Kashmir’s Meat Mutiny

I used to love eating out. Not the 30 rupees-per-piece Rista from a dingy roadside stall, but the kind of dining where the café had big windows, sunlight streaming in, and a view to die for. The kind where the plate looked Instagram-ready before I even picked up my fork. Now? I am scared. As most of us are.

Because in the past few weeks, Kashmir has been serving a dish none of us ordered, a full-blown rotten meat scandal. Over 3,000 kilos of spoiled meat seized across the Valley (the raids still ongoing). Meat dumped in nallahs to avoid raids. Restaurants sealed. Momos, kebabs, chicken, gone straight from the kitchen to the dustbin. And suddenly, that picture-perfect meal feels like a gamble with my intestines.

This isn’t just about bad meat; it’s about bad trust. And trust, once rotten, is harder to replace than a freezer full of mutton. And while we are at it, let’s be honest, this whole “eating out every weekend” culture didn’t just happen by accident. We were lured into it, one heavily-filtered Instagram reel at a time. You know the ones, a slow pan over a sizzling kebab, a ₹99 biryani deal that looks too good to be true (and probably is), captions that read like poetry for food that’s actually... average at best.

This isn’t to say all food Instagrammers are bad, they’re not. Some genuinely care about food safety. But too many have been riding the barter-collab wave, trading glowing reviews for free platters and “exclusive invites.” No bills, no questions just content. And when your dinner costs ₹99, the real price is often hidden: questionable sourcing, reused oil, expired spices, and meat that’s been thawed and refrozen more times than we would like to imagine.

We, the audience, played along. We didn’t ask where the meat came from. We didn’t check if the oil had turned black from overuse. We trusted the angles, the captions, the hashtags. And while we were busy tagging friends to “try this place,” the rot, quite literally, was setting in. And here’s the part we don’t talk about enough: Kashmir is already sinking into a public health hole. Cancer cases are rising alarmingly in the Valley. Doctors have long warned about possible links between poor-quality, chemically treated food and our soaring rates of stomach, esophageal, and colon cancers. Add to that the risks of consuming spoiled or unhygienically stored meat , food poisoning, typhoid, hepatitis A, and long-term organ damage and we are basically lining up for trouble with every careless bite.

So what do we do next? Ask questions before you order. If the waiter can’t tell you where the meat came from, take that as a sign and order the vegetarian special. Support places with clean, transparent kitchens. A café that lets you peek inside is a café that probably has nothing to hide. Don’t be silent. If you see bad hygiene, call it out whether to authorities, online, or directly to the owner. Stop romanticizing “cheap meat deals.” Because there’s a reason that Rista is thirty rupees, and it’s not charity. Know your rights under food safety rules:

Every eatery must display its FSSAI license number, check it. Hot food must be served above 60°C, cold food below 5°C. Staff should wear gloves, hairnets, and clean uniforms.

Oil must not be reused beyond permitted limits.

Meat and vegetables must be stored separately to avoid cross-contamination.

The meat will get fresher only when the conversation gets sharper. The authorities are cracking down now, but the real enforcement is in our hands, our questions, our choices, our refusal to accept garbage on a plate. Until then, I’ll be sticking to home-cooked wazwan and sipping my noon chai in peace, while food bloggers are now jumping to the new trend of checking before giving shout outs.  And if the day ever comes when “rotten meat raids” are history, you’ll find me back at my favorite café, fork in hand, camera ready but this time, I will be photographing the kitchen first.