I guess no one has missed the big brouhaha about horsemeat in readymade dishes from Findus. I have not followed it very much, since I do not ever buy such products.

There are many issues converging in this. It has been mentioned that some horses are medicated with stuff that makes their meat unhealthy for human consumption. That was news to me. That is a question of how horses are treated and of food security.

It has also been pointed out the insane transportation of live animals AND of the frozen meats across Europe. That is not news. It is not often mentioned in mainstream media, but it is a sick situation, even if one has no qualms about eating meat per se. The industralization of food production results in a disgusting and abusive culture and economy. That is also a question about animal welfare, environment and human health.

The consumer also has the right to know what is in the food we buy and how it was produced. Most people buy their food stuffs, and produce very little of their own. The big food industry fights against our rights over and over again. We want to know what the stuff we pay for contains. We want to know about the stuff we consume with our bodies. Any food producer that don't want to tell us is creepy. Why should we buy food from creeps?

I am not a vegetarian, but a meat eater cannot avoid to think about how food is produced. Should not avoid to consider its production and distribution.

I conciously wrote "brouhaha" in the first sentence, not because the issues are trivial nor that it is not a scandal. I wrote it because the biggest rage seem to be that people are angry they were served horsemeat. False tables of contents is a bad thing, but eating horsemeat is not. Unless one does not eat any meat. But the rage seems to come mostly from meateaters. In general, horsemeat is less industralized than cow. Horses are usually not locked up in factories, not bread to produce milk in enormous quantities with the help of industralized food stuffs, until they are worn out. Not to speak of pigs and poultry. So in general, horsemeat is probably better meat than the others mentioned. Now, we can't start replace other meat with horse and wild meats. Thas just not ecologically possible, with the size of the world's population. We should just eat less meat, and really try to buy food that are produced in good ways, with a lot less transport than now. Much food is just thrown away.

Ready made dishes are mainly expensive crap.