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Subscribe to RSSCzech Republic officials say traces of horse meat were discovered in frozen packages of meatballs sent to their country for sale at furniture giant Ikea. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
Traces of horse have been found in meatballs labeled as beef and pork for Swedish global furniture giant Ikea, according to authorities in the Czech Republic.
The horse meat was found in one-kilogram packs of frozen meat balls made in Sweden and shipped to the Czech Republic for sale in Ikea stores there, the Czech State Veterinary Administration said.
It is the latest discovery in a deepening scandal over the discovery of horse meat in ready meals sold as beef in supermarkets in Ireland, the UK and other European countries.
Markus Schreiber / AP, file
Ikea furniture stores also sell typical Swedish food.
A total of 1,675 pounds of the meatballs were stopped from reaching the shelves.
Ikea's furniture stores feature restaurants and also sell food typical of the company's home country, including the so-called Kottbullar meat balls.
It was not immediately clear whether Ikea exported the same product to other countries. Calls seeking comment from Ikea in Sweden were not immediately returned Monday.
The Czech authority also found horse meat in beef burgers imported from Poland during random tests of food products.
Authorities across Europe have started doing random DNA checks after traces of horse meat turned up in frozen supermarket meals such as burgers and lasagna beginning last month.
The European Union's agriculture ministers gathered in Brussels Monday to discuss the widening scandal's fallout, with some member states pressing for tougher rules to regain consumer confidence.
The 27-nation bloc must agree on binding origin disclosures for food product ingredients, starting with a better labeling of meat products, German agriculture minister Ilse Aigner said.
"Consumers have every right to the greatest-possible transparency," she insisted.
From lasagna and burgers to children's sweets containing gelatin, horse meat has been discovered in a wide variety of "beef" products, leaving Europeans to wonder what they're really eating. NBC's Keir Simmons reports.
The scandal began in Ireland in mid-January when the country's announced the results of its first-ever DNA tests on beef products. It tested frozen beef burgers taken from store shelves and found that more than a third of brands at five supermarkets contained at least a trace of horse. The sample of one brand sold by British supermarket kingpin Tesco was more than a quarter horse.
Such discoveries have spread like wildfire across Europe as governments, supermarkets, meat traders and processors began their own DNA testing of products labeled beef and have been forced to withdraw tens of millions of products from store shelves.
More than a dozen nations have detected horse flesh in processed products such as factory-made burger patties, lasagnas, meat pies and meat-filled pastas. The investigations have been complicated by elaborate supply chains involving multiple cross-border middlemen.
Related:
Horse meat in the US? Unlikely, but tests are rare
'Fraud on a massive scale': Europe's horse meat scandal keeps on growing
'Criminal conspiracy' blamed for European horse-in-burger scandal
This story was originally published on Mon Feb 25, 2013 6:57 AM EST
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So I guess the only defense is to stick to "whole foods," lower case. You cannot know what is in ground meat. If you keep to cuts you recognize, you reduce the odds of a bad surprise. My mother used to do her own grinding for hamburgers or sloppy joes. She bought meat only from the butcher. And whatever she wanted ground, she ground at home. I remember the grinder; sometimes we kids could wangle a chance to turn the handle a few times. It was a good way then, and probably an even better one now, given present dangers and complications that were not imaginable even 50 years ago. I go to Ikea in Elizabeth/Newark every few months, and I have had the meatballs for lunch, and this article has given me a very queasy feeling. I think I will never be able to get that entree again without wondering. It is going to be the fish for me from now on. Of course, there is no certainty with that either; what it is called and what it actually is might be different. But at least it is a fillet and cannot possibly be horse. Ugh.
A bigger story would have been that wood has been found in IKEA furniture.
I started buying my meat right from the farmer a year ago. Grass fed, no anti-biotics......It's nice to shake the hand of the man that provides your family's food. No going back!
If I find out IKEA imported horse meatballs to the US and I likely ate them...I promise to not freak out. :-) I can deal with it. :-)
The only reason people find eating horse to be offensive is that you can ride a horse, train it to do tricks, and use it to do certain chores. That, and they double as a source for glue.
