There is a story that a person bought a curry from a takeaway and after she ate it something got stuck in her teeth. She could not remove it. She went to her dentist who removed it. It was a cat or dog microchip.
Microchips are about the size of a grain of rice and made of glass on the outside. Is this a made up story, an urban myth circulated on the internet for our amusement or is it real?
In a television documentary about the European horsemeat scandal in 2013, a lamb curry bought at a London takeaway which was sold as “Lamb Pussanda” was DNA tested for its meat content. The takeaway did not contain any of these meats: lamb, beef, chicken, pork, goat, horse.
The result baffled the experts. They were left with the possibility that the meat was either cat or dog. When we don’t know where the meat comes from, you don’t know how the animal was slaughtered or whether the animal was healthy. All the rules are thrown out of the window.
We know that in some parts of China and other Asian countries it is considered acceptable to eat cat and dog. In Europe it is unacceptable. It is quite feasible that some restaurants in Europe and America use cat and dog meat.
These two unconnected stories indicate that there may be some criminal activity at takeaway restaurants owned by families (independent businesses rather then large chains). To serve cat meat described as lamb would be a crime and a breach of contract (criminal and civil matter).
If it is true there would also be a criminal aspect in respect of how the cat or dog was kept and killed before being prepared for a curry. Sorry if this is difficult reading.
Personally, I never buy takeaways from what I consider to be seedy, independent operators in slightly run-down shopping areas. I get a sense that hygiene and following the law are not priorities in these places.
Almost all independent takeaways in the London area are owned by people who have a different culture to the English culture. I don’t know what is going on and therefore don’t want to point a finger at anyone. These stories just make me think and become wary about what is happening to stray cats and dogs.
It is also a good reason to do what Ruth and Babz do: become a vegetarian.
Link to photographer’s photostream
I have heard of the microchip thing before however I think its a Hoax http://www.hoax-slayer.com/cosmo-romford-dog-microchip-rumour.shtml
This said it wouldn’t surprise me at all if cat and dog meat got into foreign food served in the UK. The thing for me is I am non vegetarian however I rarely eat Beef or Pork and never Lamb. I tend to eat chicken and fish. I order Chicken and I pay for Chicken therefore I expect to eat Chicken NOT Cat or Dog its that simple. Any food establishment serving anything other than you have ordered deserves to lose their livelihood and punished most harshly. Apart from this most importantly and as you quite rightly say Michael where have these cats and dogs come from? How have they lived and died?
I receive Petfinder emails every week and the amount of beautiful loved pets that are lost is heartbreaking but where do they go to? Its a pity local councils don’t check cats killed on the road for microchips then we could really see the numbers that really are missing.
On the subject of eating cat and dog in Thailand, Cambodia, China and such places for me its not about what you eat its about the life that animal has lived and how its been killed. The way animals are tortured deliberately and abused, bones broken, jagged tin cans shoved over a muzzel, hung up in the heat in agony for hours, animals skinned alive and boiled alive. THIS is what I hate as well as the people who do it its not about not understanding a certain culture its how they go about it. Its basically animal abuse nothing nore 🙁
The most likely source of the mystery meat in the lamb pussanda would be deer. Deer poaching is becoming common, with many deer butchered in situ and the meat taken (trophy hunters take the hide and antlers). Donkey is also a possibility as tests for horse DNA may not detect donkey DNA.
Good thought. Thanks Sarah. I live near Richmond Park and I wonder if people are poaching some of the deer in the park. They have a formal yearly cull but I am seeing very few deer at the moment.
In todays news, there are reports of Chinese donkey meat being tainted with fox meat (almost certainly “waste” from the huge fur farms over there). So if any of the meat sourced by that restaurant originated in China, it may have been bulked out with fox (which tastes a bit “porky” apparently).
Thanks Sarah. What you say looks to be getting to the heart of the problem. There is quite possibly more meat frauds than we think in the UK and other countries.
A bit more digging found a possible source of contamination of lamb products. In May 2013 a Chinese crime ring was found to have passed off rat, mink, and small mammal meat as mutton for more than 1 million USD in Shanghai and Jiangsu province markets. Some of this could have ended up exported from China.
I used to like a take away Chinese many moons ago but wouldn’t/couldn’t fancy one nowadays. I bet if we knew half the muck that gets in among the food we eat away from home and half the dirty practices involved in preparing it we’d never eat out again. As a veggie I’d never knowingly eat meat fish or animal bits but how do I know for sure what’s gone into the cooking and serving of my veggie brekkie or lasagne? Best not to think too much about it, that way lies madness 😉
okay, I did not get past the first P]. Michael, elucidate, please. bit of a runaround there in the top three paragraphs. (as we have to rely on the first comment to give us an exact time of the posting, i tend to get confused. might be the time diff.)
You did excellent migrating work here, btw. website is smooth as silk. like, our cats. 🙂
LOL. The site has not been moved yet! It varies in speed at the moment. The point I am making is that in some takeaways in the UK a customer may be eating cat or dog when it is advertised as chicken. How do you tell the difference under all that curry sauce?
Oops! sorry, thought you were being overly anxious…my mistake. 😉
I eat from stalls that I trust, and I know that is not what to which you are referring. Where are the laws? Enforce them. (hope that has changed.) Here in Lincoln, NE, USa, we had problems with one restaurant this year, 2013. wow. some folks still haven’t escaped their old thinking, have they? FWIW, it is not about culture, per se, but about individuals who are evil. nicht wahr?
Disgusting!
It has been ages since I ate fast food because I can’t be certain how any veggie or even breads are being prepared. I’m almost positive that there is a whole lot of animal fat in the works.
Having recently just returned from a tour of Vietnam and Cambodia i personally have lost inhibitions of what i eat barring cats, & dogs.I definitely feel that a few nondescript eateries in First world country’s might be serving meat other than the normal.Wasn’t “Horse-meat” substituted for “Beef” in recent memory ? Are you sure a dog or a cat or a crow is not occasionally cooked as “Counterfeit non-veg food” ? If non-veg then please don’t be too paranoid otherwise become a vegetarian or either eat at home or in the best hotels and restaurants.
I get your point. We shouldn’t be paranoid about eating meat from unusual sources (if we are not vegetarian) except for cats and dogs as you state. For me that is totally unacceptable.
oh boy, Mr. Rudolph Furtado, I understand why you reply in this fashion. BUT! Should it hurt (anger) us plain folk to still read it and want to discuss it? I am “Chinese,” by my friends, e’en though I am from the U.S. (please continue in greater detail…) I have eaten from vendors in the stalls from my faves, always trusting. I was vegetarian for decades. Became an alcoholic, lost everything, except my respect for good fud, and now eat meat, selectively. y usted?
That is horrible Michael and not the first time I’ve heard of foreign run takeaways using cats or dogs in curries.
We wouldn’t even buy a vegetable curry from one because who knows what else goes into them and who knows if the hygiene is up to standard?
But on the other hand it’s no good becoming paranoid or we’d never eat out again in any restaurant or café or pub.
Yes the only safe way is to be vegetarian, the very thought of eating tortured flesh then becomes so horrific you wonder how you ever ate meat or poultry or fish, it becomes like you would be eating a person, because after all we are made of flesh too.
But turning veggie has to come to a person when the time is right and it’s everyone’s own choice whether that time ever comes.
The last non veggie meal I ate was chicken curry in January 13 years ago and I didn’t enjoy a bite because I’d given up meat in the months before so was thinking how could I still eat poultry. Fish was the last to give up on and what I miss most because there is no nice fish substitute. But it was my own choice and I felt happier for having made it.