Despite the scandal erupting throughout Europe and discrediting retailers and supermarkets – such as the British chains Aldi, Iceland and Lidl –, Germany’s development minister suggests tainted food should be given to poor.
“We can’t just throw it away”, says Dirk Niebel, especially because horsemeat means no danger for consumers’ safety.
Except in one case. The presence of the equine painkiller Bute in horse carcasses represents a rare, though serious, risk for health.
Bute was commonly used to treat a severe form of arthritis in the past, but it turned out, in long-term use, to carry a minute possibility of causing a marrow disorder called “aplastic anaemia”, which is not exactly what German poor people would expect from some innocuous beef.
But Mr Niebel says there are hundreds of thousands of people starving in the world and, even in Germany, there are some who struggle to afford food for their children. That’s why “we can’t just throw it away”, and that can obviously not be the solution.
But as those adverse to Dirk Niebel’s odd proposal have claimed, he may have not considered that consumers cannot be aware of what actually is in the mixture of meat mislabelled for beef, nor its provenance, nor its quality.
And as the same have claimed, he did not consider that the German poor people may not share his opinion.
di Gianmarco Capati
foto: euronews.com
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retailers: rifornitori
tainted: contaminato
arthritis: artrite
marrow: midollo
mislabelled: fatto passare (per)
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