Quote:
Originally Posted by Merlinsky
Exactly, I didn't get why they seemed to ignore this. It was an obvious issue. You can't just pump horses full of things never meant for human consumption, then dump them into our (well the horse eaters') food chain.
I really hope this ends up being a good thing. I don't want to cheer too early. Let's see if the right things happen.
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Though interestingly, we have no problem with antibiotics in our food livestock.
The question I have about this is that I was under the impression that the horses being slaughtered here aren't likely to be sold for human consumption anyway, because most horses consumed by people are raised specifically for that purpose. I know horse meat is fairly common in pet foods and part of the diet of zoo animals that eat meat. Humans prefer their food animals a lot younger. I buy beef occasionally from a farm in New Jersey and I remember once they were selling cuts from a bull they had slaughtered. The meat was fine- the bull had spent his life living outdoors, getting it on with the lady cows, but, as the bull was the geriatric age of FIVE when they slaughtered him, they weren't allowed to sell the meat as food for human consumption. Because apparently beef for human consumption has to be from younger animals. So, while they could sell this perfectly fine meat, they couldn't sell it as food for people.
Of course, once you buy the meat, it's your own business what you do with it, as they made sure to point out.
This is a long-winded way of saying I don't understand why the focus is on "human consumption" as I think it's a distraction from the real issue, which is too many unwanted horses and owners more willing to get a few last pennies of money out of their investment rather than pay the money to humanely euthanize them. And that's certainly not a problem limited to Thoroughbred owners.