Is it actually safe to eat?
Whether or not recalled food is actually safe to eat popped up again recently, this time in regard to the horsemeat scandal currently affecting Europe:
Two German politicians, for instance, suggested over the weekend that one practical use for tainted products, such as tens of thousands of packs of lasagna pulled from supermarket shelves because they contained horsemeat, would be to distribute them to the poor.
The idea began with Hartwig Fischer, a lawmaker from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, who told the mass-circulation Bild Zeitung newspaper on Saturday that products shouldn’t just be thrown away. To prove his point, he was photographed and filmed eating one of the offending lasagna meals and declaring that he could not tell the difference from any other lasagna.
Similar comments were made last year in regard to contaminated beef by Alberta politician Danielle Smith who asked on Twitter:
Is there no way to cook it so its safe and feed the hungry?
One thing that I've seldom seen asked is what the actual risks are and how much it would actually cost to evaluate said risks. As I understand it the issues with horsemeat in European products - other than some people's aversion to eating said animals - relate to some of the medications potentially having been used to treat horses - to quote Forbes:
the prevalence of a legal drug in the U.S. horse population that causes fatal cancers in humans. The U.S. official response has been classic: out of sight, out of mind.
There are definitely some contaminants, the question is what actual risks are involved in eating meat containing trace amounts of another type of meat that might contain amounts of harmful substances. The issue there is that trace contaminants up to certain levels are legally permitted in food and water safety standards. The question I haven't seen answered is just how potentially harmful - relative to this other stuff allowed - this horsemeat actually is. e.g. Look at the EPA's drinkable water safety standards. Substances that can increase cancer risk pop up 31 times in the list of contaminants, generally with non-zero tolerances.