Get off your high horse and realize there’s no problem with eating its meat
Annie Pumphrey
Gateway Staff
Feb 06, 2013
Horses: we grind up their hooves and bones for gelatin and glue and we use their hair for violin bows, but put horse meat in a burger and people are suddenly offended. Recently in the UK, Burger King admitted to there being traces of horse meat in their supplier’s beef. This statement was soon followed by an onslaught of public outrage, ranging from threats against the company to online boycotts of Whoppers. It’s reasonable for consumers to be angry about being lied to about the content of a product. However, the puzzling aspect of this incident is the level of disgust directed towards eating horse meat. It shouldn’t be a huge difference.
Let’s break things down a bit. On one hand, you have a cow: a relatively large herbivore that has four legs, hooves, makes loud sounds, poops and occasionally jumps over the moon. On the other hand, you have a horse. But aside from jumping over moons, horses really aren’t that physically different from their mooing, udder-bearing counterparts. Perhaps this anti-horse meat belief stems from the reasoning that horses have a higher level of intelligence than cows. After all, in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, horses play major roles of the proletariat class, whereas the cows are represented as idiots good for nothing but creating milk. In many cases, horses are seen as more than just a pooping herbivores. At some point in history, horses managed to cross the line of beast and gain liberties no cow could ever achieve. And it’s downright unfair.
Horse racing, carriage-pulling, dressage, show-jumping and pony rides — the list of horse-uses goes on and on. In comparison to cows, horses are deemed far more beneficial to human society. While millions of cows stand around, disregarded and unloved, horses trot around in their unjust, respected glory. Our literature, television and movies are brimming with emotional tales of horse bravery and human-horse companionship. Owning a pony is the epitome of every child’s dreams. Cows are just… cows. The only positive cow-related imagery comes from the world of food. Smiling, content images of cows cover the labels of cheese, milk and yogurt products. But that’s all propaganda. Cows have nothing to smile about.
It is time for equality between horses and cows. Stop glorifying horses and face the facts: there’s nothing wrong eating horse meat. We must disregard the societally embedded idea of the horse as an enlightened creature. Besides, compared to beef, horse meat is said to be more tender, contain less fat and more omega three acids. France eats horse meat. Gordon Ramsey eats horse meat. We can eat it, too.
Burger King deserves some acknowledgment. They have taken a brave step forward in the fight against animal slaughter inequality. So the next time you find yourself biting into a Whopper, be proud that you are supporting the eating of horse meat.
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Really?
Provided there is no apocalypse, I would never eat my cat, and as a person who has had horses all their life, I would never eat horse meat for the same reason - they are pets to some and friends to others. To say that we should get off our higharian to eat meat? I would hope not. horse and eat it is (for lack of a better word at the moment) rude. Would you tell a person of the Jewish faith to eat pork, or a vegetarian to eat meat? I would hope not.
And how is this inequality anyway? Animals have been bred and used for different purposes for thousands of years. THOUSANDS. And you know what, if they are healthy enough, they still end up at the slaughterhouse for meat consumption anyway. But if we are going with your logic, maybe we should start eating cats, because there is such huge excess of cats in the world, and really, it’s meat - does it matter? And there are kids movies that are about cattle as well such as Barnyard and Home on the Range.
As far as Burger King goes, no, they do not deserve any positive acknowledgement for this because they still lied to people. There is no way I would eat a whopper and think of how proud I am to be supporting the consumption of horse meat - because what you are really supporting is the companies are lying to the consumers. Although I am not entirely familiar with the whole ordeal, it sounds as though this is the reason they discontinued their relationship with the supplier - indicating that Burger King may in fact not be supporting this. Or else they’re just covering their ass because they had to report it.
With all that has been said, you might think that I am opposed to horse plants, and repulsed by the idea that people eat horse meat by their own choosing, so it may surprise you that I fully support the horse plants and the consumption of horse meat. To each their own, and my own is not eating it, although, I do eat Bambi’s mother every year. The thing is, your underlying message is not entirely wrong, but the way you presented and supported it is.
One last note, I noticed you said “horse meat is said to be…” but you never said you had tried it.
Posted by K on Feb 07, 2013
You think people care if horse hair is in their violin bow? Or if their grade-school projects their parents have saved yellowing in a box somewhere in the garage are stuck together by ground horse hooves? There’s a difference between a foot rub and oral.
Posted by Harvey "Heart" Simmins on Feb 18, 2013
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