USDA Set to Approve Horse Meat Slaughter in US
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Apparently horse meat is popular all over the world, albeit unbeknownst to most consumers. And it seems equine meat will soon be making its way back to America.
Horse meat hasn’t been legally produced in the United States since 2007, but the USDA is expected to approve a horse slaughterhouse in Mexico within the next two months, according to the New York Times.
Stephanie Storm of the New York Times reports:
The United States Department of Agriculture is likely to approve a horse slaughtering plant in New Mexico in the next two months, which would allow equine meat suitable for human consumption to be produced in the United States for the first time since 2007.
The plant, in Roswell, N.M., is owned by Valley Meat Company, which sued the U.S.D.A. and its Food Safety and Inspection Service last fall over the lack of inspection services for horses going to slaughter. Horse meat cannot be processed for human consumption in the United States without inspection by the U.S.D.A., so horses destined for that purpose have been shipped to places like Mexico and Canada for slaughter.
Justin DeJong, a spokesman for the agriculture department, said that “several” companies had asked the agency to re-establish inspection of horses for slaughter. “These companies must still complete necessary technical requirements and the F.S.I.S. must complete its inspector training,” he wrote in an e-mail referring to the food inspection service, “but at that point, the department will legally have no choice but to go forward with the inspections.”
Apparently Congress cut funding for horse slaughterhouses which forced them to close down in 2007. The NYT reports that Congress quietly removed the spending rider in 2011 which literally opened the door for equine slaughterhouses.
The lawsuit by Valley Meat charges that the USDA did not do their job under the Federal Meat Inspection Act which states they must provide inspection for the slaughter of “all amenable species” including “including cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, horses and mules.”
The lawsuit is also supported by prominent ranching organizations like International Equine Business Association (IEBA), R-CALF USA, the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association (SDSGA), and the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association (NMCGA).
“Beginning in 2006, when inspections were temporarily prohibited, these U.S. horses continue to be slaughtered in foreign countries like Mexico and Canada,” Bill Bullard, CEO of the R-CALF cattle organization, wrote in an affidavit of support of Valley Meat. “We believe the Mexicans do not adhere to the same humane standards as in the United States, and so some of our members won’t sell their horses.”
The Humane Society disagrees. In a statement they wrote the following:
Legitimate concerns about the health risks associated with consuming the meat of horses that are often treated with drugs that are prohibited for use in animals slaughtered for food, as well as the discovery of these drugs in horse meat exported from Canada and Mexico, have prompted The HSUS and Humane Society International to call for a moratorium on the sale in the EU of the meat of horses of U.S. origin.
“Slaughtering horses for human consumption is archaic, inhumane, and unsafe, given the medicine chest of drugs often administered to horses and prohibited for human consumption,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The HSUS. “It is astonishing that we may see the resumption of horse slaughter on U.S. soil while Europe is still reeling from a horse meat scandal. Have we not learned anything about the industry’s deception in Europe and the turmoil it has caused?”
“If the USDA moves forward with allowing the cruel and toxic horse slaughter industry to enter our country, this administration is leading our nation in precisely the wrong direction,” said Nancy Perry, senior vice president of ASPCA Government Relations. “Recent polling shows that 80 percent of the American public overwhelmingly opposes the slaughtering of horses for human consumption, and given the current firestorm of concern and outrage over horse meat entering the food supply in Europe, it is time for Congress to prevent even one more American horse from suffering this terrible fate and stop horse slaughter in the U.S. once and for all.”
“The slaughter of American horses for meat is an unnecessary and tragic end for these icons of our nation’s history,” said Hilary Wood, president of Front Range Equine Rescue. “American horses will suffer cruel deaths in New Mexico and will continue to be slaughtered abroad. Horse slaughter also brings a potentially toxic environmental threat to the state, with horses’ lives ending with a terrifying death, to be turned into an expensive and possibly toxic dinner.”
“New Mexicans have repeatedly rejected the idea of a horse slaughter plant in our state,” said Lisa Jennings, executive director of Animal Protection of New Mexico. “Horses are a valuable part of our heritage, and we’re determined to develop a robust safety net for them, not condemn them to slaughter.”
