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Food

Horsemeat for dinner anyone?

(61 Posts)
grannyactivist Fri 21-Feb-14 10:27:31

Would you? Could you?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24952823
I do think she's brave to raise the issue and her passion for horses is well documented, so she presumably has the horse's best interest at heart.

Agus Fri 21-Feb-14 18:13:38

I love horses and have no qualms about eating horsemeat. I think what she is suggesting does in fact make sense.

Mishap Fri 21-Feb-14 17:09:37

I love rabbit - it is very tasty.

MiceElf Fri 21-Feb-14 17:06:38

Its a sensible idea and I must say I don't understand the British distaste for horsemeat it's very common in France. But I also wonder what happened to other meat sources such as rabbit which we used to eat very often when I was a child, and pigeon pie too.

And, having lived in East Africa on a diet which was 90% Matooke (steamed green banana) anything at all to relieve the monotony was welcome.

seaspirit Fri 21-Feb-14 16:30:26

I remember eating horse, it was sold ay the market in London's Church Street
can't remember it tasting any different from most meat. think it is only the 'pet' aspect that is off putting, they also sold live eels, mum liked them but I never liked the taste of those

thatbags Fri 21-Feb-14 16:28:44

One of my N american nieces decided to be a vegetarian (she objects to some animal farming practices) and was for several years. Then she went to work in darkest (no electricity, no water on tap) Peru and realised that poor people just eat what they can get, animal or otherwise, so she ate what she was given by her host family, including goat meat, while she was there. She intends to be vegetarian again when she returns to the US. She has that choice because there is plenty of everything, including a wide enough variety of non-animal foods, which there was not in darkest Peru.

thatbags Fri 21-Feb-14 16:24:37

Actually, i suppose roasted fleas have some nourishment in them, as in "don't shout, they'll all want one" (fly in soup).

nightowl Fri 21-Feb-14 16:22:39

No thanks. I don't eat my fellow creatures. And it's usually the wealthiest countries that do have a choice of meat to eat.

Aka Fri 21-Feb-14 16:22:34

Bags you wrap the hedgehog in clay and bake it on an open fire. The spikes (and presumably dead, roasted fleas) stay in the baked clay when you break it open. Simples!

Ariadne Fri 21-Feb-14 15:59:35

Oh yes - lucky to be able to have the choice, I'd say. I have always realised that.

thatbags Fri 21-Feb-14 15:56:38

Good to have a choice, n'est-ce pas?

Ariadne Fri 21-Feb-14 15:46:28

It's all meat / flesh, whatever the animal. And I won't eat any of it.

thatbags Fri 21-Feb-14 15:41:12

People in desperate straits have eaten rat (e.g. on ships; have you read the Jack Aubrey sailing books by Patrick O'Brien? great series) and probably most of those others too, aka. I was talking about farmed animals really. I've eaten rabbit. Guinea pigs are eaten in South America – bred to be eaten in fact. Goats also. Hedgehog is supposed to be very tasty if you can get past the fleas.

Joelise Fri 21-Feb-14 15:29:11

I have probably eaten horse , unknowingly in France.
My SIL on holiday in Vietnam & Cambodia ate, & I have photographic proof, cricket, snake, frog, scorpion, crocodile & a black cruncy looking insect, about 3 inches long yuck. My DD had more sense & ate normal food. When ever he goes away to non European countries he always samples the most extraordinary fare.

Aka Fri 21-Feb-14 15:22:39

Rat, squirrel (grey of course), hedgehog, dormouse (or are they protected), guinea pig, rabbit......??

thatbags Fri 21-Feb-14 15:16:46

Haven't read the thread. I'm just replying to the OP.

Yes, I'd buy and eat horsemeat. If the animal that my meat comes from has been properly looked after and humanely killed, I don't mind what animal it is except as to taste, chewiness, ease of cooking, etc. If a life form, animal or plant, is edible I'll eat it subject to the above considerations.

Mishap Fri 21-Feb-14 13:47:52

We have a very disordered and ambivalent attitude to animals. Do we love them and treat them as substitute humans, or do we eat them? Where do we draw the line. It is a debate that defies logic.

Lona Fri 21-Feb-14 13:43:00

I don't eat a lot of red meat, but I would certainly eat horse if it was on offer.
The thought of eating a cat or dog however, makes me feel a bit queasy. No logic there at all!
If I was hungry though..........anything except jellied eels [yuk]

sunseeker Fri 21-Feb-14 13:16:49

If selling horsemeat for food in UK will stop the export of animals to the continent then I am all for it. (Although having said that I seem to remember there was a call for banning the export of live animals - did that happen?)

Meat is meat and so long as the animals are well cared for during their lives and humanely destroyed I don't think it would be a problem.

Of course someone is now going to say why not eat dogs and cats but not many of us keep horses in our homes!

Galen Fri 21-Feb-14 13:02:51

I love duck either Peking or a l'orange.

ffinnochio Fri 21-Feb-14 12:46:46

""I chuck that out for what it's worth because I think it needs a debate."

I think she'd do well on GN.

jinglbellsfrocks Fri 21-Feb-14 12:33:29

No it's not. Think Pony Club. [wrings hangs in despair]

Mishap Fri 21-Feb-14 12:29:05

I have eaten horse in France and regularly eat duck. Unless we are veggies, one meat is much the same as another in terms of whether it is right to eat it.

rosesarered Fri 21-Feb-14 12:24:41

I could eat horesemeat, and in past holidays on the Continent, probably unwittingly did.However, I don't like the idea of it, and that's the difference.I like horses, and I also like ducks [ so can't eat them!]

jinglbellsfrocks Fri 21-Feb-14 12:17:42

Elegran she blamed the housing shortage on singles having houses to themselves.

Ok, she wasn't advocating caves.

Elegran Fri 21-Feb-14 11:52:11

Jings when did she say that single people should not live in houses? I can't find anything about it online.

As for eating horsemeat, I have never knowingly done so, but if I were hungry enough I would find it delicious.