Think Outside The Box

Romanian butchers! Cypriot meat-traders! Daring raids on slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants! This story is like the font size used in the top Huffington Post headline – it can’t get any bigger.

Consumers in Europe are reeling from recent news that mass-produced burgers and boxed lasagnas have been found to be filled with horse meat. In the case of one company that makes frozen boxed lasagnas, the horse meat content was 100%. British and Irish consumers are especially unhappy, as they are very fond of horses. It’d be like someone in America selling Puppy McNuggets but claiming that they’re made of chicken.

European leaders are trying rein in the situation, which is far from stable. In the case of the frozen lasagnas, they’ve discovered that the horse meat started its journey in Romania, traveled to a meat-supplier in France, and ended up in a factory in Luxembourg. At which point it joined the lasagna in a box and traveled to England and Ireland. If someone made a movie about this, they could call it Mr Ed’s Excellent European Vacation.

This saga suggests two things. First, Europeans now have a great new way to “bet on the horses”. Instead of going to the track, they can short-sell the stocks of food companies and cash in when the horse meat shows up and the companies’ stock prices plunge. Secondly, food giants should do better research and substitute beef with an animal that customers aren’t fond of, like rats.

Fortunately, eating horse meat is not a health threat, unless you choke on a hoof. People simply mistake one form of meat for another, but don’t get sick. It’s a lot like when my wife says, “Hey, Tom, this chicken is really good” and I reply “It’s fish, actually.”

I hate to think how many guys’ Valentines gifts got screwed up when the lasagnas turned out to be horse. But as with any scandal, there’s something good to be learned here. And it’s the simple fact that dinners were never meant to come in a box. Individual ingredients, perhaps, but not entire meals. Boxes are for burying bodies, not feeding them. So when it comes to food it’s time, as the old saying goes, to think outside the box.