Obama Legalizes Horse Meat for Slaughter

From Technorati. I've had horse meat in Italy--it tastes like a cross between pork and beef, and is very lean. I got it accidentally in a meat shop where I happened to be caught without my translation dictionary. Just so you know, "cavallo" means horse. I remember it as "the cavalry."

"Horse slaughter plants are legal again in the United States. Restrictions on horse meat processing for human consumption have been lifted.

In a bipartisan effort, the House of Representatives and the United States Senate approved the Conference Committee report on spending bill H2112, which among other things, funds the United States Department of Agriculture. On November 18th, as the country was celebrating Thanksgiving, President Obama signed a law, allowing Americans to kill and eat horses. Essentially, one turkey was pardoned in the presence of worldwide media while in the shadows, buried under pages of fiscal regulation, millions of horses were sentenced to death.

Horse slaughter has been prohibited in the United States as funding for inspections of horses in transit and at slaughter houses was non-existent. This worked because the horse meat cannot be sold for human consumption without such inspections. The House version of the bill retained the de-funding language and the Senate version did not. The conference committee charged with reconciling the two opted to not include it. The result is that it is now legal to slaughter horses for humans to eat.

Notwithstanding that 70% of Americans oppose horse slaughter, that President Obama made a campaign promise to permanently ban horse slaughter and exports of horses for human consumption (horses can be sent to Mexico and Canada), that documentation of animal cruelty, slaughterhouse stench, fluid runoff and negative community impact exists, it is taxpayers that will bear the costs!

Wyoming state representative Sue Wallis and her pro-slaughter group estimate that between 120,000 and 200,000 horses will be killed for human consumption per year and that Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Georgia and Missouri, are considering opening slaughter plants.

During these trying times, is the only thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree on is that Americans need to eat horses?"

I think maybe Congress is thinking ahead on this one--clearly, there isn't enough grass-fed, pastured meat available to upgrade the nation's meat supply, helping to put an end to the obesity epidemic. Before WW1, we used to slaughter and eat this meat, and during the war, we sent a bunch of horse meat over to Britain to keep them going.

Now that grain prices have risen beyond the means of casual horse owners, more and more horses are being turned over to large animal shelters, with little to no hope of finding new owners--nobody's willing to endure crop prices just for what amounts to a pet. Horses have fallen into a few categories: racers, show, breeders, riding/working, and pet. If there are no monetary outcomes to offset the inputs (food, vet care, travel, etc.), horse ownership will always drag you into negative numbers.

By this congressional action, this may be a message to the rest of us that meat prices are either going to stay high for the foreseeable future (due to grain prices), limiting access by lower-income families, or that meat supplies are going to become tight due to said output/input affordability problems. Horse meat is either going to become the alternative cheap meat, or something to take the pressure off the grass-fed, pastured meat. Meat, it appears, is going to become one of those things that only "the rich" can afford, as seen by standard social observance...just as it did during WW1 to the Brits.

Please don't tell me we're going back to Spam consumption! :)

In case you wondered about the nutritional content of horse meat: the NIH abstract, and the Nutrition Database (listing for 1 ounce of meat). If the horse was pastured and not fed grains, the Omega-3 ratio would probably improve.