Why not eat horses?, part 2

[urbpan]

I thought I'd just posted about the horse slaughter issue, but apparently it's been a full year. The link in the previous sentence leads to my post about an email (from an animal protection organization I'm interested in), asking us all to lobby congress to make it illegal to slaughter horses for food. Apparently the House of Representatives has approved a bill to this effect.


My feeling is, if there are thousands of horses that need to be destroyed, why not sell the meat for food? One zoo director has become involved, as well, because the big cats that live in zoos eat mainly processed horse meat.

If you are against factory farming, or slaughterhouses, you must be against them for all animals. There is no important neurological difference between a cow and a horse that makes slaughter less humane for horses. Any opposition to horse slaughter comes from a sentimental attachment to one species over another, and is not logically consistent, and in my opinion, is basically indefensible.

There's also a xenophobic aspect to the bill: Americans don't eat horses, but the French and Japanese do. This is why the slaughter of cows will never be made illegal in the U.S.--We'd all starve! But since those weird foreigners are the dirty horse-eaters, why not ban horse slaughter?

I do not support factory farms, but I am in favor of humane slaughter. Treating animals like food does not bother me. Treating animals like some kind of inanimate raw material, like iron ore or something, that bothers me. Farm animals should be respected, their lives should not be misery, and we should expect meat to be expensive in exchange for treating our animals well.

Comments

[candent.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I'm sure the Senate will shoot it down.

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Wow, I agree with everything you just said there. I don't personally treat animals like food (I'm vegan) but I think that the farming industry would be a lot closer to acceptable if more meat eaters were as thoughtful and sensible as you.

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Dutch people eat horse meat too. I don't see what the big deal is. then again I freak about the whales and sharks, but that's different....or is it....

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

The difference is that both sharks and whales are endangered. That's an important difference.

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

I just fear that I feel this way because sharks are cool. Then I'd be guilty of hypocrisy. Oh wait, often they're killed just for the fins! That's disgraceful!

It makes me think though. The goal of whale conservation is to get them to the point where they're not endangered. I'm sure some species are near or at that point now. Is it then ok to hunt them? I don't think so. I must be a hypocrite.

do you know this personally or something?

[eponabast.livejournal.com]

I grew up in Amsterdam, and I have to admit I never knew anyone who ate horse-meat. In fact, I remember discussing "the crazy French" who *do* eat it with friends in highschool.

If it's a common thing, it's probably something done mostly in the South, closer to Belgium.

Re: do you know this personally or something?

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

the wikipedia entry on horse meat makes a reference to paarderookvlees as commonly available horse meat.

Re: do you know this personally or something?

[eponabast.livejournal.com]

't spijt me vreselijk maar ik heb nog nooit paardevlees in een Albert-Hein tegengekomen.

Ik woonde 10 jaar in 't centrum van Amsterdam, en moet eerlijk toegeven dat ik het (zover ik me kan herinneren) nooit tegengekomen.

Re: do you know this personally or something?

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

I was a party in Tilburg (where I used to live) and horse was on the menu and everyone there found it normal.

Re: do you know this personally or something?

[(Anonymous)]

Just goes to show how ignorant people in these other countries are. They are paying close to 15 dollars a pound for horsemeat from "America". If they only knew the amount of painkillers, antibiotics, fly sprays and all kinds of harmful chemicals used on these horses daily, I doubt they would want to "Buy American". All I can say is "Bon Appetite!"

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I agree, although, to be open about it, I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian. I've decided it's easier to just not eat meat, rather than question whether every bit of meat I encounter lived a decent life or not. I may start eating meat from the farm I work at, now that I'm doing some livestock work (shh!)

I have a great deal of respect for meat eaters that don't pretend that they aren't eating animals. (Come on Lisa, it's "lamb!" Not "a lamb.")

[candent.livejournal.com]

"If a cow ever got the chance, he would eat you and everyone you cared about!"

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

When I grow up, I want to go to Bovine University!

[candent.livejournal.com]

There is no important neurological difference between a cow and a horse that makes slaughter less humane for horses.

Don't you know how it works here? If the animal is asthetically pleasing, than it can't be eaten.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Then I'd only eat bivalve mollusks, which I never ate, even when all I ate was meat.

Hell, I think insects are aesthetically pleasing, never mind cows and chickens!

Come on, eat the beauty!

[candent.livejournal.com]

I'm allergic to seafood!

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I'm mentally allergic to it:
http://urbpan.livejournal.com/55515.html

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I ate horsemeat as a child, which means I've already thought about this. I think it's more respectful to eat what you kill, and it's clear that since we do have herds of wild horses, they will have to be killed sometimes (their populations can't be regulated by natural forces).