“I still oppose the opening of a horse slaughtering plant in New Mexico, and I am concerned about the impact it would have on local consumers,” said New Mexico’s Attorney General, Gary K. King. “The horse meat scandal in Europe has raised concerns about human health risks associated with consuming the meat of U.S. horses. Many horses may have been treated with drugs prohibited by U.S. and European regulations from ever being administered to animals that enter the food chain. A horse slaughtering plant in our state that produces meat for human consumption is still a bad idea.”
What are your thoughts about horse meat re-entering the U.S. market?
2013-03-02 02:00:47
Source: http://www.activistpost.com/2013/03/horse-meat-slaughter-usda-approval.html
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If true, besides the obvious, what is wrong with this Administration????
It is not the administration…unless you mean the USDA
Cougars and mountain lions have been eating horse meat for centuries without being poisoned. Raw meat is tasty and healthy as long as it is fresh.
if you like eating corpses!
Hey, guess what – most of us do!
What about some of the deadly viruses that have mutated from monkees and mad cow disease? That was fresh meat also.
I really fail to see what the big deal is. Is it because horses look cute or something? Why does it not bother you that cows are slaughtered wholesale every day? They’re no less “cute” than horses, and have no fewer feelings than do horses.
Get over yourselves. If you eat beef without remorse, it’s really no different from eating horse.
If we start eating horsemeat which is not considered and beast for food but a beast of burden then they could cause a mutated virus. Similar to what has happened to Africans and other countries that eat Monkee’s
Truth be known, in Africa they were doing a little more to the monkeys, than eating them. Same for the Lipizzaner horses years back. Humanity is sick in the head many times. One more note. The US Cattle herds are at their lowest count since 1942. Drought and price of feed discourage cattle growers. No profit, now cows, no meat. If you enjoy eating meat for it’s impressively high Protein content, better start ‘adapting’.
Same with the vigorous (to say the least) Catfish now prepared to decimate the Great Lakes fishing. Better start figuring out tasty ‘Cat’ recipes. Don’t ‘Whinny’ about a few equine steaks, just pretend you’re French and consider it as a Delicacy. Come on ‘Pony up’ to the Plate. Everything is more palatable with Chile, New Mexico grows the Best Chile to marinate your ‘Mane Dish’ as well. :>)
Taco Bell will Love this News Story!
It’s true. My brother was the manager there, and he said all the “ground beef” was green before it’s cooked and the major ingredient was recycled Japanese newspaper.
I feel bad for these majestic creatures. I don’t eat meat. This world is demonic and they will eat aborted babies, kill other leopards for their testicles, eat monkey brains while the animal is still alive, the killing of animals is inhumane as well as the barbaric lab testing on any of God’s creatures. Even fishing is barbaric and now with radiation and other contaminates, soon we will have nothing to eat except GMO food, toxic water and chemical air to breathe. Things will continue to get worse and only after Jesus returns will all the living creatures find rest and restoration for the planet.
If you believe in God then it isn’t bad or a sin to eat animals. God put beasts on this planet to be used as food, and beasts of burden. It’s in the Bible. Being a vegan is a lifestyle choice just like being a carnivore is. I wouldn’t knowingly eat a horse, cat, dog or monkee because I don’t consider them a beast for food. Do you know how many types of bacteria, viruses, and toxic chemicals are on vegetables and fruit? A lot. A lot of growers of fruits and vegetables use bone meal for fertilizer. Where do you think the bones come from? Land and aquatic creatures.
Actually there was no death or evil in the garden of Eden. Not until sin which=death did any creature die to sustain another. The first thing that happened was that the Father provided clothes from animal skins. You are correct @youstopandthink.disqus until Yahusha/Jesus returns and as long as sin and evil prevail over mans spirit instead of Yahuah our Father and HIS will there will be no respite for us, the animals or the planet. COME Yahusha soon…Marantha!
Grant it some countries consider horse meat a staple and even a delicacy, but I consider them a beast of burden, not a beast for food. If the FDA and USDA isn’t careful we are going to have a mutated virus from eating horse meat just like has happened from eating monkey’s in Africa. I feel that’s were the Ebola and other deadly viruses came from by eating generally non-food creatures.
