Horse Slaughterhouse Approved by USDA to Produce Meat for Human Consumption

reply to post by Char-Lee


If hunters are not spending time searching for their kill they are not worthy hunters. You are also not supposed to take your shot unless you are sure of your target. If you do not have a clean shot you are rushing and not making sure of your target. That being said sure there are animals that get away, it happens. If you are doing your best to track them the number of them dying later of wounds and suffering goes down a lot.

I live in an area where farmers raise animals for food. I can go to them pay them a price and they will deliver an animal to be butchered, cleaned, and cut into portions. The animal is raised very well taken care of as the animal is how the farmer makes their money.

I also live in an area where farmers raise plants for food (corn, bean, wheat). They spray pesticides and other poisons that poison the land and animals around them. Even the GMO crap can cause problems. Not only that but it would be just awful for bees to be resistant to GMO.
shiftfrequency.com...

Any amount of farming plants can cause erosion and other problems for wildlife as well.

Anything done in very large mass products is bad even if it is organic.

You can be just as much a part of a problem by only eating plants. Both sides have their downfalls. We just have to fight to get things done correctly and stop fighting each other. So you eat what you want and I will eat what I want. Together though we can stop the world from being destroyed through cruel practices. Only those who feel superior believe there are no faults on their own side. I admit there are faults on my side, I even stated such in my first post.

I see nothing wrong with eating any type of meat as long as there is not cruelty involved.

Raist

Originally posted by Char-Lee
I have never come across a place I cannot find something good and non meat to eat.

We are talking about a society of 300 million people, and most people wouldn't think like that when they see a good juicy burger in the window. The fast food places with drive thrus like Jack, Miccy Dees, and Carls have a grilled sandwich and salad compared to the other 98% percent of the fried menu. You have awakened me to the fact that probably 2% of subways have drive thrus but all I am doing is generalizing why it is encouraged to eat bad food in America. For people to think so detailed and small about big generalizations just means that there still will be a weight problem in America so thank you for the good look.

Originally posted by dreamingawake
Sad, angry, sorry to hear that the current administration gave the go ahead. Still against it, still am fighting against it as I was in the past. In the US horses are traditionally seen and treated as pets. You want to argue that it's alright that they are food anyway? The ones who are backing, the slaughterhouses,... need to show that they are more humane in practices. As well holding accountable the racehorse industry and 'backyard' breeding to sell as pets but the horses end up in auction need to stop supplying the slaughter.

edit on 30-6-2013 by dreamingawake because: sp

Traditionally seen a pets? Are you serious?

Traditionally, horses have been work animals. Beasts of burden. Transportation. While some may have been held in higher regard than others, if it came down to it, traditionally, everyone knew that the horse would die to provide for the human(s).

It's only been very, very recently that people have had the luxury of having a horse as ONLY a pet.

reply to post by greyer

so thank you for the good look

Your Welcome

Originally posted by 2ndthought

Originally posted by dreamingawake
Sad, angry, sorry to hear that the current administration gave the go ahead. Still against it, still am fighting against it as I was in the past. In the US horses are traditionally seen and treated as pets. You want to argue that it's alright that they are food anyway? The ones who are backing, the slaughterhouses,... need to show that they are more humane in practices. As well holding accountable the racehorse industry and 'backyard' breeding to sell as pets but the horses end up in auction need to stop supplying the slaughter.

edit on 30-6-2013 by dreamingawake because: sp

Traditionally seen a pets? Are you serious?

Traditionally, horses have been work animals. Beasts of burden. Transportation. While some may have been held in higher regard than others, if it came down to it, traditionally, everyone knew that the horse would die to provide for the human(s).

It's only been very, very recently that people have had the luxury of having a horse as ONLY a pet.

Someone already said this very same thing, however I don't know how true this is today. On my street alone there are three homes keeping horses as pets they each have 1-3 horses and why can't we show a little respect for the creature that bore the burdens of producing our society.

reply to post by Char-Lee


I travel the world a lot and although that is the norm in the US it is not indicative of the rest of the world. Considering the US is a melting pot of people from all over are here and horse meat would be a normal item on the menu for many.

