Horsemeat in the United States???

[senior citizen]

Horse meat in the US? Unlikely, but tests are rare - Vitals (http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/23/17059607-horse-meat-in-the-us-unlikely-but-tests-are-rare?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=1)

Good time to stop buying all processed foods..........if you are still purchasing them. One never knows what might be in them.

Horse meat in the United States?? Unlikely but it seems they rarely do test.

It's a lot to read but keep scrolling down after clicking on above hyperlink...........
You can see all the "brand name" foods that horse meat is in........Birds Eye? etc.
Tortellini? etc. For the most part it's in other countries, but makes one wonder.

[buggyone]

When I was in Germany and in France, I had horsemeat. It has a little different flavor than beef but I see nothing wrong with it. It is just against our American customs to eat horse and some other animals that are eaten in other countries - like Koreans eat dog, Chinese eat cat, and Lapps eat reindeer.

Remember, the cows, chickens and pigs we eat for dinner did not commit suicide.

[senior citizen]

When I was in Germany and in France, I had horsemeat. It has a little different flavor than beef but I see nothing wrong with it. It is just against our American customs to eat horse and some other animals that are eaten in other countries - like Koreans eat dog, Chinese eat cat, and Lapps eat reindeer.

Remember, the cows, chickens and pigs we eat for dinner did not commit suicide.

I love your last sentence. I understand what you are saying.
However, not that it is in our food supply, but if it was....they should declare that it is.......especially in these "questionable" prepared or processed type foods where it's similar to minced chopped or ground beef, etc.

p.s. Vermonters eat venison (deer meat). Also, at hunting camp, I would make chili with ground beef to send up with him......but the other guys would bring things like squirrel stew, plus other "rodent" type delicacies.......the old time Vermonter knew how to "live off the land". There used to be "game suppers" with moose, bear, etc.

[Mack184]

Actually back in the late 60's-early 70's horsemeat was being sold for a time in NYS. When I was young I worked on the weekends for a milkman and we had a lot of "mom & pop" corner meat stores and some of them were selling it. I think they had stopped selling it around 1973.

[billethkid]

I don't eat anything I do not recognize!

btk

[2BNTV]

The thought of eating horse meat does not appeal to me. ewwwww!!!!!!

[Gerald]

horse meat is sold in the USA. It is labeled as horse meat. Most people will not eat it. So not sold in a lot of places.

[shcisamax]

There are many reasons why one should not eat horse meat.

1. Horses, at least in this country, are not raised as food animals. As you can imagine all the drugs that go into our horses including dewormers, vaccinations, steroids, there is one drug which is the equivalent of human advil named phenylbutazone (bute) which even the FDA has classified as a Class IV substance. It can cause cancer, aplastic anemia, and other diseases. They don't even use horse meat in dog food anymore for that very reason.

2. The European Union as of July of this year will no longer accept any US horse meat because they (contrary to what the scandal implies) have a stringent meat system in place where every food animal has a passport and every drug that goes into that animal is listed. Our horses do not qualify. They have been shipped for the last couple years with affidavits filled out fraudulently by killbuyers (those who either purchase, steal, or obtain by deception .as so many are...horses for the purpose of slaughter for human consumption) but that is over as of July of this year.

3. As for the slaughter, there is nothing humane about any of it...from the moment when they get on the truck with all the others and many arrive with severe injuries with some inflicted by the transporters themselves like blinding them to settle them down to the moment when they are strung up for evisceration, there is nothing that qualifies as a humane death.
a) In Canada they use the captive bolt which is what is used for cows. The difference is cows are not flight animals. Horses cannot be brought in by a stranger to simply stand which a gun is brought to his head. Additionally his brain is further back so the bolt often does not makes its mark the first time. If I can figure out how to post one of the many videos of horses in slaughter, you can see there are some that find their eye is taken out, their jaw is broken, torture abounds.
b) In Mexico, they are forced into a box and surrounded by people outside the box who stab them in the spine until their spinal cord connections fail, the fall to the floor and totally conscious are eviscerated.

Google or Youtube Horse Slaughter and you will begin to get a glimpse into this very disgusting industry.

4. This many not be a popular reason but to my mind, horses are animals that work in relationship to us. They have allowed us to emigrate west, carried our mail, carried our troops and dead. They provide tremendous sport whether rodeo, racing, equestrian, or the simple joy of a nose nuzzle. Think of them as a partner in activity or even a service dog.
From a purely moral point of view, it would be unthinkable to torture and slaughter your partner.

The horse slaughter industry is there for one reason. So breeders can breed indiscriminately, collect registry fees, and there is a place to dispose of them. It is based upon a system of irresponsibility. There are those that say there are too many horses and they have to go somewhere. There is euthanasia. But that requires putting out a couple hundred rather than getting $100 from the killbuyer or auction.

Why do I know all this? Because our show horse was supposed to be rehomed by our vet with a young girl who would do the lower level work that our horse could do after an injury. Instead his client took the horse to a killbuyer. After chasing the woman down for months trying to find the horse, we took her to court. That was the beginning of our education. We had no idea slaughter existed and had no idea how many horses are obtained in the same manner. It is common practice. We learned how corrupt this industry is at every level.

BTW: If you are thinking it is the old and sick, guess again. The USDA has estimated 92% of the horses going to slaughter are between the ages of 5 and 12 in perfect condition. There are in fact too many horses for this economy but the answer is not slaughter. That only continues the cycle. The answer is responsible breeding and responsible ownership.

BTW: Unfortunately, when the federal ban was passed in 2007, it didn't include the ban on transport so while it was banned in the US, the horses were simply shipped across the borders. There have been bills to try to pass a ban on both the sale and TRANSPORT for purposes of slaughter for human consumption which is supported by both democrats and republicans. We have not yet been able to get the ban passed. If you would like to see a ban passed, please call Cong. Richard Nugent (for The Villages) telephone # (202) 225-1002 and ask that he cosponsor the bill when it is reintroduced in this session. Please do the same with Senator Rubio and Senator Nelson.