Oh, come on! You can’t get much worse than cows and hogs in feedlot conditions standing sometimes up to their knees in feces and being fed genetically modified corn and soy that has recently been linked to bleeding intestines in these animals. The market is growing rapidly for GRASSFED meat which is much healthier for people eating the meat and for the animals themselves and for the land. And when done RIGHT does not contribute to environmental degredation but actually helps BUILD up the land. Check out the Savory Institute http://www.savoryinstitute.com/what-we-do/healing/
Soooo…why do we still “slaughter” animals for BEEF? BEEF also contains the “same” medicines, etc., that are toxic to HUMANS…not to mention “cow” milk which transmits diseases DIRECTLY TO US!!!
No problem whatever with eating Whinnie Burgers. Meat is meat, I love it.
Potent Painkillers Enter Food Chain Through Contaminated Horse Meat!
/alternative/2013/03/potent-painkillers-enter-food-chain-through-contaminated-horse-meat-2581104.html
That’s it. I’m a vegetarian.
Glad I’m vegetarian. Remember, gelatin is made from horses feet.
I hope that any of you who eat horse meat or support them being slaughtered CHOKE TO DETH ON MEAT.
You are barbaric and inhumane bastards!
Google: Echinococcus granulosus in Horses
This is Hydatids – a truly insidious parasite
A report some years ago discovered over 80% of horses slaughtered in the UK have this parasite
it takes over 45 minutes of PRESSURE COOKING to destroy them
This is precisely why i dont eat meat you just cannot trust industrial processes to look out for your health. Last time horse meat was sanctioned they stocked the slaughterhouse straight from the prairie & it will happen again.
” USDA Set to Approve Horse Meat Slaughter in US ”
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Household pets are next…then us.
In the west there are huge wild horse herds that are destroying the vegetation. The price of hay has gotten very high and many horse owners can not afford to own them. Nobody will buy them so often the owner will turn the horse loose into the country. Horses reproduce pretty rapidly. There needs to be a way to control their numbers.
Horse meat is pretty good and not as fat as other meats. Horses are herbivorous so the chances of some of the diseases mentioned wouldn’t be a problem.
“Huge wild herds destroying the vegetation”, well those horses have slotted into a niche left by unimaginably large herds of bison & other grazing antelopes that were wiped away to serve “progress”. They dont destroy vegetation, they crop the vegetation leaving the roots & stubble which encourages faster regeneration. As for the cost of hey, horses can feed themselves all year round providing they dont have to deal with frozen ground and snow so a free roaming herd will move to where the food is.
Horses are the most drugged creatures on the planet second only to Americans themselves..
Bison and antelope have teeth on the bottom jaw. Horses have teeth bottom and top and therefore eat the forage much closer and more chance of destroying the crown of the plant.
Domestic animals- cows, sheep, goats- have taken the place of the bison. The domestics are controlled on the open range. Horses are not. They do much more damage to the environment
I have a horse and have never given it a shot. If she gets to sick or old I’m not sure what I will do with her. I cannot afford to have a vet put her down and then pay for disposal. I’m spending my extra money on hay until the grass comes in the spring. A horse kill plant would solve a lot of problems in the west. Like it or not there is a problem.
It is the only way to save the desert from man. Erase what he has done.
thanks bronco bama
Good news! Horse is tasty, and they are man’s natural enemy after all.
The Bible says to eat only animals that chew their cud and has a split hoof except the Camel, The horse has neither.
The
Freewill is correct. Biblical laws were to protect our health as well and did not give us the right to torture animals. They approve this and I will never ever buy meat again and feed my pets only food from fish (until they finish poisioning our water ) then it will have to be soylent green for all of us. I could stomach that better than eating a horse which I consider more noble than most humans. We are the dumbest, most evil species on this poor ,sad,doomed planet. By the way, visit a slaughterhouse and see if you will still eat meat if you have any heart or soul at all. These animals are treated horribly. I wonder what kind of person could do this work. You would have to have no conscious at all or feelings for anything to kill some helpless animal filled with fear…Put yourself in it’s place..can you imagine ? .. No wonder I have few feelings for humans and their tendency to slaughter whether it be people or animals.
