If you care about animals, don't eat them
I am sure many readers will have been understandably shocked by revelations about horse meat being found in beef burgers at several national supermarket chains.
However, it does throw up some other questions including why the thought of eating horses repulses us but as a nation we think nothing of eating cows?
What really is the difference between a horse and a cow? Or a pig, sheep or chicken for that matter?
All are sentient animals that value their lives.
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Lives that are routinely cut short after no more money can be made from them.
Horses often after their owners tire of them, or they become too old to perform.
With farmed animals it is as soon as they have reached their slaughter weight at just weeks or months old.
In the case of dairy cows, they are sent to the abattoir once their milk yield drops.
This is often at just four or five years old, despite having a natural life span of 25 years.
Much of the meat in beef burgers for sale in British supermarkets will come from exhausted dairy cows.
This is not to say that horses do not suffer, as they do.
Viva! has campaigned for years against the trade in live horses, forced to endure gruelling journeys from Poland to the slaughterhouses of Italy.
However, if the thought of eating horse troubles you, please spare a thought for the 958 million other animals killed for the British dinner table last year.
If you care about animals – all animals – then the best way to show that is to simply stop eating them.
JUSTIN KERSWELL Viva! campaigns manager Viva! Wilder Street Bristol
4 Comments
by MoeXXX
Monday, January 28 2013, 10:37PM
“They didn't find horse "meat"; they found horse DNA. From what I've read, this was most likely caused by an imported protein powder made from rendered horses in Europe. You can call something a beefburger providing it contains at least 47% cow - the rest has to come from somewhere.
The lesson I take from this (and I realise this is totally off-topic) is that the relentless drive for deregulation in this country can only result in the rest of Europe flogging us the cr@p that no-one else wants, simply because they can get away with it. They would've got away with it this time if *Irish* food safety inspectors hadn't caught them out.
Cut the regulations and the inspectors, and the UK will become Europe's dustbin.”
by BV_BV
Friday, January 25 2013, 10:08AM
“Surely it is important to find out why horse meat was being added to burgers, and possibly mince and sausages for all we know. Whoever makes the burgers must surely know what is being added to them. I shall only be eating proper meat from now on.”
by AbandonShip
Thursday, January 24 2013, 10:45AM
“I cannot see anything wrong with eating horse meat, or indeed any other sort of suitable meat. As mcupis says, I wonder if viva consider the fact that if we did not eat meat,the animals would not have a life, therefore by their actions viva would deny animals the right to a life.
The key factor surely is whether or not the animals are properly cared for in life and humanely slaughtered. These are things that, in the real world, we can make progress on.”
by mcupis
Thursday, January 24 2013, 10:00AM
“Two points to make.
First of all, if we didn't eat animals they wouldn't exist. It isn't the case that they would be gambolling free in the fields. They are bred for a purpose.
Secondly, go and look at yourself close up in the mirror. Open your mouth. Those four pointy teeth, one at each corner of your smile. They are called canines. What do you think they are for and how do you think they got there?”