Poland exports 60 million tonnes of meat annually.. but..

Secret filming has exposed sick cows being slaughtered at night and the evidence removed before vet inspection. That's classy:(

theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/27/secret-filming-shows-sick-cows-slaughtered-for-meat-in-poland

Actually the export figure is 615 m kg apparently. Not tonnes!:) Still a heck of a lot. This has to be better policed, or we'll all be as mad as a hatter. Greed.

If they're store cattle, any slaughtering (should things go wrong) would be at night since they've never seen daylight and being suddenly exposed to it would make them much harder to manage.


No surprises here, sadly.

Thanks for the heads up Doug, Really horrifying. Won't be eating any beef for a while :((

When I read the first sentence I thought it was about abortions. A moment later, I was relived to realize that it was about cattle.

I think this story speaks of a Polish attitude of making a little on the side.

I think that the slaughterhouse had no idea what was going on at night or choose to ignore it (making them complicit). I have come across this allot I think this is directly related to low wages especially in the countryside and the Polish tradition of finding a way to make some extra money. I am not excusing the video it was disgusting but I think there is a deeper problem here the fact that people will do extraordinary things to make a bit of side cash. The only way to solve this is to increase the low-level wages to a point where a family could survive on them. You try to live off 1500 pln per month with the prices here now.

As I said I am not excusing this video and if the owners did know they deserve the most severe punishment but I think there is a wider problem here what do you guys think?

That is a problem and one not helped by the prevailing CW that labor costs should be immune to the normal forces of supply and demand. Find a single government in the EU that isn't maniacally devoted to keeping labor costs as low as possible (maybe Finland?)

There is also the legacy of communism and other totalitarian systems of the past (still). there were so many dysfunctional and/or irrational rules that many Polish people no longer can tell the difference between needed safety regulations and nonsense rules that serve no purpose...

Most people have no earthly idea of where meat comes from of course. I have relatives in the cattle business (in the US) and what used to be the case there was 'three eyed cows (industry slang for animals unfit for consumption but not contagious) were kept with the herd and slaughtered with them (and then the carcass was removed form the food chain) as that was cheaper and easier than trying to separate them out earlier.

Oh Atch, don't let Doug scare you, just cook it well done and there will be nothing to fret about.

It's stories like this that put me off eating meat completely, although the UK hasn't been a recipient of the beef. Twelve countries in total received the meat, but I don't find it particularly reassuring that Poland's chief vet has said it poses no threat to humans. How can rotten meat not be a risk to human health?

Plus he said that he has convinced most of the countries that the situation was an individual case. Sounds like damage limitation to me given that the Guardian article stated that the undercover reporters who exposed the case spoke to dozens of traders willing to make deals for sick cows. Tip of the iceberg probably.

politico.eu/article/unsafe-polish-meat-exported-to-12-eu-countries/

Afraid so. And anyway, Polish meat is only good for curries. Pretty tasteless without spices. The problem with buying from butchers' is that you only have their assurance that the meat is British, or whatever - but if it's wrapped then at least the barcode tells of its' governance.

I shall definitely be cutting down on Polish meat and processed hams from now on - not least because of Pork's carcinogenic properties - but that's for another thread (we can't blame the department of agriculture for that)

Not just Polish meat but all RED Meat.
Twice a week totaling 112 grams per serving.
And processed meat of any kind is an absolute no no ever.
Usually the old meat in a butcher shop is used to make sausage where they can mix in lots of fat and seasonings to disguise the taste of old meat.

This is a world wide problem of sending sick animals to slaughter.
We just had an undercover video of it happening in a slaughter yard here in the U.S.A.
They showed a tractor pushing a cow that could not even get up to walk to be slaughtered.
I stick to the wild venison on my property or when one of my neighbors butchers one of his organically fed beef or hogs myself.

You are what you eat.

I can't say it's that great to be honest, but neither is what you get in the UK either. Pretty tasteless on the whole, being mass produced, although these days I only really eat chicken and fish.

I doubt this type of scandal is limited to Poland either, you can bet this type of thing is going on in other EU countries too. It's just a question of when they get caught out. Unfortunately when large sums of money are involved, people often turn a blind eye.