The horse meat scandal burst into the public consciousness in January of this year when food inspectors discovered the meat in a selection of burgers. An investigation was launched and several ranges of meat products were found to be 100% horse. This was most prevalent in Britain, France and Sweden. Since the revelation was made public knowledge there has been three main points of contention from consumers. Firstly, they have been misled; when you buy a product labelled as beef, you expect it to be beef. Secondly, it was thought that a drug that is frequently used to treat horses, which is harmful to humans, could have entered the food chain. Thirdly, and possibly the most prominent issue on the minds of the public, is that horse isn’t an animal they would choose to eat for both cultural and moral reasons.
As the investigation continued, the meat was traced back through suppliers in many countries to Romanian abattoirs. It has also been strongly suggested that the incidence of horse in other meat products was the working of a huge criminal conspiracy, and not an accident as many initially thought. Some supermarkets and food suppliers have been accused of knowingly selling the contaminated horse meat products; all have vehemently denied these claims.
The reactions to the horse meat scandal have been quite varied depending on personal opinion. For those who are upset at having been lied to about the content of their meal, there seems to be no solution. By giving their unquestioning trust to the supermarkets who tell them what is in their food, they have found themselves eating horse against their knowledge. That’s a problem with a simple resolve – stop trusting the massive chains and put some more thought into what you put in your stomach. For those who are raising ethical questions over the use of horses as meat, it seems there is a much more complex moral struggle.
In other parts of the world, such as Central Asia and South America, horse meat is a standard part of the cuisine. Of the countries that eat horse as meat, the eight who do so most commonly, consume approximately 4.7 million horses each year collectively. Horse meat is considered to be a tasty meat and is high in protein whilst being low in fat.
The taboo that exists in the west in relation to eating horses stems from the historical view of them as companions and workers, placing them almost on a par with other domestic pets. In most English speaking countries it isn’t easy to procure horse meat for food and the majority would choose not to anyway for their own ethical reasons.
When you depend on a system of food that heavily relies on factory farming and questionable methods of raising livestock, it seems natural that you have already put your morals to one side. So, to those people who are apparently horrified at the thought of having eaten horse meat, I have to ask, do you think the cow suffered any less when it was slaughtered? Does a pig feel less pain as it’s was killed to go to your dinner plate? Why is the idea of murdering a horse to feed people more disturbing then it is to destroy any other animal that was bred to satisfy the human appetite?
Being raised in the U.S.A. I find it difficult to stomach the idea of eating horse meat, but in point of fact it’s considered to be very healthful in Italy, so I guess it really is a matter of opinion or upbringing. The thing I find really objectionable then, is not that horse meat was sold, but that it wasn’t labeled as such (doubt the problem existed in Italy, as horse meat is usually more expensive than other meat products) but then I’d find it objectionable if I found I was eating American transgenic soy and didn’t know it. I think that only a Vegan could, without being a hypocrite, get moralistic about what type of meat is being raised and killed for food. From dog meat to rabbit or cow, or whatever…there’s really no difference, it’s a cultural thing. Thanks for your article…
Great post. I have had horse steak while in Belgium in 1985. It did not scar me or particularly upset me. Sure horses enjoy a “higher” social standing than cows, but, as a rule they are smarter. It does not mean that they are not part of the food chain.
Good direction with this. What’s the big deal with horse meat? I’ve ate worse on my travels…and tastes are formed by cuteness of animal, and usefulness in days gone by – as you pointed out – but that’s no longer true of horses. Scandal? Does everything have to be a scandal? Is the general population not used to being lied to yet? Open your eyes to your world…culture is a collective lie. I’d say send me some horse, but all I eat is fish right off the fishing boats.
Later…
I think you made the main point in that, as part of western culture, we grow up with a certain fascination and loyalty to the iconic image of horses as companions. It goes back to our very roots as part of our American experience. We don’t like eating horse meat any more than we do our dogs. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the meat of either, and other countries have no problem eating them. In the same way certain religions won’t eat cows or hoofed animals, eating horse meat — from a western perspective — doesn’t settle well in our stomachs. Love the lead photo by the way; it was perfect!
