THE phrase "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse" has taken on a whole new meaning this week.

If your partake of certain burgers it appears you could unwittingly be satiating your appetite on the loser of the 3.35 at Haydock Park.

We all know that burgers can contain nasties with eyelids and noses often the most joked about parts but since when has a saddle formed part of a nutritious diet?

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) found low levels of equine DNA in beef products sold in Tesco, Lidl, Aldi, Iceland and Dunnes Stores

There are two aspects to this story. First, and in the interests of public health, most importantly is how on earth did horse end up in beef burgers?

This appears to make a mockery of the food industry's attempts to reassure us that our meat products are guaranteed to be safe after BSE.

You often hear about how your meat can be traced back to a specific farmer and field. They never said that field would contain Black Beauty and Champion the Wonder Horse.

It now appears that the meat may have come from Europe and been processed in the UK which throws up (pardon the unfortunate pun) all manner of questions about what we put in our mouths.

Secondly, if you bridle (apologies again) at the suggestion of putting a little horse meat in your mouth, you have to ask yourself why.

Eating horses has not always been taboo in the UK and indeed until around 1930 it was regarded as relatively acceptable.

Slowly things changed after that until today where many are simply horrified about popping a slice of Mr Ed into our daily diet.

Advocates of eating horses say the meat is sweet, tender, low in fat and high in protein.

In France (I know, it's ALWAYS the French) they guzzle down horses like nobody's business with special shops dedicated to preparing the meat.

Supermarkets have even started to stock it. I'd normally say can you imagine that in Tesco but it appears there's no need now.

But where does it all come from? Well Mexico is the world's biggest producer of horse meat.

The home of the sombrero accounts for nearly 80,000 tonnes of the stuff a year.

Check your burrito for those big teeth is all I'm saying.

It is also popular in Central Asia, where horse meat has been part of nomadic people’s culture for thousands of years.

In Mongolia, beef and mutton have become more popular, though in particularly cold winters many prefer horse meat as it is not kept frozen and traditionally people believe it helps warm them up.

It is also favoured for its relatively low cholesterol levels.

It appears we're mad not to eat horse (maybe it was all that beef we ate in the 80s that made us loony) but I don't think us Brits will ever take to dining on dobbin in great numbers.

Vegetarians, who can be a smug lot at the best of times, are now smiling that sympathetic smile but thinking 'I told you so'. But it's not all good news from them either.

Apparently they've found traces of something strange in veggie sausages - tests have indicated the presence of uniQuorn!