Horse slaughter is the practice of slaughtering horses to produce meat for consumption.
Human beings have consumed horse meat since the earliest days of human history: the oldest known cave art, the thirty-thousand year-old paintings in the Chauvet Cave of modern France, show horses prominently alongside other wild animals hunted by humans. The later domestication of the horse is widely held to have been initiated for the purposes of raising horses for slaughter for human consumption. However, modern horse slaughter has become highly controversial in many parts of the world, based on a multiplicity of concerns: e.g., whether horses are or can be managed humanely in industrial-scale slaughter; whether horses not purpose-raised for consumption are likely to yield safe meat; whether it is appropriate to consume a creature that has become a companion animal in affluent societies.
Horse meat is a quite dry meat to cook, it is common to add some extra fat from other animals (like bacon) to increase its softness when roasted.
| Country | Tons per year |
|---|---|
| Mexico | 78,000 |
| Argentina | 57,000 |
| Kazakhstan | 55,000 |
| Mongolia | 38,000 |
| Kyrgyzstan | 25,000 |
| United States | 25,000 |
| Australia | 24,000 |
| Brazil | 21,000 |
| Canada | 18,000 |
| Poland | 18,000 |
| Italy | 16,000* |
| Romania | 14,000 |
| Chile | 10,000 |
| France | 7,500 |
| Uruguay | 8,000 |
| Senegal | 9,500 |
| Colombia | 6,000 |
| Spain | 5,000* |
Read more about Horse Slaughter: Slaughtering, United Kingdom, Rest of European Union, History
Famous quotes containing the words horse and/or slaughter:
“the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that feels a
flea,”
—Marianne Moore (1887–1972)
“Once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field,—effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say,—and devour him, partly for experiment’s sake; but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)