The USA has quite a few laws that seem to force (not so much ‘force’ but remove alternatives) people to eat only the big 3 (beef, pork, chicken) almost like there was a well paid guy in Washington lobbying his little heart out to keep it that way at the behest of big meat.
Ok so I want to say one thing on this=banning it permanently is America’s only protection against what can come from the meat’s as for the comment below that state’s lion eat horses, guess what that’s rarely happened, more mythology than fact, and in zoo’s that feed the meat they don’t alway publish what animals die from their foods cause then people wouldnt visit the zoo’s. Secondly please go to Change.Org and look up the Animals section and find two petitions in particular-save the Wild Burro’s and Petition to Overturn the Legalization of Horse Slaughter in the US for Human Consumption. We have a very short period of time to gain signature’s and speak out against this happening so take this opportunity to make your voice heard. Sign the petition’s and pass them on to people you know to sign! As for the safety of the meat the USDA, FDA, and CDC have certain foods and illnesses that cannot be allowed in the food chain for pets and animals to consume. In the horses that are slaugtered they are given a battery of medications, vaccinations, and dewormers, feed through pesticides, and many other products legal and illegal to enhance performance, growth, and appearance, steroids, dyes, and many strange chemicals like kerosene used illegally to make them pick their feet up higher the FDA and USDA are aware of these products in the horses bloodstream because they recently busted Tennessee Walker trainers for using it again. Do you want your children to eat that? Plus the other side of this is dewormers are listed as fatal to dogs and dangerous to humans we have deworm horses every 3 months and we give them vaccines that they do not test for before slaughter. The killer buyers purchase these animals from ABSOLUTELY anywhere and they do not have any way of testing them to see if they are disease free, like on http://www.AQHA.com they actually have a story on how many horse in America now have Herpes, other horses are contracting Hepatitis, and LEpto-spiros, and encephylitis and there are literally hundreds of illnesses that are fatal to humans and with no screening they send them to the table. The stench of the slaughter plant, the water that they have to have for the plants become contaminated and really stink and in the paperwork documents that one plant that wants a slaughter house immediately just sued the USDA for it, they were shut down for having to shoot a bull 5 times to kill it, and they are supposed to use a bolt in the head. So the rules get violated and horses are harder to kill. So this just needs to end. Someone pushed this through Congress before it could be stopped and now we have to push to end it again. Permanently. So please sign petitions for our children and our animals of USA. We can’t pretend it’s ok any longer. One group called United Horsemen are trying to say they will rescue horses and train and sell them-sound good, well read on, they are the ones pushing the slaughter houses in 3 or 4 states to open up. So a rescue? Think not, they get free animals and then they are tax free deemed unusable so we taxpayers feed these animals thinking they are in safety then they take them next door yes , the slaughter house will be next door to rescue and they will kill they ones they dont want to find homes for? come on folks….does the word fraud ring a bell?? And Congress said well maybe this guy knows what hes saying, well how would you feel if you had a Humane Society to take in cats and right next door they own a cat coat making store and serve cat stew? Wouldnt you say, what the F—K? Sign the petition, contact your legislators and lets get this overturned right away. What until you read why they kill the burros in Texas on the Petition to save them!
equine meat suitable for human consumption…. is an oxymoron.
No US equine meat is suitable for human consumption and if the USDA, FDA, and FSIS were doing their jobs this would’ve all been banned decades ago. Horses are not raised on farms for human consumption like “food-producing animals” are. They are picked up here and there at auctions and no medical records follow them and each horse is not tested for illegal drug residues. Here in this non-horse eating country we routinely give our horses medications that are strictly banned from “food-producing animals.” It’s really that simple. Even the BLM vaccinates and deworms captured wild horses with products labeled “not for use in horses intended for human consumption.” In the US, no horse is intended for human consumption. US horse meat would never pass US inspection for US consumption. And we violate our own FDA Export Regs which state that a product is not considered adulterated if it is in compliance with the laws of the country being exported to. US horse meat has NEVER been in compliance with EU laws and that’s where the majority of US horse meat is exported to.
And the next thing you know someone will be requesting a permit to open a dog/cat slaughterhouse to export dog/cat meat to Asia.
The whole world suffers from moral schizophrenia. Particularly when the discussion of the slaughtering of one animal compared to another comes up. Billions of animals are killed on this planet every year to satisfy the appetite or palate of ignorant humans, operating on a low level of knowledge.
