THE Scottish Agriculture Minister, the Earl of Lindsay, yesterday urged consumers not to patronise fast-food burger chains which banned British beef in the wake of the BSE crisis.
Instead, they should eat burgers made from British beef, which were guaranteed to come from beef cattle under 30 months' old and from prime quality cuts, he advised.
Beef-burgers sold in fast-food chains which now used foreign-sourced beef instead of British might be made from much older cow-beef from much older animals, said Lord Lindsay.
Lord Lindsay's defence of British beef came as Swiss officials confirmed that human placentas from births at Zurich hospitals have been used for the past two decades to make animal feed.
Officials in Switzerland's biggest city, confirmed a television news report that human after-birth from at least two hospitals had been added to animal wastes used for producing feed.
The report is significant in that it was the practice in Britain in the 1970s and up to the mid-1980s of using sheep remains in fodder for cattle that is believed to have allowed the sheep brain disease of scrapie to cross over to cattle in the form of BSE. After the UK, Switzerland has the biggest problem with BSE, with 250 reported cases to date.
An official said checks after the television report showed that the practice of using human placentas for animal feed had been going on for about 20 years.
This violated internal guidelines, which call for human wastes to be burned, but did not break any laws.
Lord Lindsay, speaking on a visit to Barrangarry Farm, Bishopton, farmed by Mr Alex Ritchie, said: ``I am boycotting Big Macs from McDonald's and Whoppers from Burger King for the moment - there is absolutely no reason why they should not be made from UK beef,'' he said.
The Minister said: ``If you are going to patronise a fast-food burger joint, patronise one that is buying British beef. That way you will probably be buying the best burgers and keeping British jobs.''
He said he had eaten a burger from a chain that still bought British beef. ``It tasted very good, too.''
Lord Lindsay added: ``There are some wonderful paradoxes being drawn up in this affair. If you buy a beef-burger from a burger chain that has sourced beef from the British market you are guaranteed to be getting prime beef from under 30 months' old cattle, but if you buy a burger from a a burger chain that is using only foreign sources then you may be getting much older cow-beef from much older animals.''
He added: ``We in Britain have the best quality beef in Europe and in Scotland we have the best quality beef in the UK. We have the best hygiene service in the world - a fact which was reinforced by the World Health Organisation this week. Now we are only allowing beef from cattle under 30 months into the food chain and that beef is of prime quality.
``My message is buy beef from those outlets who only source their beef from the UK.''
Lord Lindsay said that he felt both McDonald's and Burger King had been ``somewhat premature'' in their decision to ban British beef from their outlets following the Government's announcement that a new strain of CJD was probably linked to BSE.
``I would hope that those who have made rather hurried decisions earlier in the chain of events might well do with reconsidering those decisions.''
A spokeswoman for McDonald's said yesterday she was ``quite disappointed'' to hear the Minister's comments.
``The most important thing to say is that the beef we are using
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in the meantime, while non-British, is of the same high quality as McDonald's uses for every one of the 90 countries around the world where it has restaurants,'' she said.
``We have always maintained that British beef was safe but until such time that consumers are confident with British beef we would be forced to make the move that we made,'' she said.
She added that McDonald's was monitoring the situation as well as consumers' feelings about British beef.
A spokeswoman for Burger King said the company had also instituted the ban because of consumers' concerns and to protect their own employees' positions.
``If the consumer is confident and will buy British beef, then we will go back to it. Half our supplies were coming from British beef, but we had sources from outside anyway.
``We do buy cow-beef, the processing industry buys cow-beef. It is a question of cost. If we were to buy prime beef like sirloin, then this would be reflected in the cost of the burger. But our beef is good quality and we use fore-quarters and flank. I think it is regrettable that the Minister did make that statement,'' she said.
During his farm visit Lord Lindsay said a report by independent accountants Coopers and Lybrand, working with the Meat and Livestock Commission, into how to relieve current blockages in the beef chain and allow beef to start moving again from farm through abattoir to consumer is expected to be ready for Ministers by next Friday.
Lord Lindsay said he remained cautious about whether a targeted cull of cattle should be carried out.
``If it can be justified and there are obvious benefits in reducing BSE incidence even more, it may well be worth considering. There has been loose talk about the selective slaughter of a certain number of herds. We have to give these things very careful consideration. That would be going into certain parts of the industry and wiping out whole herds, and one must not do that,'' he said.
Since BSE was identified in 1986, a total of 7667 infected cattle have been identified in Scotland, 60 of them this year up to March 22, out of a total Scottish herd of 2.1m cattle. .q.France said yesterday it had registered a case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) similar to British cases but did not know if it was linked to mad cow disease.
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