As some say meat is meat irrespective of which animal it comes from, but when deciding to eat meat the person should know what meat they are eating. Whether you eat a certain meat is down to taste and culture. In this discussion and the world at large, some people are saying all animals need to be killed to provide meat, so does it matter which meat you eat. What all are forgetting is that Humans are also classed as animals and there is also meat in our bodies. From some of the discussion points, if some have no objection to what meat they eat, would they object to eating human meat, after all some of our ancestors did.
The main reason for the scandal is not that meat came into the food chain, but that is did without the consumers knowledge.By Law most ingredients need to be disclosed on the packaging, therefore if it was not fraud, then why was it not mentioned. Let also look at products which state 100% of a meat, say beef, it just states 100% beef, not 100% beef meat. This means any part of the animals can be used meat, fat, offal, etc. One just assumes it is all meat, but how can it for the price paid.
Then what about the products that have no packaging, like a butcher making their own sausages or beef burghers. Do they use products from their own stock. Re sausages, do they make their own sausage meat or do they purchase a commercial mix. If the latter, who knows what a manufacturer is putting in the mix.
The only way to ensure what you are eating is to total prepare your food yourself, from basic ingredients obtained by yourself. I personally make my own mince from sourced Scottish Beef, where I alone decide the ratio of fat to meat, which for me is nil fat and 100% meat.
Great choice of photo! I don’t have issues with cute animals; in France we eat both rabbit and horse meat (both are low fat and relatively cheap here). I don’t buy prepared food, simply because you don’t know what’s gone into it. It’s not just a question of whether it’s this meat or that, but also (as Christerry rightly points out) which bits of the animal you actually find fit to call meat. I couldn’t make a lasagne for the price Findus charge, which is a good sign that half of the ingredients are cheap rubbish. The same applies for cakes, biscuits and the rest.
I wanted to drop by your blog and see what you were about. My youngest daughter just finished her semester report on the legalization of Horse slaughter in the United States. She discovered that even though it has been made legal, does not mean that it should of been. The unfortunate and usually tragic mishandling of the animals, the slaughterhouses were not ready to handle the sudden increase, they are just being added to the mismanagement of food animals in this country.
No matter what your beliefs about consuming animal flesh whether equine, bovine, porcine or caprine; fear floods meat! We raise our own goats for dairy, sheep for lamb, chickens for eggs. We do not buy meat from the grocery store and know where our food comes from. I hope there will be a further awakening to buy and eat local. We have a responsibility to teach respect and stewardship to our next generation.
Thank you for your great article, I can’t wait to show it to my daughter!
Appreciate the follow.
Not sure I’d be able to eat horse, but interestingly, on our National Public Radio channel last week, they ran a story on how the horsemeat scandal has prompted an increase in orders of horsemeat from some farms in the UK, as people became curious about what it tasted like. Apparently horsemeat is leaner than beef and tons cheaper too.
hey thanks for “liking” my post! Did you even have time to read it?
Great post ! The horse meat scandal is really huge where I live (in France), so it was interesting to read such a fine analysis ! Thanks for the follow !
We’ve had the horse meat scandal in Ireland too, and the supermarkets will lose a lot of custom to local butchers, for a few weeks anyway until the headlines die down. The big worry was the idea that we could all have been ingesting Bute in our horse-meat burgers on a regular basis for years; Bute being an anti-inflammatory used on horse, which can cause bone marrow loss when ingested by humans, as well as being carcinogenic. Why we would be extra concerned with this, considering the amount of antibiotics being pumped into every other animal we consume, I don’t know. As for horse meat being less acceptable morally than cow, I don’t get that either. It’s like people have some sort of ranking system for animals, and the ones that seem ‘most human-like’ are to be spared. What the horse-meat scandal has shown clearly is that the food industry needs to be closely and regularly monitored.