Wednesday, November 30, 2011

That's horse meat!

Facebook is alive this morning with people repulsed with the idea that horses could be slaughtered for food.  First let's be clear I was born vegetarian. Until I hit my teens it's not even really something I thought about.  Having said that it is something that I have given considerable thought to since then.  Meat is to me not just repulsive, so much as it seems to be the meanest thing you could do to another living being.  It's mean to cage an animal or raise it for the sole purpose of  killing an animal, and then to add insult to all kinds of injury to eat the animal.  No part of this process seems the least bit acceptable to me.  To understand the revulsion from my point of view simply insert "child" in place of animal in the previous sentence. 

The comments flying around Facebook and below the articles on Yahoo etc.  confuse me.  Why are horses special? They have all the same "parts" as cows, pigs or even turkeys.  Turkey's for example are joyously hacked away every Thanksgiving, and seemingly turkeyless Thanksgiving is so abhorrent that there are fake one's made out of tofu that look like the real thing.  So let's be clear it isn't that the horse will taste bad, it's that we view the horse differently.  George Washington, after all didn't ride into battle against the Brits on a masterful pig.  Statues of fallen warriors do not see them standing nobly by their pet turkeys. Looking at chickens one is not inspired to art or poetry.  It's not that there is a moral repugnance to horse flesh, it's merely that we have decided that horses are worthy.  They are useful to us in more ways then lunch.  Where as the other animals are useful merely as lunch.