"...Hi Oh Silver, Hold The Mayo...."

Feeling the urge to trot out for a burger?

Saddle up.


Burger King has admitted that it is possible some of its burgers sold in the U.K. and Ireland were, in fact, tainted with horsemeat.

This is just the latest chapter in an ongoing scandal in the U.K. and Ireland involving beef burger patties tainted with meat from horses and pigs. U.K. supermarket chain Tesco and other companies have also been affected. It's suspected that a meat distributor in Poland, which worked with all the companies in question, used meats other than beef as filler in cheap burgers.


First, I'm not entirely sure that cow patties (the kind that come by the pound and not from the pasture) can be considered "tainted" simply because a little horse and/or pig gets tossed into the recipe.

I mean it's not like your average book of synonyms is going to offer up "health food" as a semantic substitution for "fast food".

And while I think it reasonable that the "deception" involved here might cheese people's burgers, it's not like BK, or any of the other haute cuisine featuring drive thru windows, was discovered putting something really gross on the grill.

Uh, did you want soylent green with that?

Truth be told, I was actually under the impression, resulting from a long ago reading of some urban legend that, given it came from one tabloid or another, I immediately accepted as gospel, that horse meat was, in fact, already a fairly commonly ingested and/or digested food source in Europe and/or other parts of the world.

In fact, I recall that, shortly after reading that somewhere back then, I wrote a short bit for one of the radio shows, offering up two cents worth of marketing advice on how fast food chains, in this case, the Golden Arches gang, could parlay this additional protein into some appealing additions to their menu.

Egg McStallion.

Big Mare.

Filly of fish. (Okay, that one was strictly for laughs cause you can't mix horse with fish...oh, wait...)

And my personal favorite...

Quarter horse with cheese.

The good news, for Burger King and all the other five star dining establishments that offer extra napkins and ketchup packets with the chef's specialty, is that both the memory and the concerns about healthy eating are less than short lived with the average fast food consumer.

So it's a pretty good bet that this latest "shocking revelation" isn't going to result in a lessening of the line at your local drive thru as people rush in a panic to their nearest GNC.

And if Burger King has any savvy at all, they'll put their best advertising wizzes to work figuring out a way to make hay out of all of this.

Here's one to get you started, no charge.

Get rid of that creepy Burger King king guy that wanders eerily through those commercials.

And replace him with a creepy lawn jockey.

Showing a sense of humor about the whole thing will have the loyal links of your fast food chain spilling out into the parking lot as they assemble to scarf a little Secretariat.

And happily pony up to do so.

Damn the neigh-sayers.

Ride on.