TWO New Studies: Horse & Beaver Meat Found In U.S. Ground Beef Supplies

Fact checked
ground beef

When buying a package of ground beef, you probably assume that you are buying ground cow meat.  Or maybe you are a paleo-devotee, and shop online for grass-fed bison.  You also may pay close attention to the label to see if the animal meat is organic, grass-fed and whether or not they were treated with anti-biotics.

The point is, you probably think that what is labeled on the package is what you are buying.  Think again.  Not one, but TWO new studies show that when you reach for the ground meat, you may, in fact, be picking up some ground beaver or horse.

From TakePart.com:

That’s the finding of two studies produced by Chapman University’s Food Science Program and published in the January 2016 Food Control  journal. The researchers conducted DNA testing and other scientific analyses on samples of ground meat (such as turkey, pork, chicken, and beef) found in brick-and-mortar grocery stores and on samples of specialty game meat (including bison, pheasant, and bear) sold online. About 20 percent of the time, the label on the package didn’t line up with what was inside.  

Of the 48 fresh and frozen samples of ground meat found in traditional markets, 10 were mislabeled. Nine of those 10 packages contained a mix of meat species—partially what the label indicated and partially some other animal. The tenth sample was meat from a completely different creature than what the label suggested.

Unintentional contamination at meatpacking plants may account for some of this, according to the study’s authors. If a processor handles pork, beef, and turkey, for example, and doesn’t fully clean the equipment, DNA of one animal can, in varying degrees, end up in the packaging for another. 

The researchers also speculated that “lower-cost species [are] being intentionally mixed in with higher-cost species for economic gain.” In particular, that raises a concern about the ethics of the $39 billion specialty game meat market in the U.S.

Indeed, the second study tested 54 samples from that lucrative online market and found 10 packages were mislabeled. One bundle of black bear burgers was actually beaver, two packages of pricey bison burgers and one package of expensive yak burgers were plain old domestic cattle, and a container labeled as pheasant was helmeted guinea fowl. The retailer, of course, pockets the difference.

That’s troubling enough, but the researchers also found that two of the ground meat samples contained horse meat, which is illegal to sell in the United States.

“Although extensive meat species testing has been carried out in Europe in light of the 2013 horsemeat scandal, there has been limited research carried out on this topic in the United States,” Rosalee Hellberg, an assistant professor at Chapman University and coauthor of both studies, said in a statement. 

It’s not hard to imagine all the vegetarians out there breathing a sigh of relief—after all, kale is undoubtedly kale. Sure, we’re more than a century removed from the filthy descriptions of meatpacking plants in Upton Sinclair’s classic, The Jungle, but these studies might be another red flag about the overall cleanliness and safety of meat producers in the United States.

1 Comment

  1. I would not put it past the food industry Satanists to put human baby meat in the mix, so they can make God angry. I stay away from processed foods for that reason.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.