A Horsemeat With No Name

During the early 1970s, there was a popular song by the band America called a Horse With No Name.  It was believed to be about heroin use or hallucinations, but maybe not.  The current uproar over horsemeat in the European food supply causes me to think that horsemeat needs a new name.  When you think about the popular meats, beef, pork and lamb, they are not named after the animals they came from.  For some reason horsemeat isn’t called something else like rior or chol.   If it was, then we could easily disassociate this most likely delicious meat with the elegant animals call horse.

The horsemeat scandal is an interesting story.  Horsemeat was intentionally mislabeled as beef, passing through a number of countries and inspection systems, before ending up at big name processors such as Nestle and Birds Eye.  Most recently, the famous IKEA Swedish meatballs were found to contain horsemeat.  I have been to IKEA and have eaten their tasteless meatballs.  Horsemeat, and possibly some black pepper, would help them tremendously.

I have eaten the meat and organs of many animals, and I have always wondered why horse was off limits.  I can see where it may not be an efficient animal to raise solely for meat, but horses are much closer to being livestock than they are to a family pet.  In the early 1970s, beef prices spiked and horsemeat appeared in some stores. I think the popular TV series All in the Family actually addressed it at that time on a show, though my memory may be fuzzy.  Eventually it was banned for consumption, but several years ago, Congress quietly passed legislation allowing U.S. processors to slaughter horses. 

We should eat horse and plenty of it. Diversity of diet makes food more enjoyable. Rather than act shocked they unknowingly sold horsemeat, Nestle should hold a contest to rename the meat to something more marketable.  Nestle could become the horsemeat market kings and sell IKEA all of the horse they can pack into their meatballs, and the meatballs will taste better, causing IKEA to sell more crap furniture, and the economy will improve….    If we eat horsemeat, life will be better.