The Rural Voice, 1980-10, Page 14Horsemeat
One's food is another's poison
BY ROBERT STEEL
One man's food is another man's
poison.
The thought of using horses for food is
abhorrent to most people in Canada, and
the United States as well.
But after World War 11 when the great
tide of immigrants from Europe began to
come to our shores the sale of this type of
meat for human consumption began to
rise, especially in the cities which have
become more and more cosmopolitan.
Toronto, for example. is no longer the
600,000 or so people who comprised a
core, surrounded by farms and sparsely
populated suburbs. One Metro Toronto
butcher now supplies horsemeat to
French, Portuguese, Dutch. Maltese.
Swiss and Italian customers, and to some
Canadian -born, also.
One Ontario supplier. based
in Owen Sound. began in 1967 to
are cooled. These are graded and
stamped by the government inspector,
then wrapped in white gauze for
shipping.
Six main cuts are obtained; knuckle,
loin, tenderloin, inside loin, outside loin
and shoulder.
Any bruised areas on good meat are cut
off and discarded, and then processed
with the inedible entrails plus heads.
hoofs and blood into meat meal (a high
protein substance in animal food for
dogs, cats, mink, Metro Toronto zoo
animals, etc.) and tallow (soap, plastics,
lipsticks, cream oil). The heart. liver and
lungs are shipped separately. Spleens are
used in. pharmaceutical products. Hides
go to tanners, who sell to Japan which
returns them to Canada as finished
leAther articles. The tails and long
hide -hairs also go to Japanese
manufacturers.
Climate and feeding conditions make Canadian
horses particularly tasty
slaughter 150 to 200 horses per week for
meat export. In 1980 the same firm
processes 300 to 500 per week. The
number varies depending on the season
and the demand, 500 per week equals
27,000 annually. About 1,000,000 pounds
of live animals make up the current year's
handling.
The main markets are Europe, which
takes freshmeat,_and Japan, which takes
boneless frozen. Half is shipped by air
and the balance by sea. The company is
European -owned and, as a consequence
it first shipped to Belgium, then Holland,
France, Switzerland, Italy and Denmark.
In Japan it is called 'cherry' meat and is
considered a delicacy. It is sliced paper
thin, marinated and served in the best
restaurants to be eaten raw. It is also
made into sausages.
The carcass is cut into quarters which
PG. 12 THE RURAL VOICE/OCTOBER 1980
Animals rejected for food by the
inspector are used for bone meal and
fertilizer, but the condemnation rate is
low.
Canada started to ship horses and
horsemeat in 1946. The entire operation -
from slaughtering to packing to export -
.has been_ controlled and inspected by the
Federal Department of Agriculture.
Canadian processors are in Alberta,
Ontario and Quebec.
In Europe where beef is expensive,
horse meat is in demand because it is
cheaper. In the 1870 siege of Paris by the
Germans, when citizens were forced by
necessity to eat food they had never had
to before, the masses found the horse
meat was surprisingly tasty - sweeter and
coarser than beef. And so a change in
eating habits began. Since 1945 horses
have been in very short supply in France.
As a result either meat or live horses are
imported from Argentina, Turkey,
Morocco, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia
and Russia.
Climate and feeding conditions in
Canada apparently make Canadian
horses particularly tasty. They are
usually tremendously healthy. One
example is that horses do not get TB.
Many animals are shipped by sea to
France where the duty on live equines is
much less than on horse meat. But the
voyage is hard on the animals, in fact so
much so that shipments from Canada are
banned from October to April. The
Please turn to page 45
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