The Rural Voice, 2019-02, Page 7 A recent study commissioned by
the Canadian Food Inspection
Agency discovered one in five
packages of sausages from grocery
stores across Canada contained off-
label ingredients. One of those
ingredients was horse meat.
Researchers from the University
of Guelph examined 100 sausages
and found seven of 27 beef sausages
contained pork, four of 20 chicken
sausages contained turkey and 15
turkey sausages contained no turkey
at all – just chicken. This is alarming
if you follow a kosher diet but is
particularly dreadful if you own or
love horses.
I, like most North Americans
(though I hear horse meat is favoured
in Montreal), seems to have a
cultural and emotional aversion to
eating horse meat.
Partly, it’s due to whatever food
you grow up with. Your childhood
diet is your “normal.” Growing up in
our Dutch household with a mother
who loved to cook, we ate beef, pork
and chicken with large helpings of
potatoes and veg from the garden.
Butters, gravies, eggs, bacon and
cold, rich Jersey milk straight from
the bulk tank were staples. None of
us were fat because the dairy farm
required all hands on board. We
worked hard, ate large and were
raised up fit and fed. Horse was not
on the menu.
However, when we visited
Holland, it was quite normal for
family members to serve up cold,
sliced “paardenvlees” to eat on fresh
“brood” for lunch. They were
surprised at our shocked response to
what they saw as perfectly healthy
and tasty lunch offerings.
Fast forward many years when
you get to travel as an adult and are
exposed to cuisine from different
countries and cultures. In Haiti,
where goats roam hillsides and
streets alike, eating goat is the
normal. So we did also, finding it
hearty and flavorful. I didn’t grow up
on the east coast but a two-week
vacation there had us slurping down
mussels like a native. France? A
charcuterie board was salty
goodness. Jamaica? Spicy jerk
chicken had our eyes watering.
Mexico? Well, we played it safe
there. With plans for Scotland in the
works, there is talk of trying haggis,
“a type of pudding composed of the
liver, heart, and lungs of a sheep”
states the internet. Gross and more
gross. It’s not my “normal” but I’m
keen to try it.
Melanie Joy, author of Why We
Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows
suggests we can be socialized in and
out of eating certain meats. “We
learn to classify a handful of animals
as edible and we’re socialized
basically to disconnect from our
authentic thoughts and feelings…
When we see a hamburger we don’t
see a dead animal, we see a piece of
food,” Joy says.
Humans are exceptionally good at
compartmentalizing. I may have, in
fact, eaten a sausage containing horse
meat and not have known by taste or
texture. It was sausage. Not Amber
the mare in the barn. The idea of it,
though, horrifies me.
Having owned and ridden horses
for many years of my life, admired
their beauty and marveled at their
intelligence, I have put horses on an
animal pedestal as creatures that
inspire poetry and bring pure joy to
my spirit. Yet, they are a herd animal
like our cows. They eat grass like the
goats. They poop in the same pen
where they sleep. They are not
adverse to tossing off an unwelcome
guest and they can bite, kick, buck
and bolt as per their flight or fight
natures.
However, they are also an animal,
like cats and dogs, that you develop a
kinship with. Their intelligence level
and need for companionship creates a
bond. Unlike the rooster in the barn
that would sooner scratch me than be
held, horses respond to human
interaction. The more time you spend
with your horse, the more you
understand its particular personality
and how to teach and encourage it’s
behaviour to match your
requirements. Horses shine at
parades and wow spectators who
watch them pull carts, race or fly
around barrels. They enthrall us with
their physical capabilities and sheer
grace and power. Books and movies
have elevated the status of horse to
mythical proportions and made us all
long for the connection we witness in
movies like The Black Stallion, War
Horse or Flicka.
It’s a curious thing, though, why
we can eat one kind of meat and not
another.
Ultimately, whenever humans
form emotional connections with
animals is when the link between
animal and meat becomes an
abhorrent possibility. However, I also
know if my children were starving
and horse meat was the only food
available, catastrophic scarcity would
likely force the surrender of
emotional connection for the greater
need. Now, however, happy with
abundant choice, I’ll be cautious
where I buy sausages from now on. ◊
February 2019 3
Horse meat,
anyone?
Lisa B. Pot is
editor of The
Rural Voice
and farms in
Huron County
Lisa B. Pot
W.D. Hopper & Sons Ltd.
Seaforth, Ont. 1-888-522-1737
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