14 DAY TRIAL // Information recently made available to the general public says that the Findus brand lasagna marketed in Great Britain contains one highly controversial ingredient: horse meat.
Although some of the frozen lasagna sold by said brand is argued to only contain about 5% horse meat, it seems that in certain cases, the horse meat amounts to a whopping 99% of the entire dish.
“Samples were taken from a variety of products. Some samples were as low as 5 per cent and one was 99 per cent,” a spokesperson for Findus told members of the press.
The frozen dishes that now find themselves under investigation are Findus Beef Lasagna 320g, 360g and 500g sizes.
Furthermore, specialists warn that the Findus brand lasagna now recalled by the company might contain traces of a chemical compound know to scientists as phenylbutazone.
International Business Times reports that said chemical compound is used at animal farms as a painkiller, and that despite its being beneficial to horses, it constitutes a threat to the overall health of the people who become exposed to it.
Thus, when ingested in significant quantities and when circumstances allow for it, phenylbutazone can cause individuals to develop cancer.
In the aftermath of these findings, the food giant has ordered that all their products be tested to see whether or not they have been contaminated with the aforementioned painkiller.
As well as this, customers have been asked to return whatever varieties of these pre-cooked meals they bought to the store.
By the looks of it, the horse meat found in the Findus brand lasagna was purchased from Comigel, a France-based meat supplier.
Needless to say, the company did not delay offering its apologies to customers nationwide, and wished to make it quite clear that they are doing their best to sort out this issue.
On the other hand, Catherine Brown, head of the Food Standards Agency, argued that, “In order to get to the bottom of this, we're going to be requiring every company to test every product line.”
“If we find any other cases, we will pursue our investigations vigorously until we find out what's happened and put a stop to it,” she went on to add.