I remember my father telling me that the prohibition against eating horse derives from attempts to drive out pre-Christian European religions, among whom the horse was a holy creature whose consumption was connected to various celebrations. He said that you could see where the holiness of horses and the ritual eating of horses had been by seeing where modern people are disgusted by the idea of eating them.

For myself, I won't eat primates, and I won't eat marine mammals,because the former are my family and the latter are family by adoption. There are other things I don't eat because I don't have the taste for them (most invertebrates). Somewhere I picked up the way to say it: "I do not know how to eat this thing." But marine mammals and primates, I refuse to learn how to eat them under any but the most dire circumstances.

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

I've heard the opposite about why some cultures find the idea of eating horsemeat distasteful. Some guy on a documentary said it was because of some pre-Christian reverence for horses that English people don't like the idea of eating them. I did think it was BS though!

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Most of the horses being slaughtered aren't wild horses (of whcih we don't have many, having eradicated most of them to give the range over to cows and sheep), but instead are pet, racing, or working horses who are too old to work any more or are unwanted.

Dogs and cats go to the pound; horses get slaughtered and shipped overseas.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Dogs and cats mostly go out the chimney, as U.S. shelters kill (depending who you ask) between 5 and 10 million of them per year.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. I was just pointing out that the horse slaughterhouses are basically the pound for equines. Only they sell the meat, afterwards. Which seems to me, somehow, less wasteful.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

100% agreement. Not sure I could talk anyone into selling euthanized dogs for fur and meat, but it would be less wasteful.

this is not that reliable but

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Another thing about Holland. Whan I live there I knew a guy who worked at some kind on animal group. Part of their job was scooping up roadkill pets. Anyway, this guy assured me, and he doesn't strike me as a bullshitter, that all those flattened dogs and cats were put into a big freezer and sold to pet food companies. Don't know if it's true of false. Sounds like a recipe for CJD to me...

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

Evidently quite a few of them are the direct result of PMU harvesting, which is kind of absurd since they have a synthetic analogue.

in MA we have a pound for unwanted horses, i'm not sure how many they can house at a time though.

[(Anonymous)]

pet, racing, or working horses who are too old to work any more or are unwanted

Nothing could be further from the truth, most horses at the slaughter house are young and in good health. Pregnant mares get sent to slaughter all the time. And yes, even wild mustangs are now being rounded up and shipped to slaughter.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

for americans especially it seems, horses are the same as "cows are in india"... worshipped, revered, almost mystical, holy. maybe. maybe not for the same reasons.

horses are noble.
cows are ... well ... cows.

i'm VERY certain i've eaten horse. disguised as hamburger, in school. i think we even noted the improvement in taste over the crappy cow meat they served ;P

on a proper working farm, well, nothing is wasted. your ferrets/fitch that are too old or injured to rat/rabbit anymore? stew pot. too many boy goats? off to the stew with them. old bessy dried up and can't produce no more? off to the grill.

even the adorable llamas and alpacas ... though they produce nifty fur for a long long time after their peak breeding years, they still don't live that long. you fed, you eat'em.

so horses? well, IF they HAVE to kill'em. sure. sell'em for food, even for tigers and lions if not people. the think though is, do they HAVE to kill them, especially the wild ones.

and like the modern man song (http://www.modernman3.com), roadkill is the way to go if you really want ethical, especially from the scavenging/reuse mindset :)

#

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

yeah, i thought we'd just been over this, too, but it has been a while. also, wasn't the legilsation a year ago about catching wild horses and slaughtering them if they weren't 'adopted'? - that one actually passed, because it was piggy-backed onto something having to do with energy or military.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

evidently a whole shitload of countries eat horse meat - wikipedia has a great entry on horse meat, very enlightening.

the debate on the subject in pet_debate was pretty infuriating because people can't decide which aspect of it is more horrifying to them. it seems like, for the most part, people are complaining about inhumane slaughter but, shit, that happens in every freaking slaughterhouse in this fine country. horses aren't the exception to the rule.

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

i'm always stunned at how many people are fans of the humane society and pick up their ground pork at the grocery store every week.
i'll go out and shoot a moose before i get hungry enough to eat anything coughed up by the meat industry.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

ha ha! i'll happily eat meat though i'd rather eat organic and humanely slaughtered animals. i need my own chickens, is the thing.

