Horses v. Cows

It is apparently a big deal that some people want to eat horses and an even bigger deal that others are willing to sell them horses to eat. I have never understood this. I have to admit it, while I’ve never eaten one, horses look delicious. They certainly look cleaner than cattle. So why, as Americans, is it ok to eat a cow but not a horse?  

Is it because horses are more attractive than cows? That’s probably easy to understand in a glamour-obsessed culture like ours. Would someone living in a mud hut on the side of a hill who had never heard of such publications as People, GQ or Cosmo care what an animal looked like if it supplied enough meat to feed their family for a year? Not likely. While not everyone eats them, I would suggest that any number of animals in the deer family are equally attractive to (if not more than) a horse.

Is it because they are domestic animals like dogs and cats? Maybe, but in America there is nothing more domestic than a cow. Cows are born, bred and raised under watchful human eyes. They are so domestic that there are more wild dogs, cats and even wild horses in this country than cows.

Maybe it’s because horses are smarter than cows. But Americans consume nearly the same amount of pork each year as beef, and pigs are generally considered to not only be smarter than dogs, but the average three-year-old child (and adolescent Arkansans).

So where is the logic? I say if we are truly a free country, we should be able to choose if we want to eat horses or not.  Those who don’t want to eat horses should stick to eating such lowly animals as chickens, pigs and cows. They should go to the auctions and buy as many horses as they want and let them run free in their pastures. Just don’t deny the rest of the country horse meat because of some strange rationale about why horses should be placed on some sort of pedestal.


P.S.
Happy Valentine’s Day Elizabeth Cook!