A cow! A cow! My kingdom for a cow!

Wow, can you imagine my shock today when I found out that ‘beef burgers’ were not 100% beef!?

I think even the most ardent fan of “death in a bun” knows that there are other ‘products’ in there, that only a child who had a politician as a father and an estate agent as a mother could describe as real beef. It has often been said that burgers are mostly ‘lips and genitals’ (which reminds me of a girl I used to date!) If you were to test the DNA of lots of cheap burgers you my find a few new species.

The word ‘Value’ before the title of any product should have you thinking. I remember ASDA selling sausages for 2p each. Now if you can get a set of ingredients together and manufacture, distribute, sell and make a profit out of something that cost only 2p, I ain’t putting it in my mouth. And you are now reading about someone who has eaten meats as diverse as hedgehog to sea cucumber (sea slug). I have even eaten a witchity grub; you know the big maggot thingy that they make idiots on “I want to be a celebrity get me a career” eat! (Tastes a bit like custard).

And as we are talking about it, yes, I have eaten horse (now, now, get your minds out of the gutter) on many occasions. I was once told by a Frenchman who liked to revel in the title “Chef Alan” that I was a typical squeamish Englishman because I wouldn’t eat tripe. I did explain to him that the reason I wouldn’t eat the tripe was nothing to do with squeamishness. When I was a child my Grand parents used to feed me tripe (if they could hold me down long enough). My objection to eating tripe is because it tastes like shit! And nothing to do with being squeamish. It has to be said that the reason horse meat blends in so well with beef is because it tastes just like beef! So I can’t see why anyone should have an objection to eating a horse if they are carnivores. I’m always staggered at people’s double standards when it comes to meat. They scream and protest at the killing of calves for veal but happily chomp away on lamb!

The objection I have is if I have asked for beef I want beef, not horse, zebra or giraffe I want good, old-fashioned cow!

If you go into a shop and ask for a pair of shoes, you don’t expect the assistant to come back with a cardigan and say, “its ok, you can wear it!”

This is just another example of how the big multi-nationals treat us all as nothing more than fodder to boost their already enormous sales.

I travel quite extensively around Britain and on the whole, every high street is the same, all the same names. Nearly all town centres and shopping malls are owned by four big conglomerates. Buy a gift voucher in one store and just see how many other stores are all owned by the same company.

But things are changing, as more people shop on line. This doesn’t mean things will get better, as it will be harder to regulate who is selling you what. And most of the big boys will move in and do what they have been doing to the hard working little men for ages; they will bully them out of business. I, like most people, like a bargain and I use supermarkets probably more than most people, but we do have to think about what we buy and how it’s supplied for such a cheap price.

I once stayed on a campsite in Wales and the owner told me he used to run a dairy farm and started to sell all his milk to one of the big supermarket chains. At first they gave him a fair price but once all his business was with them, they slowly put a squeeze on him until in the end he was selling milk to them for less than he could produce it for. That is why I was on his campsite; his land was worth much more to him as a campsite than a farm. As a country we cannot have farms going out of business just because we want to pay a couple of pence less for our produce. It’s also a myth that the big chains pass on the savings to us; most end up as profits, so use your farm shops where possible!

Our food being tampered with is nothing new; the Victorians were adding lead and sawdust to tinned food. When I was young, you could buy a penny mix, which always cost more than a penny. Some of the sweets were so bright I think they were coloured by Dulux! One positive was if you didn’t like your wiggly jellies you could always melt them down and paint the back bedroom ceiling with them.

We were also lucky enough to by sweet cigarettes and sweet tobacco. Our sweets had more “E”s than a Spanish phone book in them. I didn’t know at the time but I was quite lucky as I was fed good home-cooked food and not allowed most sweets, owing to my parents being tight bastards!

For me one of the biggest worries is the oceans. I know it is becoming fashionable to shout out about saving the oceans but it’s something I have worried about for quite a while. They are being systematically raped and plundered, the ocean beds are dredged of all life and many fish stocks are almost depleted, but because we cannot see the damage, it’s easier to brush it under the carpet or, in this case, under the ocean. Most fish stocks are only 10% of what they were in the seventies. You don’t need to be a mathematician to work out that we can’t carry on this way. All countries should agree to no fishing for one year, I know this would be impossible to do, but one year would be enough to change things around.

So, with an ever-expanding population and an over-dependent reliance on big business and crooked bankers it’s only a matter of time before things go too far, and we all end up eating things far worse than horse, so I’m now going to climb down now off my high horse, and eat it!