We are all one consciousness. Everything that exists and will exist in nature. So to say that one animal can be slaughtered and consumed but not another is outrageous. To also USE the religious argument that animals were put here to be beasts of burden and abused by humans is equally absurd. Life needs to be respected in all its forms.
The taking of a life, human or animal is barbaric. “As long as there are slaughter houses there will be battlefields” Leo Tolstoy. When the penny finally drops and humanity understands what the pulse of life means only then will there be peace and equity on earth. Mark Twain “Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.” WAKE UP AND BECOME ENLIGHTENED
Be aware of processed food. Don’t eat sausage, pizza or the like.
Boycott Beef. Stop supporting the Ranching Industry, that is the way to save the wild horses.
Eating beef is bad for the economy, the land and your health.
To save domestic horses, and all the other animals sent to slaughter–stop eating meat.
GMO’s are bad as well. We need an organic, people and earth first, vegetarian world.
Capitalism-that is profit first systems—must end.
“The single most important thing you can do to save the world – is to stop eating meat”
Paul McCartney
PETA.com has great veggie recipes-and ways to get politically involved.
It’s not alright to eat animals. Humans have been given the brains to exercise a choice in their diet. Mountain lions and other species don’t have that choice. If there is an order regarding the barbarity of slaughter, then horse slaughter is definitely at the top of the brutality list. First, it is a betrayal of our companion animals to send them to slaughter after they’ve served us well. And, for those of you who don’t know about the Bureau of Land Management’s deception, they’ve been corralling over 50,000 wild horses from our jointly-owned public lands. Those equines are finding their way to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico. This is not permitted by law, of course, but BLM has been caught selling horses to kill buyers. Horse slaughter is NEVER humane. It is often not possible to render a horse unconscious, so they are dismembered while alive. Some on this list obviously have no heart. But, the rest of you should find this objectionable. Finally, domesticated horses are pumped with drugs such as phenylbutazone, which is highly toxic to humans when ingested. Wild and domesticated horses are part of our Western heritage. They helped to build our great nation. They live in complicated social groups and are highly sensitive. This is all corroborated by science and history. We should not slaughter our horses for foreigners who obviously don’t care a whit about American heritage, and the horses’ contributions to our country.
I have a neighbor who was a do gooder and started taking in horses. Pretty soon she had almost 50. A small horse will get by on 20lbs. of hay a day. So she’s feeding a half ton/day. Hay is about $200/ton. It didn’t take long and she couldn’t afford to feed them. She took some to the local auction and didn’t even get a bid. Pretty soon she had 50 horses starving to death. The Humane Society was getting called every day but they couldn’t do anything because they had no place to take them nor money to buy them hay.
So you people that live in urban areas and watch these fine documentaries on the wonderful horse need to see the other side of the picture.
check out the food laws in your bible. our Creator gave us this help not cause He just wanted to see if people would follow some strict laws to prove something. the food He told us was clean was to help us stay healthy. maybe you think all meat and fish is okay, common sense would tell you not to eat scavenger animals or bottom feeding fish. some animal that are unclean have hidden toxins you might not think about unless you read up on them, especially pork. i’m not including what our factory farms and the gmos have done to clean animals. that is a shame.
The problem is not that horses will be killed, it’s the rampant abuse and seeing what happens to the victim in front of you, that precedes the grisly death. The problem is the whole factory farm mentality as well. Doesn’t matter if it’s a chicken, turkey, cow horse or pig, when they are factory farmed and killed, the abuse is astonishing. For those who feel that a factory in the good old US will be more humane, check out Animals Angels Inc. This is a group of volunteers who document the abuses at feedlots, auctions, on transport trucks etc. Unlike the ARA groups, they simply document and report. Large scale breeders, like the puppy mills in dog breeding, contribute to this problem too. Horses are large animals. They never forget people and places they have been. They are as sensitive and as intelligent as dogs. In fact, there are groups who have begun using mini horses as service animals to great effect as they have a far longer useful life span. That intelligence is probably why horse slaughter is so very horrifying. Just imagine being in a chute, and watching the horses in front of you going under the gun…..knowing your turn is coming…