Your Favorite Food (This Time, IKEA Meatballs) Is Probably Made of Horse Meat

You may think that you’d never eat horse meat, but the truth is that you love it and can’t get enough of it. “More horse meat,” your brain and tummy cry whenever you get hungry or just want a snack because, as it turns out, horse meat is in everything. Hamburgers? Horse meat! Ravioli? Horse meat. Water? Super thin, wet horse meat. Everything in this universe is made up of horse meat, from the stars in the sky to the grass in the fields to the mice who live in your walls. It’s the circle of horse meat and it rules us all.

All across Europe, foods are turning up with traces of horse meat in them, generally in meats that are attempting to pass as pork or beef. Burger King and Nestle have both had to recall and halt production on certain comestibles, but the problem is as widespread as the meat sections of local supermarkets. And the newest location to become infected? None other than the IKEA cafeteria, where the fürnitüre giant’s iconic Swedish meatballs have been discovered to contain an extra horse-y ingredient.

While the horse-laced meatballs were first found in the Czech Republic, meatballs from the same batch, according to Ikea spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson, were shipped to Slovakia, Hungary, France, Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Ireland. They have all been recalled and Magnusson claims that no other batches have been affected.

While horse meat is perfectly safe to eat, its appearance in supposedly non-horse related food items does suggest a greater issue with how food is regulated. EU officials are to meet today to discuss better and tougher labeling rules to prevent this from happening in the future. So far, the horse meat problem has yet to gallop its way on to US shores and the USDA continues to claim that it won’t be an issue stateside due to our completely different food regulation system.

If the problem does reach us, however, you probably shouldn’t sweat it. Horses are basically just skinnier, taller cows with more beautiful ponytails and fancier shoes.

Horse Meat In Ikea’s Swedish Meatballs, Czech Authorities Say [AP]
Image via Stokkete/Shutterstock.