Zebu & Chips - now served at JD Wetherspoon

I am off to J D Wetherspoons later for a Zebu burger & chips.

• Steaks served by some big restaurant chains have been found to come from beef cattle interbred with the zebu.
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• One steak bought at a JD Wetherspoon pub was 67 per cent zebu - from the hardy, humped cattle which originated in India and whose meat tends to be tougher than British beef.
• Four out of six steaks sampled at Wetherspoon's contained DNA from the animal, analysis showed.

Imported from Brazil, the following countries won't touch it The United States, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

It's not because of the zebu: it's because parts of the country have been stricken by Foot and Mouth disease, and there's deep unease about how the disease is being controlled.

Add in concerns about the damage the fast-expanding industry is doing to the Amazon rainforests, the use of slave labour and of hormones used to speed up growth, and it's easy to see why many are calling for Britain to ban it, too.

Today, 80 per cent of the 190 million cattle in Brazil are either zebus or 'azebuados' (cross bred).

A secondary consequence of deforestation and the expansion of the beef industry has been the use of slaves. The Brazilian Ministry of Labour has a dedicated Anti-Slavery Enforcement Team, and it is estimated that two-thirds of the many thousands of workers it has freed come from cattle ranches, mostly in the Amazon.

In 2003, for example, 31 slaves were freed from a cattle farm in the Amazon state of Para, where they had been living in improvised tents with nothing but manuretainted water to drink.

The sprawling ranch was home to 3,000 cattle, yet the slaves told local journalists they often went hungry. "Sometimes we would spend a month without eating meat," one of the workers, Charles Monteiro, said.

Earlier this week, a further 43 slave workers were freed from a ranch in the same state. Among their number was a 12-year-old girl.

Ethical issues aside, other concerns focus on the quality controls and safety checks that are in place within the Brazilian meat industry. Following an outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in October 2005, three Brazilian states have been banned from exporting beef to the European Union.

So you are not getting steak from the UK, tagged and checked from the day the animal is born but instead hybrid steak, filled with hormones and possibly also raised by slave labour on lands that were once virgin rain forest and not cleared for cheap meat destined for JD Wetherspoons.

Make mine a JD Wetherburger!

Aside from Zebu being on the menu, JD Wetherspoon also have a problem with rodents.
JD Wetherspoon rodent problem 1 and JD Wetherspoon rodent problem 2 and JD Wetherspoon rodent probelm 3

Eat drink and be merry! Oh and found a bit on Zebu's as reported in The Sun

Tags: Camra
Real Ale
Mice
Julie Van Quickelberg
J D Wetherspoon
Newport Gwent

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