Horse meat is popular in many countries like Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Japan, China, Switzerland, Germany, Mexico, Indonesia, Poland, and Iceland. In other parts of the world, like Sweden, Canada, Italy, and Russia, people have mixed feelings about eating horse meat, and the legal standards vary.
China has the largest population in the world and is also the world's largest consumer of horse meat. there are not very many laws that prohibit the consumption of many types of meat, as long as there is a market for doing so. Horse meat is typically dried in China to make sausage, or served alongside signature dishes.
Few countries consider horse meat as an acceptable food, and Australia is not one of them.
Which Countries Consume Horse Meat? Countries that consume horse meat include China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, Germany, France, and Iceland. Horse meat is most popular in China, where nearly 1.6 million horses were consumed in 2018.
U.S. horse meat is unfit for human consumption because of the uncontrolled administration of hundreds of dangerous drugs and other substances to horses before slaughter. horses (competitions, rodeos and races), or former wild horses who are privately owned. slaughtered horses on a constant basis throughout their lives.
Bacteria such as Salmonella are the main agents of contamination of horse meat. They are easily destroyed by cooking heat, but as the meat is often consumed either without being fully cooked through or even raw, they can survive in the food.
In Japanese cuisine, raw horse meat is called sakura (桜) or sakuraniku (桜肉, sakura means "cherry blossom", niku means "meat") because of its pink color. It can be served raw as sashimi in thin slices dipped in soy sauce, often with ginger, onions, garlic, and/or shiso leaves added.
Horses, mules and donkeys
In both Sunni and Shia hadith the meat of mules is prohibited but horse meat is allowed in Sunni sources. Narrated Jabir bin `Abdullah: "On the day of Khaibar, Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) forbade the eating of donkey meat and allowed the eating of horse meat."
In the Russian Federation there are a lot of nationality, some of them have a food from horse meat in their traditional dishes.
While donkeys are not sold for their meat in many areas, it is a popular food in South America and China. Using donkeys to produce meat, milk, and leather has gained popularity in the last two decades.
Approximately 2,000 tonnes of horse meat is exported from Australia for human consumption in Japan and Europe annually (ABS figures). Over 25,000 horses per year are killed in this way in Australia.
Australian horses are fed forage in the form of hay, chaff, pellets, and cubes. Lucerne (alfalfa) is the most common hay fed to horses, followed by grass (meadow) and oaten hay.
Horse meat is a bit sweet in taste. Some think it is a blend between beef (a cow) and venison (deer). People use it similar to the way they use beef, putting it in sandwiches, or serving it in a slab. The cooking time is generally shorter than that of beef, in part because of its lean qualities.
Plus, horsemeat is healthier than beef: it's lower in fat, higher in protein and has a greater proportion of omega-3 fatty acids. Connoisseurs describe it as sweet and pleasantly gamey. Horse consumption wasn't always so taboo. It was a Paleolithic staple.
Nestlé, owner of Purina pet foods, the company many pet parents love to hate, have one more reason to hate Nestlé: Horse meat. That's right: Horse meat. Nestlé discovered at least two of its products, Beef Ravioli and Beef Tortellini, contain — get ready — horse meat.
Fast food giant Taco Bell said Friday it has taken beef off the menu in its three UK outlets after tests on ground beef from a European supplier revealed traces of horse meat.
Horse Meat in Italy
Horsemeat became and still is an important part of Venetian cuisine and in general of the italian cuisine. It also never fell out of fashion in Sardinia and Sicily where horse and donkey meat salamis and sausages are found everywhere.
Pezzetti di cavallo, translated as pieces of horse meat, is a traditional Italian dish that uses horse meat as the star ingredient.
In the 1920s, according to Nestle, slaughterhouses opened pet food companies to dispose of horse meat. It remained a major ingredient in pet food until at least the 1940s. Today, Nestle said, most pet food companies do not profess to use horse meat, partially for fear it would discourage people from buying the product.
Within Christianity, horse-eating became taboo with a papal decree in 732, when Pope Gregory III deemed the consumption of horse meat to be a pagan practice (possibly in an effort to preserve horses for more practical purposes, such as war).
The Torah thereby more generally prohibits all mammals that do not have split hooves or that do not chew their cud. This includes mammals, such as the horse, that fall into the intersection of both categories, namely, that do not have split hooves and that do not chew their cud.
For the first part of the 20th century, horsemeat was a popular choice at the French dinnertable but its consumption has been diminishing steadily since. The last 20 years have been catastrophic for horse butchers with a 75% drop in purchases.
Horse meat is not really a thing in Canada. There is some demand for it in certain parts of the French-speaking province of Quebec, but generally speaking, we don't eat horses here.
This is basashi, or raw horse meat, and its tender texture has lured many fans to the city of Kumamoto, where it's served as sashimi or nigiri. Diners eat the thin slices much like other kinds of sashimi: dipped in soy sauce, and served with grated ginger and Japanese horseradish.