I more & more often wonder whether food scandals are more Health or Media oriented. That is, when the Media news basket is low on sales, they invent some sort of scoop to meet their sales budget: it happened in the past, it presently happens, it will happen in the futire. It all depends on the fact that the Public, the Audience pays too much attention to the news, but much less to their own individual perceptions. I really don't care whether ravioli are made with horse meat or beef or pork: I simply don't eat ravioli because I know from my mother's cuisine that left-overs and low-cost ingredients go in them. And, since I'm aware of it, why shouldn't anybody who has a mother? It's a question of vigilant audit, I agree: a question of auditing food consumers, much before than food manufacturers. When any given foodstuff is not bought, its manufacturer's budget just dies, because of its ill health. Thank you.    

I think the biggest problem here is the fraud and the unknown origin of the meat.  Meat for consumption in Germany must have a veterinarian’s certificate stating that the animal was checked and OK for consumption and meat must also have documentation to cross borders. The horse meat in question must have had a certificate for beef; hence, the certificates must be faked and the meat may or may not have been properly checked.

 Many horses are also given phenylbutazone, which can be hazardous to humans. We need to do more than just hope that the criminals behind this checked to be sure the illegal meat did not contain any phenylbutazone.