Gitee up on that couch. Didn't know you could get meat at a furniture store. Interesting..
Ikea tries to give you a Swedish experience.
It’s whimsical experience that takes a half a day.
That is why the cafe serves mostly Swedish style food.
And at the checkout they have frozen Swedish style food to go.
Why would it matter? In Austria- not far from the Czech Republic - they serve Leberkase Semmel (most delicious thing ever - like a piece of rotisserie bologna with a crispy breadroll around it) made from horse meat and people know it and buy it. Honestly, if you can stomach eating cows, pigs, and sheep - eating a slaughtered horse isn't much different. The horse is more majestic no doubt, but when they get old or their is an overpopulation - it is better to eat them than simply cull them. That is my two cents. I'm not advocating eating shelter cats and dogs though - well, unless we were seriously starving I suppose. Very Machiavellian to me.
Are you willing to bet your life on it .....Horse meat that has not been raised for human consumption is loaded with chemicals ....de-wormer, vaccinations, etc that are known carcinogens.
PV
you are being emotional, don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
They warn you about eating fish from the great lakes, too much mercury but we don't stop eating fish because the sources are known to be safe and we manage quite well.
If we were use to eating horse meat safety would not be different than it is for cows, fish or chicken. Don't muddy the water with scare tactics that can't be dealt with properly
Citizen....I am no liberal extremist. I am actually quite moderate. I am also a horse owner who loves them. My problem is more with the inhumane methods and the road to the slaughter pens. Not the horse meat.
So far only in Europe. ...For now. I have started buying from a local butcher and making my own ground beef. It is a matter of time before it is found here in the states with all the horse slaughter going on. STOP THE BREEDING ....STOP THE SLAUGHTER .....STOP THE MADNESS !
There it is! The exact reaction a Liberal news outlet was looking for. They want you to think there might be horse meat in your ground beef products. They want you to stop eating meat because you are afraid it is "poisoned" with horse meat.
Birds of a feather and all that. Liberalism encompasses a whole bunch of fringe groups. Animal rights extremists, environmental extremists and many other extremist groups that can be easily linked to Democratic politics.
Ever stop to think that these Liberal media outlets sensationalize everything that has a Liberal cause? They do it on purpose to get more people to agree with their extremist friends because their extremist friends vote Liberal.
Your point? I'm sure Jesus was considered a extremist in his time as well. Changing the "status quo" is always about "fringe" beliefs that later become "normal" in society, just like we don't approve of slavery anymore either.
LOL.. Did your just compare Jesus to PETA? Then you went on to compare injustice of man to Greenpeace? You can't compare today's extremists to anything that you just tried to.. LOL.
Just one of many reasons why I will never regret going vegetarian 25 years ago.
Don't you find it strange that people are eating foods [meats] from the normal suppliers and our life expectancy is higher than it has ever been.
My parents ate meats all their lives and both lived to be 85. I have family members you have been vegetarians all their lives and have done no better than those who ate meat.
We live in a world of risks and if you manage them you will be generally fine.
Nothing wrong with you being a vegetarian but it does not guarantee you squat.
OMG......Soylent Green is Horsemeat!
Horsemeat Balls with Dingleberry sauce.... "Excellent!!!"
Can't wait for "Kids eat Free" Tuesdays.
Yaa, the loganberry juice goes good with it too.
horse meat??? probably most of you have eaten it at some time or other, especially during WW2? ? ? anyhow, look at it this way, no mad cow disease? ? ? ? ?
synthetic hormone replacement therapy is from horse urine...so what a big deal with the meat. the horse urine is known to cause breast cancer.
Hope you meat eaters don't get colon cancer, but you probably will. Especially if you are eating meat three times a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner).
