I have just been watching the news and all the furore over horse meat in food from Findus, Tesco and Aldi, and I just had to write this. It’s outrageous for lots of reasons, one of the main ones being that if I wanted to eat horse meat I would buy horse meat. If I buy something that is labelled as beef lasagne then I expect it to be beef – otherwise the product is lying yes?

And now according to the news on ITV, the government cannot guarantee that horse meat hasn’t gone into school dinners and hospital food. I wonder how the people who have eaten it would feel about that if they knew? I know for a fact, without even asking her, how Dot would feel.

Are you saying oh well, horse meat is still meat, it won’t harm and lots of people in the world eat it. I know. But are you sure it won’t harm?

Where has this horse meat come from? Again the news on ITV has just spoken about a criminal conspiracy being to blame. Take it further and think where the horses come from? I’m sure horses destined for the food chain are safe to eat, but can I enlighten you as to what happens with horses, pet horses who aren’t supposed to end up in the food chain?

When they are ill the vet prescribes drugs for them and of course we, as devoted owners, are over the moon to have them. When my darling horse John was ill last year he had to have several horse medicines to help him in his battle to get well. On giving me these my vet asked for his horse passport so he could write in there that John was not to end up in the food chain. Horses are big animals and horse drugs are powerful. Even the horse painkiller that I guess most owners use, bute, packs one helluva punch – it has to if it’s going to stop pain in the horse. A couple of paracetamol just aren’t going to cut it with an animal that, in John’s case, weighed getting on for three quarters of a tonne. 

So are you sure the horse meat is safe? I heard that bute had been found in some of the samples tested. I don’t know if that’s right but I wouldn’t be surprised.

I know that some horses are bred for meat – and I’m sure the people that farm them are careful about what, if any, drugs these meat horses are given. But what we’re talking about here isn’t legit, if it was it would be labelled as horse meat and not passed off as beef yes? See where I’m going with this? 

Perhaps I’m way off base with this next thought: I heard on the news that the horse meat in question came from France and Ireland. I don’t know about France but it’s well known that there has been a big problem in Ireland with horses being abandoned due to the awful recession that means owners can’t afford to keep them... sorry, I can’t help thinking it. I’m not talking about owners here, but as ITV news put it, criminal conspiracies.

So to sum up, I say to those people who think that the fuss about horse meat is no big deal, those people who think meat is meat no matter what kind it is…. are you sure?