I love horses, but I couldn't eat a whole one
Sometimes the commercial news media makes me want to puke. This subject deserves better than this clumsy post, so if you're interested in these issues I urge you to follow links and learn more.
Recently the Channel 7/West Australian conglomerate reported with some hysterial that a butcher was receiving death threats because he wanted to sell horse meat. Horses are pets, people said, and you can't eat pets. Full stop.
I have no objection to the idea of eating horse meat. I eat cows and sheep; wouldn't it be hypocritical--all other things being equal--to reject a different mammal? Well yesterday I found out that a few of my unconscious assumptions were seriously flawed. Horse meat does not arrive on the table in the same way as cow meat or sheep meat. At this point in time horses and cows are most definitely not interchangeable, and it's got nothing to do with their cuteness or abilities to do tricks.
Many thanks to shrydar for pointing me to an important information source. The blog Don't Eat Aussie Horses mentions a couple of, oh, minor points of which I was unaware:
There are no facilities to humanely slaughter horses for meat in WA. Or anywhere else for that matter. Slaughterhouses do not do what vets do. Equipment and processes designed to minimise pain and stress for cows do not work with horses. That piece of meat is guarranteed to have gone through a minimum of several hours (and possibly days) of major fear and pain before it gets to you. A seriously frightened horse will turn itself inside out with bruises and break legs, but that might go unnoticed.
Horse meat is unlikely to be safe for human consumption. Who knows where that horse has been? Because the horses in question have not been raised as food stock animals there is no way of knowing what diseases and parasites they've been exposed to, nor what medications they've been given. Cows are much more closely regulated.
Apparently one of the most common medications given to racehorses renders their flesh unfit for human consumption, and failed racehorses are one of the more likely sources of flesh. More reasons to hate the racing industry. Gah. And young thoroughbreds make such wonderful subjects to go through cattle yards in a calm and orderly fashion.
And there's more, but those two points would have made for a slightly different story. The story ended with a taste test (ah the irony), and the reporter concluded that horse meat was delicious.
So according to the "news" the protesters against horse meat are people who object to the idea of eating pets. They are horse lovers, which make them somehow out of touch with reality. Girls, mostly, so not to be trusted with rational arguments. Serious animal welfare and human health issues are apparently not relevant. I wonder if Media Watch knows about this story?
The argument "you can't eat pets" *is* true, but not because pets are cute and fuzzy and we love them. It's because pet animals have not been regulated to make them safe for consumption, and there's no industry dedicated to their welfare whilst turning them into meat.
Just like whales really.
Recently the Channel 7/West Australian conglomerate reported with some hysterial that a butcher was receiving death threats because he wanted to sell horse meat. Horses are pets, people said, and you can't eat pets. Full stop.
I have no objection to the idea of eating horse meat. I eat cows and sheep; wouldn't it be hypocritical--all other things being equal--to reject a different mammal? Well yesterday I found out that a few of my unconscious assumptions were seriously flawed. Horse meat does not arrive on the table in the same way as cow meat or sheep meat. At this point in time horses and cows are most definitely not interchangeable, and it's got nothing to do with their cuteness or abilities to do tricks.
Many thanks to shrydar for pointing me to an important information source. The blog Don't Eat Aussie Horses mentions a couple of, oh, minor points of which I was unaware:
There are no facilities to humanely slaughter horses for meat in WA. Or anywhere else for that matter. Slaughterhouses do not do what vets do. Equipment and processes designed to minimise pain and stress for cows do not work with horses. That piece of meat is guarranteed to have gone through a minimum of several hours (and possibly days) of major fear and pain before it gets to you. A seriously frightened horse will turn itself inside out with bruises and break legs, but that might go unnoticed.
Horse meat is unlikely to be safe for human consumption. Who knows where that horse has been? Because the horses in question have not been raised as food stock animals there is no way of knowing what diseases and parasites they've been exposed to, nor what medications they've been given. Cows are much more closely regulated.
Apparently one of the most common medications given to racehorses renders their flesh unfit for human consumption, and failed racehorses are one of the more likely sources of flesh. More reasons to hate the racing industry. Gah. And young thoroughbreds make such wonderful subjects to go through cattle yards in a calm and orderly fashion.
And there's more, but those two points would have made for a slightly different story. The story ended with a taste test (ah the irony), and the reporter concluded that horse meat was delicious.
So according to the "news" the protesters against horse meat are people who object to the idea of eating pets. They are horse lovers, which make them somehow out of touch with reality. Girls, mostly, so not to be trusted with rational arguments. Serious animal welfare and human health issues are apparently not relevant. I wonder if Media Watch knows about this story?
The argument "you can't eat pets" *is* true, but not because pets are cute and fuzzy and we love them. It's because pet animals have not been regulated to make them safe for consumption, and there's no industry dedicated to their welfare whilst turning them into meat.
Just like whales really.