More hype from the animal rights extremists (you'll get cancer from eating meat!). A healthy diet includes meat proteins. I don't see people eating all meat on a huge scale. People generally eat pretty healthy and a diet that includes meat is no less healthy than one that substitutes a soy product. Be realistic about healthy eating, then realize that some folks are fanatical about healthy eating. Being fanatical about healthy eating will not increase your life span over someone who eats health but eats the occasional steak or pork chop.
I had a steak at IKEA last week, it still had marks where the jokey was hitting it. :)
Kinda scary! Guess I'll just have to stop buying my meat at a furniture store.
And I guess I'll have to stop buying my patio furniture from the grocery store. It might be tainted with bad plastic.
Swedish meatballs anyone?
"The sample of one brand sold by British supermarket kingpin Tesco was more than a quarter horse."
Affirmed was more than a Quarter Horse, Affirmed won the Tipple Crown!
If you buy meatballs from a furniture store you get what you deserve.
if it takes a test to tell the difference who cares if you cant tell by eating it i say no harm no foul
Ok, I'm sorry, but this is the most disgusting display of arrogance of any animal species on the planet.
Predators may seek the young, sick and weak to "make life easier" and prosper with the least investment of resources, rule of survival.
But choosing a meal based on killing one animal that is more admired than the other?That's just a sad commentary on the human condition if you ask me, which you did not.
Why all this crazy talk about whores meat? I'm not taking to cannibalism, not no how!
And they`re off
Who would eat this____? to begin with. Mystery meat just like Hot Dogs I can't understand why anyone would eat them either.
wonder if you have to put the "horseballs " together yourself?
Why are people making this conversation into just a matter of emotions. It's an unregulated, unsanctioned situation. And the people in charge need to bring their information including the USDA into this century and find out what's hidden behind a bottom or bute and a shell of beef or horse? This is a really serious situation and I see alot of people minimizing it. That's why some of these companies created this scandal overseas. They see consumer's as cattle as well, you just blindly purchase what's in the box. What if some day what's in the box is human remains, come on, they only do it to see how far they can get by with it. Do you think that our children's lives are worth the risk. We should demand that strict testing from a neutral group of scientist's and physicians, working within the veterinary recommendations on what is harmful first should then move their research outside of the vets recommendations and test horses to find out if slaughter is feasable or if it is dangerous. Outdated data is dangerous. We feed horses in America pesticides to get rid of flies, do you realize they put it in some feeds, and supplements, pesticides folks ingested daily. Do you want to see your baby eating a piece of this chemical? and then take them to St. Jude's because they can't locate source of illness? Come on! Don't say it's all hype. The slaughter industry is ONLY about money, they are looking to make it and they dont care whose at risk, there's nothing smarmier on the planet than a smart horsetrader, not only can they buy and sell the next kentucky derby winner but they can make you agree to by an alligator infested horse farm sight unseen to raise the horse on. You have to understand there's a criminal element in every single industry in the world, someone looking to make a quick buck. So by the time our sleeping government agencies get in gear and hire the people needed to find out the facts-we could have tons of mysterious ailments and dead relatives. It's got to be stopped. I know they have minimized the dangers of bute but do you realize how large this controversey has grown. We don't need horse meat to survive and its an industry that protects it's own. So do not think for a minute they wouldnt give you a bouquet of flowers and then push you overboard into the sharks! I am stating the facts as they are laid out, these horses contract illnesses dangerous to humans and the cdc says we cannot consume them yet they mysteriously oops get into the food chain. We cut off the food chain money and blam it stops!
I just read the first few lines of your post [quite long] but no one disagrees that the chemicals you mentioned used to treat horses are bad for human consumption....that is a given. Most people agree that we must know clearly what we are eating even if it is safe.
Having said the above the emotional part is mostly from people who don't want others to eat the beautiful wild [and safe] mustangs or Flicker or Mr. Ed.
We are not accustomed to eating horses, it is a carry over from when horses were more valuable as work animals. Vilifying the eating of horses in the old west meant that one could be assured that when they went to the stables to get their ride it would be ready to go and not on the dinner table. You don't see a lot of fuss about having Rudolph over for dinner do you.