Horsemeat. Is it really that bad?

When I was in Peru, I ate Guinea Pig.... twas pretty yummy.

IMO you've missed the point. The issue is not that meat that was labelled as beef was, in fact, horse - the issue is that the supply chain of that meat was totally uncontrolled.

Horse meat is healthy, but horse reared specifically for the human food chain to be sold as horse meat is treated very differently to horses who have been reared to race, work or be someone's pet. The horse meat found in these meals had drugs in it that would NOT have been given to horses bred to supply meat.

The food chain HAS to be traceable and accountable. It is not and that is the travesty.

^^^ I agree. I'd eat horse that's fit for human consumption. It's no different to eating cow or sheep, or camel for that matter (which I ate on quite a regular basis when I lived in Saudi). Horses that are not for the human food chain may be given drugs that are unsafe if the meat is consumed by humans. If a horse is given any of these drugs, then they have to be taken out of the human food chain, and all horse meat sold in the UK has to have complete traceability because of this. This is why the issue of black market and/or untraceable horse meat in human food is so bad. that supermarket had no choice but to landfill all those horse meat meals, because they don't know whether the horses in question were fit to be in the human food chain in the first place. You can't, ethically or legally, have something on sale in a shop, when there's doubts about whether it's fit for human consumption and could make someone ill.

IMO you've missed the point. The issue is not that meat that was labelled as beef was, in fact, horse - the issue is that the supply chain of that meat was totally uncontrolled.

Horse meat is healthy, but horse reared specifically for the human food chain to be sold as horse meat is treated very differently to horses who have been reared to race, work or be someone's pet. The horse meat found in these meals had drugs in it that would NOT have been given to horses bred to supply meat.

The food chain HAS to be traceable and accountable. It is not and that is the travesty.

Horses aren't really raised for meat. They are typically low quality horses that are no longer wanted, which means the ban in the US along with a bad economy resulted in a surplus of unwanted horses, not too different from the general pet overpopulation. Sometimes they are no longer sound for riding or breeding. Which is part of the drug concern- many dewormers and such that are given to working horses without a second thought are not okay to be given to food animals and therefore wouldn't be given to things like beef cattle. But horsemeat typically comes from a horse that is a pet or work animal one day and is hauled off to the slaughterhouse the next.

Horsemeat is also somewhat of a luxury, so it's not cheap. It's also rather sweet due to the amount of glycogen in horse muscles, which is why a horse can take off a lot faster than, say, a cow.

I have been learning a lot about this lately as one of my best friends often saves horses from the feedlots here in canada

the problem is not in eating horse meat itselft (it's quite common overseas, but in 1) not telling people and 2) not knowing where the meat is coming from/ not regulated.
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often times the horses slaughtered for meat come mainly from auctions (feedlots etc.), where they are sold by private sellers and breeders... these horses can be sick and/or injured and have been pumped full of (cancer causing) drugs not fit for human consumption. Because horses are not "intended" for the human food chain, throughout their lives they will often have received medications that are banned by the FDA for use at any time during the life of food animals

"American horse meat raises a number of potential health concerns, mainly due to the routine usage of medications in horses banned in food animals, and the lack of tracking of this usage in horses. Unlike livestock raised for food, where all potential medications are tested for withdrawal times; approved or banned for usage, and vigilantly tracked for each animal, there is no way to guarantee which medications have or have not been used in a particular horse"

and also much of our horse meat is shipped overseas... so they need to be careful too.

I dunno... I am pretty open minded about diff eating practices - i've even tried horse meat in holland ( I didn't want to be rude lol) but I at least would like to know where my food is coming from and what's in it... same with my beef or eggs or whatever I am ingesting