Horse meat

What is the quality of the meat that is put on our tables? Who is regulating the meat we eat? Fears over what is being sold to us in the meat markets around the country have often been raised by the media. However, no systematic mechanism has been put in place to check and ensure that quality meat reaches consumers. On Tuesday, a large quantity of meat from dead horses, donkeys and other animals was recovered from butcher shops in Ghalib Market in Lahore. The meat was being sold in the market as mutton. Police were able to discover the meat quality on the basis of a random check on a rickshaw. The transporter confirmed that the meat was not of the advertised quality. Once the arrested person identified the shop he was going to sell the meat, to the district administration raided the shops to recover around a large quantity of meat from dead horses and donkeys.
The raid was more a result of serendipity than any strategy on the part of the government to regulate the quality of meat. There is no department to register and regulate the quality of meat stores, nor is there any regular testing of the quality of meat being sold by vendors or even larger establishments. Similar cases of substandard or falsely advertised meat sales continue to be reported across the spectrum but there is still no institutionalised response to the issue. It is quite likely that the results of the testing on the recovered meat will not be publically shared nor will the fate of those who were charged with the crime. What has also not been resolved is what nature of crime does the selling of such meat fall under. Is it a consumer rights infringement or a criminal offence to sell the wrong type of meat? There are two issues with the meat: the first is hygiene and health-related, the other is religious. For a country that prides itself on purity, the fact that major meat markets in Lahore were selling horse meat is a worrying sign. The livestock department and other government bodies need to wake up and design a mechanism to ensure that only the best, properly identified and clearly advertised meat is sold in the markets.