I will tell you horse meat is fairly common anywhere south of the border. Think of how many immigrants are here from Central America.

i have eated horse in france and australia (got that one myself with a compound bow) dog in korea, whale in the faroe islands, mealworm in a pizza shop in london and sea urchin in japan and the only thing i wouldnt eat again was the sea urchin

the food we eat is only dictated by the society where we live, just because people keep horses as pets doesnt mean they are not a viable food source, hell people keep pigs as pets and i love me some bacon

to the OP - the US isn't farming horses they are disposing of dead animals instead of shipping them to canada to slaughter.

Also the idea that a horse is any more special than any other animal just shows that it's not about animals it's about your feelings towards them.

Horse meat though not my favorite is incredibly lean and healthy compared to most other types of meat.But then again they don't make movies about wild stallion cows.... :I

reply to post by fluff007


I love horses too.
It is wrong to mistreat any animal .
Why are horses,dogs and cows any different?
Just because I have a preference for horses my daughter loves cows and we both love dogs and so the whole family are vegans & vegetarians.

reply to post by fluff007


Do you have a credible link/source for this? The examiner isn't exactly known for being accurate.

If they don't want to be eaten, they shouldn't be so tasty.

Personally, I don't see the problem here. They're made out of meat, I eat meat, therefore I would eat them.
As long as they're treated humanely, and killed humanely, it's the same as eating a cow.

reply to post by freedomSlave



Eat Trigger? No way.

I think horses would be too costly to grow for meat. But there's a lot of them out there that ain't doing much these days, and could be a source of ready income for some owners.

I think the difficulties in accepting an animal as food lies in the original intent in the nurturing process. Grow it for food, tasty. Grow it for love and companionship, not so tasty

reply to post by Bob Sholtz

Originally posted by Bob Sholtz
sorry, but you're quite mistaken.

"If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million," David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Grain-fed beef production takes 100,000 liters of water for every kilogram of food. Raising broiler chickens takes 3,500 liters of water to make a kilogram of meat. In comparison, soybean production uses 2,000 liters for kilogram of food produced; rice, 1,912; wheat, 900; and potatoes, 500 liters.

news.cornell.edu...

we grow tons of food, then use most of it to feed livestock, to get back a much smaller amount of food. the land that the grain is grown on is used, AND the land to keep the cattle is used JUST so we can get meat from the cattle.

our consumption of meat makes world hunger possible.

Wow, 800 million more people can be fed and 100,000 liters of water are wasted to raise these animals for food. I did not know this.

Here is another thing that I didn't think about before:

If we use this land to make more foods that are rare and healthy, maybe the price of these very healthy but rare foods would go down too.

Originally posted by starfoxxx
Who are we to tell other people what animals they can and can not eat?? ARE WE NOT SUPPOSE TO BE FREE? Lest, were not free to eat a stinking horse???? Incredible!

Heck, why not be free to eat other humans as well?... Are you not supposed to be free?... How about we start eating old people, and the infirm first?... After all, it is the law of the jungle where the strong kill and eat the weak... right?... In case you are wondering, I am being sarcastic. I am in complete disagreement that the weak, and infirm should be allowed to die, much less killed just because they are weak/old or infirm...

Anyway, this seems to be Obama's way, and his administration's way to deal with the wild Mustangs that have been deprived of their freedoms for at least almost 2 decades, and are being kept in pens by the government.

The government has been running out of places in which to imprison these marvelous animals, hence they are now turning to using them for meat...

This practice is just horrendous, every one of those members and people who say "horses are meat so we should be allowed to eat them" have never been around horses.

The BLM allows "some" wild mustangs to be adopted, but they have a 3 strike rule, in which if 3 different people return the same horse, it is "put down because it can't be controlled"...

The real problem is more often that those people adopting the wild Mustangs have no idea on how to train them. Wild Mustangs are incredibly intelligent, and stubborn because they have been free for a large portion of their lives, so it takes more patience, and time to train them. I would even have to say that wild mustangs are more intelligent than some people...

Anyway, for a long time some ranchers, and some of the local as well as the federal government have been drying up on purpose the natural water-holes of wild horses as a way to cull their numbers by killing them of dehydration.

