so, what’s the problem?

flesh is flesh, isn't it? so why are carnists so upset at finding meat in their meat? horsemeat to be precise, in their cowmeat!? flesh masquerading as flesh!! tell me, what’s the difference between one species and another? why is the slaughter and consumption of one more acceptable than another?

if you eat flesh, why the outrage? why the shock and revulsion at the mere thought of eating horse rather than cow, or sheep, or pig…?

if you're here in australia perhaps you're not even concerned - maybe you think australia is somehow immune from the 'dilemma', immune from the 'horsemeat scandal' sweeping europe, immune from even thinking about the horse slaughter industry - hey, we love our horses, we're a horse loving nation, we wouldn't slaughter them, we certainly wouldn't eat them! according to a recent article in the courier mail...

“SEVEN hundred horses a month - many young fillies and colts bred for racing - are slaughtered at two Australian abattoirs and shipped overseas for human consumption, including to Europe, the centre of the horsemeat scandal.

The majority are slaughtered in Queensland at Caboolture's Meramist Abattoir, where 500 horses are processed each month.

A further 200 a month are killed at a South Australian abattoir, Samex Peterborough (formerly Metro Velda).

Thousands more are processed at 33 knackeries across Australia for petmeat and hides each year, with industry reports indicating the annual cull totals around 40,000.”

hmmm, 'knackeries' and abattoirs legally slaughtering horses, here... maybe it's time to think again... if horses are 'processed' here, it's only logical to assume some of them end up as food here... do you really believe you haven't 'inadvertently' eaten horse, or kangaroo, or camel, or some other 'unacceptable' flesh at some time in your life? i was told many years ago by a 'friend of a friend', a butcher, how commonplace substitution was, that horse and kangaroo were often 'hidden in mince' - how flour was a wonderful lightener of colour, a perfect mask...

if that shocks or horrifies you, then i have to ask again, why is the flesh of cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, turkeys, etc. etc. acceptable – why do you eat some, and not others? why are you not outraged at the slaughter of all?

according to melanie joy, author of ‘why we love dogs, eat pigs, and wear cows…' 

"... in meat-eating cultures around the world, even though the type of species consumed changes, people tend to have only a small handful of animals they have learned to classify as edible. All the rest they classify as inedible and thus disgusting and often offensive to consume.

So when it comes to eating animals, what is striking is not the presence of disgust -- disgust is the norm, the rule, rather than the exception. What is striking is the absence of disgust. The question we would do well to ask ourselves is why are we not disgusted by the select few species we have been taught to think of as edible. And why don't we ever ask why? When the stakes are so high -- our food choices are truly a matter of life and death, particularly for the 10 billion sentient individuals in the U.S. every year who are no less sensitive and conscious than those we consider friends and family yet who subsist in abject misery, as their bodies are unnecessarily turned into units of production. Why do we leave our choices so unexamined? Why don't we consider that so-called edible animals have lives that matter to them, just as horses and dogs and cats do?” read more in “Why Horsemeat Is Delicious and Disgusting”