Discussion thread. Would you eat horse meat?

newforest

newforest

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Mar 15, 2008
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Okay so another totally random topic for discussion, see where this one goes.

I am going to say that in the UK, I will say no. However if I was on holiday abroad, I might be tempted to try some simply because I am interested in how other cultures live, I would hope that the animal is possibly bred for that market as oppose to being something I just rode!! I draw the line at something I just rode, or stroked!

In case people don't know the cute little Dartmoor foals are bred for the local zoos. They are therefore just there for the tourists to look at. Zoo animals need to eat A LOT of meat.
I realise we may have non meat eaters on the forum, if we stopped eating meat the animals that we eat would likely then be fed the zoo animals. Our farm animals would just be kept as pets and moorland ponies would be more selectively bred for quality.
I could give up certain meat tomorrow, I am not fussed with beef, I don't buy lamb.
I guess horse would be considered as red meat?
 
I didt know that the Dartmoor foals were fed to zoo animals.

I do know about eating horse. We lived in Belgium for two years when OH was a very junior official. I found meat cost a lot m0re in Belgium than at home in the UK and there was very little lamb on sale at all. But there was horsemeat on sale in supermarket packs along with the beef but cheaper. I did buy it once or twice and we ate it like steak.
Horse meat was similarly on sale in Italy where we holidayed several times through Home exchange when our children were teenagers. I was doing the catering but I didnt buy horse meat which came from a special butcher.

Horse meat was not traditionally eaten in Europe but one of the 19th century popes was much concerned by poverty and mal nourishment and lack of protien in Poland. He issued an edict saying it was fine to eat horsemeat and a trade then started taking horses East to Poland. Protestant countries did not eat horsemeat.
 
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I’m a vegetarian so no. I became veggie as soon as I made the connection between the sheep cow etc out in the field and what I was putting in my mouth. I haven’t wavered since.

However why would you eat say a cow but not a horse? They are all animals. None if us animals are more important that the next.
 
I have not knowingly eaten horsemeat since I started to ride.
I think one has quite an intimate personal relationship with the horses one rides regularly or frequently. Both emotional and physical.

I have a uni friend who is vegetarian. She was the daughter of a farmer and like you @Doodle92, she made the connection between what she ate and the farm animals. When we were young 60 or 70 years ago, there was not a great variety of Vegetarian food or cooking and I suspect that her health has suffered from it.
I have a vegetarian grand daughter but sometimes being vegetarian may be a strategy for young people who want to eat Kosher, (or Halal) but dont want their school friends to know what they are doing.
 
Doodle92 said:
I’m a vegetarian so no. I became veggie as soon as I made the connection between the sheep cow etc out in the field and what I was putting in my mouth. I haven’t wavered since.

However why would you eat say a cow but not a horse? They are all animals. None if us animals are more important that the next.
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A horse is a pet that has been part of my life for most of it.
A cow hasn't and isn't a pet.
Therfore I don't have an issue with eating it.
 
No, I'm also vegetarian. Unless it was life or death I wouldn't knowingly.

I've seen a pride of lions eating a horse at The Big Cat Sanctuary and it didn't bother me one bit.
 
Skib said:
I didt know that the Dartmoor foals were fed to zoo animals.

I do know about eating horse. We lived in Belgium for two years when OH was a very junior official. I found meat cost a lot m0re in Belgium than at home in the UK and there was very little lamb on sale at all. But there was horsemeat on sale in supermarket packs along with the beef but cheaper. I did buy it once or twice and we ate it like steak.
Horse meat was similarly on sale in Italy where we holidayed several times through Home exchange when our children were teenagers. I was doing the catering but I didnt buy horse meat which came from a special butcher.

Horse meat was not traditionally eaten in Europe but one of the 19th century popes was much concerned by poverty and mal nourishment and lack of protien in Poland. He issued an edict saying it was fine to eat horsemeat and a trade then started taking horses East to Poland. Protestant countries did not eat horsemeat.
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Interesting to hear how it's found so commonly in other cultures and the reasons behind it
 
But why is a horse a pet and therefore not to be eaten. There are pet cows and pet sheep too. I know what you are saying but why. I find the thought of eating horses 🤢 but I feel the same about eating chickens. Or would you eat a horse if it wasn’t a pet and had been bred and killed just to be eaten?
 
Skib said:
My grandfather and his friends hunted. Horses that died were taken to the hunt to feed the hounds.
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Would I be right in thinking they would take them?
Or has that changed with the introduction of passports. Mine is ticked not for the food chain.
 
Hunts will still take them to feed hounds as long as they haven't had medication that prevents it, so no pts by injection for example. And they will always ask rather than assume. I think the box on the passports is just to stop them going into the human food chain.
 
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Doodle92 said:
But why is a horse a pet and therefore not to be eaten. There are pet cows and pet sheep too. I know what you are saying but why. I find the thought of eating horses 🤢 but I feel the same about eating chickens. Or would you eat a horse if it wasn’t a pet and had been bred and killed just to be eaten?
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There are pet farm animals, and no I wouldn't want to eat one of those either.
Would I eat a horse if it had been bred for the food chain only, possibly, I don't know.

I have bought a small amount of pheasant and I didn't enjoy it because I feed all the birds.
Even the ones I don't really want to attract. But I don't have any issue over poultry.
 
Maybe it isnt a taboo to eat horses as they were kept for meat and milk before they were ridden. I have eaten camel and camel liver in the Sudan. But I have always had a soft spot for camels and paid to ride one in Jordan.
My OH who is an Arabist says he has never ridden a camel and doesnt want to. He says they are very high off the ground.

In the War (WW2) households were encourged to keep chickens and rabbits. My poor mother kept both althiough not at the same time. The rabbits had names and I assume we ate them. When our daughter went to France on an exchange visit she was introduced to the rabbits they kept and told their names. She was very upset at lunch one day when the family ate rabbit, to be told, "Alice, we have just eaten Minou".
 
I have never knowingly eaten horse but OH has when abroad and says he liked it better than beef steak because it was more tender and less fatty. Apparently the meat improves with the increasing age of the horse.

I'm not a big meat eater but I would probably try horse meat if there was nothing else on the menu, I'm not squeamish. I couldn't eat my own horse though.

Now drinking cows' milk is another matter - what a totally disgusting concept that is 😂 If you hadn't been brought up thinking it was normal to drink a baby food from an animal's boobies wouldn't you find it a bit yuk?
 
I’m veggie but not for moral reasons, I just don’t like the texture of meat, or meaty fish. I haven’t eaten meat in almost 30 years. I don’t have an issue with meat eating as long as they have a good life and good death. I offered to raise sheep and chickens for my meat eating family but they said they couldn’t eat it if they knew it when it was alive. I don’t really think eating horse meat is different to eating any other, I don’t object to it. I suspect I ate it as a child on holiday in France.
 
I wonder how the horses that are bred for meat cope with it? Are they all slaughtered at the same time or do they just gradually lose members of their herd (I assume they live in some sort of herd). I wonder if they live inside or outside. There was some videos quite recently wasn't there of the poor treatment of horses in slaughterhouses. I just wonder how they cope with live transport and then coming off a lorry into a place like that. It's weird when you compare it to how we keep our own. I also wonder how they are kept, are they healthy with good standard of care or are things left untreated?

I think visits to proper working farms of various sorts, including fruit and veg etc should be included in school trips so everyone is taught where food comes from and they can make that connection.
 
We did do trips at school to various places. But I also know where food comes from, isn't that partly down to your parents education and you wanting to finding things out.
It is true that many city kids have never seen farm animals, some people I meet I have never met a horse.
 
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