In case ground meat wasn't sketchy enough, a new study by Chapman University found that as much as twenty percent of specialty ground meats are mislabeled, and many of them include ground horse and beaver. Yup, that's right, you've probably been eating horse and beaver.
This new study, which is the first of its kind performed on American meat since 1995, focused on ground lamb and bison in two separate but unified efforts. What was discovered when the university tested more than 100 samples of ground meat sold by online retailers was both rampant mislabeling of ground meat AND straight up sales of inexpensive –– and even illegal, in the case of horse –– filler meats under the guise of higher-end specialty meats. Awkward.
Methinks that the USDA has some 'splaining to do. But, on the plus side, all of the ground beef tested was actually ground beef, so if you're a plebe like me, you probably have avoided unintentionally noshing on Black Beauty.
