What the Ikea horse meat scandal tells us about our food

>>> the chicken is a heritage breed. woodland raised chicken that is fed a diet of sheep's milk and soy and hazel nuts .

>> this is local?

>> yes, absolutely.

>> one more time. it's local?

>> the.

>> is that usda organic or portland organic?

>> all across the board, organic. here is the chicken you'll be enjoying tonight.

>> you have this information? this is fantastic.

>> absolutely. his name was colin. here are his papers, okay?

>> that's great.

>> he looks like a happy little guy that runs around. a lot of friends? other chickens as friend's putting his wing around another one and palling around?

>> i don't know if i can speak to that intimate knowledge about him. they do to make sure that their chickens are very happy.

>> that's a clip from portlandia. frank bruni is with us. he took on the recent ikea meatball horse meat scandal. every time we eat something that we haven't grown or reaped and cooked ourselves we have taking a leap of faith it was protected from contamination and it was inspected properly and the cook didn't mix in something objectionable and the waiter didn't drop it on the floor. we are in stream trust and vulnerability and that goes only so far. we can be local and seasonal and sustainable and organic and buy our pork somewhere other than where we buy our throw pillows but never entirely sure. good morning.

>> good morning.

>> a lot of jokes about the ikae is false?

>> i thought are they oddimens?

>> they are meatballs and made of horse meat and a scandal in europe as well. serious points to be made about what we are eating.

>> i don't think this is just about horse meat . i think what the story tells us and turned out horsemeat and pork in a lot of products that are supposed to be beef. we are not sure what we put in our mouth. ask you request enough questions and go to the right places like that clip you will be okay. we were told about copenhagen which is considered the world's best. in mid february they had a food poison thing where scores came down with food poisoning . that is a kitchen as fastidious as any. when you open your mouth and putting something in it, you are taking a big risk.

>> i would say it's a completely -- anyone goes and researches and is skeptical about not just at a restaurant but evening going into a grocery store ? we trust there is one along the line taking care of it. is that not the case?

>> you have to trust because only so much with you check on. you talk about the grocery store and the label and you look for the inspection label, did that inspector do his or or job correctly? is that label honest? we see stories every couple of months "the times" did this recently they take foods that have labeled calorie counts and submit them to independent assessmen assessments. always the calorie counts are way off. the food mislabeled most was a vegan tofu sandwich had 85 calories and doubled that number. you think i'm getting have gone vegan and what can go wrong? you are trusting it is what it is labeled as.

>> what is the breakdown there in something has twice as many it says why isn't that picked up along the line?

>> we don't have enough inspectors doing that work. i'd rather have chains post calories and the way the bloomberg administration has asked them to than not because it's some information sometimes that information is going to be correct but what we need to realize is that information isn't always going to be correct and we don't have enough government funds or enough will in the world to really, really police that the way ideally we could.

>> if you're watching at home the answer is?

>> go to five guys!

>> first of all, i worked for ikea for years and did ads for them.

>> you did? how many meatballs did you eat?

>> the meatballs were delicious and i'm going to throw up now.

>> horse meat is not bad for us.

>> but ikea was the first retailer in this country to understand it where they would have a play area for kids and restaurant is a real selling point. the question for somebody at home is what do you do? great. we know that, you know, we can't trust everything, but what do you do?

>> i mean i think you try to make your odds as good as possible. i think it makes sense to shop in stores with a good track record and makes more sense to shop at the farmers market than other places. i think the other takeaway as offensive as a lot of this is in terms of aesthetics or culture because a lot of us don't want to eat horse, the bottom line there haven't been a lot of deaths from this sort of stuff or serious illness. . salmonella but i think as you think about big food and how much we all eat every day, in fact, it must be mostly safe or we would be seeing a lot more illness and deny than we are i don't know how much of a consolation that is but i think it is? do you think will change the complex of supply chains and less of our food or companies source less of their food from all over the world and we will see more localism? or as you point with you it doesn't matter if it's next door, you can solve the problem?

>> i don't think you will see a lot more localism for pure economic reasons. a lot of people can't afford to buy their food in that way in a nonmass produced way. mass produced isn't always bad. there was a recent survey of fish an one-third of seafood taken from restaurants, grocery stores and et cetera around the country one-third was mislabeled of it was mislabeled as something other than it was.

>> sea horse .

>> the great culprit was sushi counters, not grocery stores . think you were going to the sushi counters, your fraud better, but they were worse offenders.

>> good idea to stay away from sushi at gas stops, gasoline, quick marts.

>> i tend

>>> to

>> let me ask you about yesterday's piece in the times, i'm reading it and you reference being at noma. i have not been to noma.

>> they don't let people like you into noma.

>> but at one point during a sumptuous meal you are having and you are served and you eat a live shrimp.

>> yes.

>> still wriggling a little bit. in the context of horse meat , everyone was horrified that horse meat informs this meat. a lot of cultures eat horse on purpose. at noma, the greatest restaurant in the world by a lot of people's estimations, they thought it was appropriate, or ideal, in terms of freshness to serve a live shrimp. could i have done without the live shrimp. it took a pause and a lot of courage to eat it.

>> what happened when you dipped the live shrimp into the cocktail sauce?

>> you really want to be grossed out there is a dish served in a lot of chinatown restaurants called drunken shrimp, put live shrimp in a bowl in front of you, pour alcohol over them and light them on fire around get to see them emmow l emmow late before your eyes.

>> we do that with lobsters.

>> heart scream he is.

>> how are you coming out on daylight savings time ?

>> i haven't adjusted yet. i hate losing the hour.

>> see?

>> ground swell.

>> if we could chain it to gain hours, wouldn't that be great? longer lives, illusion.

>> i think we have a majority i anti- daylight savings majority on this show. incredible.

>> 7:00 at night.

>> fourth of july is great. frank bruni , a really good piece, something we ought to be thinking about. read a portion of frank's column at mojo.msnbc.com and the full thing at the "new york times." good to see you.

>>> forget iraq and afghanistan what is the u.s. military -- why do they still have bases in japan and germany? author and historian takes aims at potential targets for military cuts.

>>> senator ron johnson will join us to talk about a deal for big a deal in washington. you are watching " morning joe ," brewed by starbucks.