of the product on March 8.
One parent of a child at the Pirniehall and St David’s campus said schools must know where their meat was coming from.
Aga Perkins, 30, who is self employed, added: “I think it’s disgusting and I’m certainly going to be speaking to someone about this.
“I know this is a nationwide problem but schools must know where the food is coming from, they can’t just blame suppliers.”
Leila Fawcus, 35, a council worker, added: “This makes me so glad my girls have always had a packed lunch.
“It’s disappointing because the schools always said they hadn’t been affected. I don’t think people will lose trust in the council though, as it’s the suppliers.”
Les Vernon, 30, said the schools had been “straight about it”, adding: “It’s probably been going on for years and it falls back to the government.”
Claire Baker, Labour’s rural affairs spokesman, said the SNP held a “hastily convened” summit on school meals recently but there had been no action since.
She added: “The Scottish Government must take action to ensure school meals are balanced in a fairer way than the current weighting that sees price valued three times more than quality.
“Rather than have an open and honest debate over this scandal, the Cabinet Secretary (Richard Lochhead) is presiding over a growing food crisis that he is failing to control.”
Alison Johnstone, the Green MSP, said the revelation would worry parents and proved the need for greater investment and increased traceability in publicly-procured meals.
“The council’s website claims that it uses local suppliers for meat, so it is extremely important we are told what has gone wrong,” she added.
“I have real concerns about the way our schools have moved away from real meals cooked in proper kitchens to ready meals heated up in microwaves.
“It’s also hard to have confidence when the many of our schools are supplied by massive companies who describe themselves as strategic outsourcing providers rather than caterers, and whose main motive is profit.”
The council has been carrying out tests on meat products supplied to schools, residential homes and other local authority establishments since February 14 under the direction of the Food Standards Agency as part of its UK-wide survey.
A spokesman said all but one of the 85 samples tested so far were negative. Last month, traces of horse DNA were found in a frozen burger in a school kitchen in North Lanarkshire.
Click (HERE) to comment at The Telegraph
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Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
I did comment – seems many people consider this a joke!
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Did I just read Cathy Fullerton state ” It’s no risk whatsoever to peoples’ health consuming horse meat”. Oh My God…this person works in the school system!! She had better do her homework and read the factual reports about what horse meat is contaminated with!!
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Those parents need to be proactive to keep their children safe from toxins that may result in cancers many years after they were fed adulterated food. They should have legal representation for their group. They are clearly being lied to by school officials – either by sheer ignorance or by deviousness.
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Here in New Mexico we are fighting tooth and nail to keep Valley Meats from opening. Not a one of our elected officials has spoken out openly against horse slaughter althought all of them claim that they are opposed. We need all the help we can get. Please visit our facebooo page, New Mexico Against Horse Slaughter https://www.facebook.com/NewMexicoAgainstHorseSlaughter?fref=ts
and sign our petitions. And bring your friends with you. We’d appreciat a shout out to our Governor who seems to be deaf to our pleas, and our media is obviously controlled by the Cattle Industry.
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Sorry to say this but when those kids end up sick–I’ll be laughing at Governor Fallin telling her WE TOLD YOU SO! Next I’ll be crying along with those parents. It’s a bittersweet moment.
No one wants to see those kids get sick–least of all me. I’d be horrified if told my kid had eaten horse. What a freaking mess. In another VERY SICK and sad way–at least it might stop slaughter.
Well on Mon when I get more money I’m ordering my TVP, taco and sausage.
Thankfully people here have gently encouraged me and prodded me. No ones ever bashed me or said what a terrible person I am for eating me. No I still use fleece and wool socks. But if I can cut down on the amount of damage I do then I will be a success.
My sister asked me yesterday what the difference was between eating cow and horse. It was dynamite. We’ve never had that discussion before. Which part did I hate–the drugs or the slaughter? I said the whole thing.
But I have a question regarding ORGANIC MEATS. If someone raises a chicken organically all of that can go to hades by the chicken being mixed with other chickens. So how come organic is better. Or do they only slaughter organic chickens–so as to keep the meat cleaner…
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Ok-so brainwashing still exists and obviously this Fight is NOT over, WE are still standing for the rights of the horses. If you look up killer buyers who are notoriously abusive Oklahoma’s finest is on the top of the list-right now an open investigation by PETA is in process regarding killers buyers in Texas and Oklahoma. Also, I have been wondering how would Gov Fallin actually think this is better for the horses, but I don’t really have to ask. When you are not a horse person actively in the horse world and out and about traveling the states you wouldn’t know, so we can’t fault a desk rider for having no knowledge. Also we have to push non-stop to get the SAFE Act passed-its our only protection that’s intelligent enough to protect the world. Its also the one thing that will stomp out Sue Wallis and her push to eradicate wild horses. I have never seen someone so driven to kill, makes me wonder if it wasn’t horses, what would she do to anyone else. I also want to add to this story-1981 USDA report that states during 1981, an incident involving the importation of mislabeled and adulterated meat from Australia (entered US) resulted in FSIS detaining and sampling nearly 66 millions pounds of boneless beef from the that country. Shipments labeled beef were found to contain horse meat and kangaroo meat. The problem was traced to plants in the State of Victoria, and the most of the product has been cleared and allowed to enter the US commercial channels. You can view the document online in its entirety. So if its this easy to ship meat to US and has to be caught, then how easy would it be to switch it once its here? So if Governor Fallin believes she is different and her state will not have an issue doing this, that’s not possible. She believes she will have THE ONE slaughter house that will be different????? Dear God, please hear our pleas, when people feel that old, and sick horses need to die instead of be cared for, we are in need of divine intervention. And that leads to another issue if you read this USDA report you will notice that is states very clearly they cannot use animals sick, ill, aged, or drugged even with antibiotics.
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This is too wide spread and way too deep to be a newly developed conspiracy. This has to have been going on for many many years. With all the countries, business’, and processors involved this is not only an old standard but one in which all parties knew what was going on and were complicit. Talk about racketeering!
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If horse meat is so ‘popular’ in Europe, why are ‘sources’ getting rid of it through the ‘mystery meat’ method?
Could it be all these asshats thought profiting off the ‘unwanted horse’ isn’t as profitable since no one wants to frickin’ eat it?
All those dead and dismembered horses – and no where to put them.
Incidentally – where does Oklahoma figure they’ll be selling horse meat – that guy in New Mexico? No one wants American horse meat any more than we want them slaughtered; hell, after all these food scandals coming from across the Pond, seems like NO ONE wants to eat horse meat!
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Lisa,
Excellent points….guess the demand for horsefleah is dwindling and the high end price value must be not be so high if producers are mixing it in with other meat products as “extenders”.
3 more bricks in the antislaughter wall!
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