So hungry, you could eat a horse? Beef lasagne meals sold by Findus were up to 99 per cent horse, it emerged last night. The food giant has now been ordered to test the dishes for a cancer-causing painkiller used by vets. Ministers were rapped over the scandal and customers warned to take meals back to shops. Findus admitted it had no idea how long the products had been on sale or how many families had bought them. Tests on 18 sample meals found 11 were at least 60 per cent horse while one was virtually nothing but. The findings – which raised the spectre of human food being contaminated with vets’ drugs – are a major humiliation for the Government. Labour shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh accused it of being “complacent” over the scandal’s scale and whether fraud was involved. She said: “British ministers are asleep on the job. This is no longer just a food safety issue but possibly an international criminal trade.” Red-faced officials at the Food Standards Agency have urged families who bought the ready meals to take them back to shops unopened. And they ordered Findus to check whether the lasagne contained phenylbutazone — an animal painkiller linked to harmful effects, including potentially causing […]