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

i missed chicken for a long time, but i'm too squeamish, i'll admit it. i stick to morningstar for my chicken-like urges :) and even that comes with guilt, since it's an agricorp company.

btw - that pet_debate thread was interesting. it's a wonder your head didn't explode.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

my fave fake chicken is quorn because it's totally the best texture. i don't know how that company is, politically, though.

i think my head did explode a little bit. some people seem not to understand the concept of 'debate.'

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

i haven't tried quorn, but i'll try it next time i'm at the store. life is too short to stress a lot about the politics of everything. sometimes it's good to not know.

[stonelizard.livejournal.com]

Linda McCartney sausages are also fantastic if you are looking for a meat substitute... tastes fantastic with lashings of gravy and roast onions...mmm

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

ooh. i'll look for those for my husband. i'm a wimp, and can't handle anything that tastes like mammal anymore (when i stopped eating meat, my alternatives were tofu and tvp), but he really misses having red meat in the house, so he'll appreciate that quite a bit.

thanks!

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

That poor woman! First she dies of cancer, now they're making her into sausages?!

/tasteless

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

LMAO!!

sorry.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

LOLLLLLLLLL!!!

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

based on your other comments, you might not like it. it's inescapably meaty.

[by-steph.livejournal.com]

Much of the push to slaughter horses is coming from ranchers that want to use public lands to overgraze their cattle on. This is the same reason the bison from Yellowstone are killed. There has been no documented case of brucellosis transmission between bison and cattle. For the most part it is not an inability of the land to support the horses or the bison. The land cannot support the destructive cattle industry and horses and bison. The slaughter of wild horses is not what I would consider humane. They can be shot in the wild, or, they can be rounded up from the wild and trucked in to slaughter houses. To manage an animal at a slaughterhouse that is not accustomed to humans will not be a humane death if you consider a reduction of stress one of the components of humane slaughter. This push to end horse slaughter didn't come about because people were upset that old horses were being sent to slaughter. This came about because of the Burns (R-MT) Amendment to the Wild and Free-roaming Horses and Burros Act. If it is thought that bleeding hearts have gone overboard, then The Man needs to stop doing $hit that people will react to. The argument of not being a hypocrite in killing some animals and loving others does not need to go the direction of Lets Kill All Animals For Food. It's like the Feminist objection to having a door held open for a woman. Instead of a world where everyone lets doors slam other people in the face to uphold Equality, how about a world in which everyone holds a door open for everyone else.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

you need to check out the pet_debate post on this subject.

[stonelizard.livejournal.com]

This bill came out of nowhere and is causing a great deal of bickering on various zookeeping forums which, alas, has also degenerated into a "mightier than thou" attitude on vegetarianism....
I am all for it. at the end of the day if we did not have a way of moving on old horses then we would be Losing a lot of money, time and fieldspace. Its no real difference to cattle, sheep, goats and the other species we eat. People are geting rather upset about this one as horses are a more attractive species.
At the end of the day, if it is done humanely then I have no huge problem with culling horses - I think I would rather eat horsemeat than chicken. Personal opinion, of course

And on a practical view - so many zoos in the UK and abroad rely on cheap horsemeat to feed their animals. I believe in some species it is even more nutritionally sound than beef. A lot of animal organisations would suffer without this source of meat.
My 2 Cents

[miz-geek.livejournal.com]

We had horse burgers the last time we were in France, just to be able to say we had and to see what they tasted like. They tasted like meat.

I think the power of cultural and social norms is amazing.

[tsunami-ryuu.livejournal.com]

because the big cats that live in zoos eat mainly processed horse meat.

Having done a project at the local zoo with some of the big cats, I concur that this is very true. I don't know what zoos would do if horsemeat were banned from the market. Beef seems far too expensive an alternative.

Good post; I agree with your points. Hopefully this bill won't get through the senate.

[bluelinegoddess.livejournal.com]

As a horse owner/,over, I am fully AGAINST THE BAN.

Every day I can visit a dozen horse rescue sites and see horses they rescued that have been neglected, starved, what have you. Then they have the "feedlot rescues", which are horses they buy from the killer buyers, usually right as their herd is being loaded up to be shipped to slaughter. They always say "we can't save them all".

So what the hell do they think will happen when there is no slaughter? If they can't save them all now, do they think all the excess horses will magically disappear once the ban takes effect?

Too many idiot politicians voted on emotions (which I guess is always the case) rather than logic.

I blame the showing industry for creating so many unwanted horses - it's not unheard of for a person who shows to buy a new horse every year because they don't want to take the time and effort to get one horse to the higher levels - it's so much easier to buy one ready made. Ugh.