Americans haven't eaten horse meat for a long time. Sure, we eat cows by the millions, but horses are our symbol of Wild West freedom, our basic cowboy mode of transportation, and our trusted companion. And now horsemeat is back on the table. In 2006, Congress blocked federal funding for inspection of horses for slaughter, effectively banning horse meat in the United States because all animals and slaughterhouses are required by law to be inspected.
The thought of eating horses automatically triggers “eewwwws” in people. We don't see horses as food, we see them as pets, like dogs and cats, that we would never eat. It doesn't matter that we use horses for glue and jelly (mmmm jelly), it doesn't matter that mares are kept in foal at the Premarin manufacturing facility, it doesn't matter that wild mustangs have been driven from the plains of the country , never mind, it doesn't matter that American horses are still being sold to other countries for slaughter, and it doesn't matter that it's only been 5 years since eating horses was banned here. Horses are expensive to care for and working horses need money to keep. So what about horses that are too old or too weak to work? What happens when a human can no longer take care of a horse? Or several horses? They are often abandoned: selling horses for slaughter in Mexico makes very little money and I imagine the ordeal for a horse is horrendous.
Two states, California and Illinois, outright ban horse slaughter and the sale of horse meat, and many others have restrictions so severe that it is impractical. Eating horse meat was almost always taboo in the United States, but during World War II it was a brief necessity in many places due to the high cost of beef (there's a rumor that the new San Diego Zoo managed to keep its lions to be fed with horse meat). ). The last American horse slaughterhouse, located in Illinois, was forcibly closed in 2007, ultimately preventing people from donating horses that were once intended for food. Although proponents of horse slaughter insist that it would help reduce the number of horses abandoned, horses not specifically bred for slaughter may have been given drugs harmful to humans and drugs harmful to horses intended for human consumption have been banned. . And what about the current practice of horse slaughter? A number of problems arise, including inadequate pre-slaughter stunning, animal awareness of what a slaughterhouse is, and inhumane transport and treatment of live horses.
Aside from the eww factor, horse meat can also have some benefits. While most Americans find it barbaric to eat a dog or cat, millions of these animals are euthanized each year because they are undesirable, and while we don't consider them meat waste, we might think of hundreds of thousands of horses euthanized as meat waste. With beef prices rising (which I think might force Americans to reconsider their eating habits in general, but that argument is for another post), horsemeat could be a viable alternative. Also consider zoos. 10% of horse meat in the US used to go to zoos, but almost all zoos now use beef, which is less nutritional but somehow more humane (do people realize what lions and tigers have to eat in the wild?).
So where am I supposed to lie? Personally, I would consciously never eat a horse for a number of reasons: I don't eat much meat for ethical reasons, but I also used to take riding lessons and my favorite horse was abandoned until rescued by my trainer. I really hope that horses are not raised for food like cows, but I think using horses for their meat (for human or animal consumption) can't be so bad if we also use them for the production of glue and pharmaceuticals use, which is much worse. I'm not averse to eating meat, and I'm not a vegetarian, but I select my meat based on humane or sustainability standards (thus eliminating all livestock raised in the United States) and believe that if we kill animals to do so Whatever the reason, we should use as many of each animal as possible.
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