We'll meat again (this is NOT an April Fool)

Tuesday April 1, 2008

Reviewing the EU’s latest bombshell, Brian Monteith doesn’t mince his words

When commentators warn, “It was smoking first, it will be your booze and food next”, many people just laugh in disbelief, thinking, “Well, you would say that wouldn’t you?”

And yet the evidence – as can be seen on The Free Society website – is there if you look for it.

The latest example of how our freedoms are being eroded seems so daft, so perverse and so disproportionate that it is hard to believe its advocates could be so stupid – and not for the first time it comes from the European Union.

An updating of an existing EU regulation is about to be applied in Britain to alter how beef mince is made. Nothing to get bothered about, you might say, but that’s how these regulations change our lives. They get past dozy politicians who don’t care to establish the implications. Either that or the sheer complexity or number of regulations leave MEPs unable to cope.

Hung

British beef is usually hung for anything between 14-28 days to impart better flavour. The new EU regulation will mean that any beef used to make mince cannot be hung for more than five days. The result is that mince – usually made from the off-cuts and left-overs as the rump, fillet and other cuts can secure higher prices – will have to come from cattle kept specially for that purpose.

Any meat that has hung for six days or more that could normally be used for mince will have to be binned. The meat trade expects this to put about 40p a pound on beef mince and, of course, make it taste poorer.

The justification for this new restriction on mince production is, as usual, to protect us from ourselves. The euronannies are concerned that we will fall ill from eating raw beef in steak tartare – and so to protect us from this eventuality, all beef mince cannot be hung for more than five days.

Harmful

Excuse the fact that no evidence is presented of the scale of the steak tartare-induced health risk, forget the fact that the length of time that meat hangs is not the critical factor in the amount of harmful bacteria that occurs (storage temperature is far more important), sidestep the fact that steak tartare is usually made from mincing a steak rather than from mass-produced mince we cook and ignore the fact that if people do fall ill from eating steak tartare it has most likely been due to the raw egg containing salmonella!

No, we have to just accept that the way we produce our mince HAS to change and we are not allowed any choice.

So all the mince and tatties, lasagna, spaghetti Bolognese, cottage pie, burgers, pies, curries, sausages and meatballs that are made using minced beef will have to use the new regulated mince, even though the meat is cooked.

Bullying

It maybe doesn’t matter a hill of beans to most people (although punters will ask why the prices are going up) but the regulators’ appetite for further bullying controls is never sated. After all, the only way to make steak tartare safe is to cook it!

Further regulations will follow making food preparation more difficult, less authentic, more expensive and denying us choice in the process. And you know what? The incidence of food poisoning will continue to grow.

I like steak tartare and, like most who eat it, I know the risks. I didn’t ask for this measure and I don’t see why the vast majority should pay more to eat their cooked mince to “protect” my indulgence.

Brian Monteith is former MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife. A former spokesman for the smokers lobby group Forest, he is now policy director of The Free Society