Other practices have also been used for years such as roundups of thousands of these beautiful animals every year to stop them from spreading.

The reason why these tactics have been used is supposedly because they have few predators that would contain their numbers, and they would eat all the food meant for cattle. But this is not entirely true.

First of all, if these horses don't have enough natural predators to contain their numbers it is because local governments, and the federal government have been doing the same to natural predators for decades.

Second of all, wild Mustangs can eat almost any sort of bush and other vegetation that cattle do not eat and they are known to do so to survive and adapt to their environment.

Yet because of these practices there are fewer wild stallions/wild horses than ever before in the United States.

BTW, in case some of you don't know this, it was President Obama who lifted the ban, allowing the use of wild horses as meat in slaughterhouses. President Bush in 2006 put a ban on this practice, one of the things that President Bush did that I agree with, among some others.

It seems more and more apparent that President Obama, and his administration dislike real freedom of either people or marvelous animals like wild horses.

BTW, yes there are some animals that are raised and hunted for food, but horses shouldn't be one of these animals, although there are people who do.

reply to post by ElectricUniverse


Actually cannibalism is legal, murder is not. If someone decides to donate a part of their body for you to eat it is perfectly legal to do. I would assume this also means that someone can donate their body for the same purpose in the event of their death, much like some do for science.

www.law.cornell.edu...

Cannibalism is the nonconsensual consumption of another human's body matter. In the United States, there are no laws against cannibalism per se, but the act of cannibalism would probably violate laws against murder and against desecration of corpses.

Raist

reply to post by ElectricUniverse


There is no reason horses should not be raised for food. Throughout history horses have been nothing more than a work animal used to keep people alive either in battle or for farming. In the times of the great depression and even in other events it was horse meat that helped some to survive. I see no reason any animal cannot be used for food so long as it is not treated with cruelty.

Since the economy took a drastic turn for the worse many have been letting horses they used to care for starve because they can no longer afford to feed them. I would much rather the horse be killed and the meat consumed so that someone can live and have food rather than see both the horse and people starve.

Raist

reply to post by Raist


It might, or might not be legal, but legality is not the issue... Cannibalism is inhumane, and you can want to be a cannibal all you want and be free to want to be one, but that freedom doesn't make you any less of a monster for being, or thinking in being a cannibal; just like being a murderer.

Originally posted by Raist
...
Since the economy took a drastic turn for the worse many have been letting horses they used to care for starve because they can no longer afford to feed them. I would much rather the horse be killed and the meat consumed so that someone can live and have food rather than see both the horse and people starve.

Raist

Heck, we have been running out of space and funds in and for prisons, yet criminals eat more than a lot of good people in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. According to the logic you are using we should start killing inmates and using their meat for consumption as well. Not to mention that all that meat of murderers who have been killed for their crimes "has gone to waste and could have fed a lot of people"...

There are men who treat women as slaves, and beat them daily, not to mention that there are cultures in which women are seen as second class citizens, should this be used as an excuse to kill women, other people and minorities and eat them?...

My point is that just because there have been, and there are people who treat badly their pets, including horses, is not a reason to use them for meat.

There is evidence that some ancient people resorted to eating other humans to survive, should that be used as an excuse to allow this inhumane practice today as well?...

IMO society as a whole is going down a very dangerous path, people are being brainwashed into devaluing even human life, such as human fetus and babies.

If society continues down this path soon enough we will find "less privileged people" in prisons, even killed and worse being used as food for the "elites"... To you it might sound like exaggerations, but I am not. I won't post to other threads dealing with this devaluation of life since it will derail the topic of the thread.

BTW, I am a meat eater, and eat some types of meat myself. But I also believe that there are "meats" that are not for consumption, such as human, dolphins, horses, and dogs and cats among others.

As for the claims that "there are no funds for other solutions", heck, how about the Federal government returns, or uses the 16 trillion+ U.S. dollars they "lost" from 2007 until 2010 to solve this and other problems?...

For the hypocrites that love their cow meat but the oh so cute horses shouldn’t be touched you should try debating that with a Hindu.

Hey I would pay a nickel to watch that debate.