BK admits to serving horse meat in the UK

[Matthean]

Burger King admits selling beef burgers and Whoppers containing horse meat | Mail Online

At least we know where Ray Lewis goes when on vacation.

[Marc Vaughan]

Really don't see why this is getting so much play back home tbh .... I've eaten horse before (its commonly eaten in France) and its quite nice.

Oh and I'd also recommend Reindeer

[finketr]

you can't really tell the difference in the UK anyway.

[JediKooter]

How does Sarah Jessica Parker feel about this?

[Abe Sargent]

I thought BK meant fellow FOFC poster Barkeep, and I was wondering why he'd do that!

[oykib]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

Really don't see why this is getting so much play back home tbh .... I've eaten horse before (its commonly eaten in France) and its quite nice.

Oh and I'd also recommend Reindeer

I had it raw a number of times when I lived in Japan (it's called basashi if you happen to be there and want to order it)

It's illegal in California though.

[QuikSand]

Is there a really defensible argument behind a ban on processing and selling horse meat?

[Lathum]

I've always wonder where the line was established on what animals are ok to eat and what aren't. Kill and eat a baby cow, sweet! Kill and eat a horse, barbaric!

Really makes no sense

[MacroGuru]

Honestly, it's gotten play in the states to start selling it and using it again..

[Passacaglia]

Wouldn't horse be preferable to cow in the UK? Or do they have mad horse disease, too?

[molson]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I've always wonder where the line was established on what animals are ok to eat and what aren't. Kill and eat a baby cow, sweet! Kill and eat a horse, barbaric!

Really makes no sense

Ya, it's kind of interesting how stuff becomes and stays just a part of culture, even after we become completely disconnected from the original reasons for it. Fortunately, wikipedia solves all mysteries!!

"Reasons for the taboo

In 732 A.D. Pope Gregory III began a concerted effort to stop the ritual consumption of horse meat in pagan practice. In some countries, the effects of this prohibition by the Roman Catholic Church have lingered and horse meat prejudices have progressed from taboos, to avoidance, to abhorrence.[22] In other parts of the world, horse meat has the stigma of being something poor people eat and is seen as a cheap substitute for other meats, such as pork and beef.

According to the anthropologist Marvin Harris,[6] some cultures class horse meat as taboo because the horse converts grass into meat less efficiently than ruminants. When breeding livestock for meat, a cow or a sheep will produce more meat than a horse if fed with the same amount of grass.[citation needed]

There is also an element of sentimentality, as horses have long enjoyed a close relationship with many humans, on a similar level to household pets – this can be seen projected in such Anglophone cultural icons such as Black Beauty. Compare with the anthropomorphic animals in Babe, Charlotte's Web, and Freddy the Pig.

Totemistic taboo is also a possible reason for refusal to eat horse meat as an everyday food, but did not necessarily preclude ritual slaughter and consumption. Roman sources state that the goddess Epona was widely worshipped in Gaul and southern Britain. Epona, a triple aspect goddess, was the protectress of the horse and horse keepers, and horses were sacrificed to her;[25] she was paralleled by the Irish Macha and Welsh Rhiannon. The Uffington White Horse is probable evidence of ancient horse worship. The ancient Indian Kshatriyas engaged in horse sacrifice (Ashwamedh Yaghya) as recorded in the Vedas and Ramayana; but within context of the ritual sacrificial is not being 'killed' but instead being smothered to death.[26] In 1913, the Finnic Mari people of the Volga region were observed to practice a horse sacrifice.[26]

In ancient Scandinavia, the horse was very important, as a living, working creature, as a sign of the owner's status, and symbolically within the old Norse religion. Horses were slaughtered as a sacrifice to the gods and the meat was eaten by the people taking part in the religious feasts.[27] When the Nordic countries were Christianized, eating horse meat was regarded as a sign of paganism and prohibited. A slight skepticism against eating horse meat is still common as a reminder of this in these countries even today.[28]

It is notable that, despite horses having been bred in England since pre-Roman times, the English language has no widely used term for horse meat, as opposed to four for pig meat (pork, bacon, ham, gammon)[clarification needed], three for sheep meat (lamb, hogget and mutton), two for cow meat (beef and veal), and so on. English speaking countries, however, have sometimes marketed horse meat under the euphemism "cheval meat" (cheval being the French for horse). Also, note that the words pork, bacon, mutton, veal, and beef all derive from Anglo-Norman vocabulary, because[citation needed] of the class structure of England after the Norman Conquest in 1066 CE: the poor (Anglo-Saxon-speaking Britons) tended the animals, while the rich (French-speaking Normans) ate the meat. The peasants had very little to do with horses.[citation needed]"

[EagleFan]

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

I thought BK meant fellow FOFC poster Barkeep, and I was wondering why he'd do that!

+1

[Jughead Spock]

Had horse just the other day for lunch. Pretty common over here.

[Logan]

My friend Jay Reimenschneider eats horse all the time. He gets it from his butcher.

[Apathetic Lurker]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

Really don't see why this is getting so much play back home tbh .... I've eaten horse before (its commonly eaten in France) and its quite nice.

Oh and I'd also recommend Reindeer

I don't like horsemeat...Prefer beef

[oykib]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Is there a really defensible argument behind a ban on processing and selling horse meat?

The short answer is no.

The only quantifiable justification was that after the ban on horse slaughter, horse theft in California dropped by a third. But I imagine if you destroy a portion of any product's value, you'd see a resulting drop in its theft numbers.