Eating horses

Well I was stating a fact, I didn't mean it in any bad judgmental way. And again I wasn't talking to you when I said that, I was talking the OP.

I will respect this OP because she has in no way deserved criticism for her opinion, and I did NOT criticize her in ANY way. Cause like in the past where the OP's of these kind of threads end in insulting Pro slaughter people. Like saying "I feel sorry for your horses" "You don't love horses" and blah blah blah. This OP hasn't done that, so I respect her opinion.

I don't know where in the world you think I'm accusing anyone of anything. Sorry you think I came off that way.

Oh, I see that I've asked the bad question... :/

No... No you haven't.

Hm... I'm not sure.

You've asked a controversial question.

Most of the people here would rather see a horse meet a quick death at slaughter than starve to death in a field somewhere.

They happen to be pets for us, but for many cultures they are food just like a cow or chicken.

I rather see it legalized and strictly regulated than legalized to save the pretty horses who end up having to drive to some other country to get slaughtered (speaking of the states here).

You're exactly right, Spastic.

I'd rather the plants here in the U.S. Were reopened, so we could regulate the horses and their care. As it is, with all the plants shut down, once they leave our borders we have no way to track them.

As an ageing old man, I have yet to see horse flesh being sold for human consumption although during the second world war and for some years afterwards it was sold as edible meat.
Likewise you will not see whalemeat on sale in the UK.

It is a cultural issue and any cook offering horse, whale, dog or cat's meat would
Soon be struck off the visiting list. We Brits are also fussy about which fish we eat and also which wild bird meat.

But despite these cultural idiosyncracies you can enjoy offal in the form of - liver, kidneys, hearts and in the case of sheep and pig, their brains. Old fashioned traditional cuisine is still to be discovered even in the twenty first century. We eat certain offals in my house.

But regarding horse meat:
If my horse were to die or be put down, then the carcass would most likely be collected by the local fox hunt and fed to the hounds.
Alternatively at great expense, the horse'c carcass can be incinerated.

It is still possible to get permission for a horse to be buried on private land but some local governments withhold permission since in some low lying areas it is undersirable to pollute the water table with rotting flesh.

All horses nowadays are supposed to be registered with passports which contain details of all the drugs which may have been administered by a vet and which might have rendered the flesh inedible by humans after euthanasia. This system has the effect that relatively little horse meat can be considered for human consumption.

Except in wartime, there is rarely a shortage of food in Britain and there is plenty of meat of all types to eat without needing to consider horse flesh.
If you know where to hunt, there is a lot of game meat - venison, rabbit, hare pheasant or pidgeon.

But I suspect the fundamental issue in this thread is that I have yet to meet a Brit who would choose to eat horse flesh - especially if it previously had been
Kept as a riding horse.

Likewise we are reluctant to eat a pot bellied pig, or a courtyard chicken kept primarily for eggs, or a pet dog or a cat (which when skinned looks remarkably like wild rabbit (which we do eat).

If this subject relates to the over population of wild mustangs in the US, then the problem does not apply in Britain. There are relatively few areas on the island of Great Britain where wild horses roam unfettered. Most of the open land is to be found in the national parks - the Highlands, the Lake District, The Cambrian Mountains etc, each of which are managed by wardens, who would not tolerate too many wild 'ponies'. On Dartmoor, from time to time the ponies are rounded up and shipped off alive to France - where the French do eat horse meat. There might be a market for an American to airfreight frozen horsemeat to France - if the EU strict regulations could be met. The French eat a lot of unusual foods - including snails (delicious if done in garlic butter)

But please, keep your eyes off my tubby Irish mare. She's not for eating - ever.

Umm, maybe we should get a mod before this one blows up. It's only a matter of time, and we've proved time and time again we're not capable of having a mature discussion on this topic without people getting emotional.

I think people are trying to start a debate here, if you look properly she isn't really asking for the for/against eating horse meat.

She just wanted to know if it was legal to eat horse meat in the UK, annd if so, how it came about.

Just before the argument gets too bad when there wasn't really cause for an argument (:

Equiniphile, it's been fairly civil so far. We can only hope it stays that way. Of course, the real die hard antis haven't shown up yet.