Horse Slaughter For Meat Is Now Legal In The United States

Imagine you and your family trying to decide where to eat supper.  You are discussing different places: Olive Garden has the best pasta, the Roadhouse has the best steak, and so on.  Did you ever think, hmmm where can we get the best horse meat?  Nope?  Well it just became legal to slaughter horses for human consumption.

Now I just want to make it very clear that I eat meat.  I actually rather enjoy eating it.  But never have I thought about eating a horse.  Why?  Well maybe it's because all my life I have seen horses more as pets than food.  Well that may now change.

Thanks to Congress, horse slaughter for meat is now legal.  According to the USDA'S Food Safety and Inspection Service, all meat that is going to be used for food must pass a federal inspection.  Well back in 2006 Congress banned the use of federal money to inspect horse meat.  So without that money, distributing horse meat was impossible.

So I guess with a national debt of more than $15 Trillion, we have the money to fund this.  I don't really know.  But what I do know on November 18th of this year, Congress quietly passed a bill to lift the ban.

And get this, PETA is actually supporting the bill.  Their take is that having slaughter house in the US will actually reduce the amount of suffering that the horses face in other countries.  Ok so PETA wants Turkey, TX to change its name, but we can kill horses for meat?  I'm confused.

Since the bill was passed, there are already talks in over half a dozen states to open up slaughter houses.  While the US doesn't really eat horses, other countries do.  And surprisingly this is a $65 million a year business.

I probably won't ever, knowingly, eat a horse, but I am not judging anyone.  All I know is killing horses for meat is now legal in the US.  What are your thoughts?