In my career as an advocate for pet food safety, there have only been a handful of instances when I have stood paralyzed and frozen in horror after witnessing something so appalling that it was beyond my comprehension that such cruelty to animals could exist.
It was during the testimony of a whistleblower who detailed his experience at Bravo Packing, which he referred to as a “rat hole” and was located in New Jersey. ”.
s of dead horses, their manes stained with blood, piled in a tangled mess of heads and legs. Emaciated horses and ones too weak to stand, starving. Cows lying in blood and filth, crippled with pain, unable to stand, having their flesh torn from their bodies, and having their bones broken by forklifts. I witnessed barrels of decaying, maggot-infested animal intestines from euthanized animals. I debated whether or not to make them public because they were so gruesome and terrible. (shown below).
Even more difficult to accept was that the horses at Bravo have their hides sold to zoos for exotic animals to play with, their bones sold as dog chews, their flesh processed into pet food, and their meat ground into horsemeat.
As soon as I learned about the conditions at Bravo from the whistleblower, I immediately informed the appropriate state department of agriculture feed control officials of the situation and I wrote about the circumstances at Bravo Packing. The University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine immediately stopped disposing of euthanized animals at Bravo Packing after an FDA review was started within days.
In addition to the obvious moral issues with horse slaughter and the production of pet food containing horsemeat, Bravo Packing misrepresents the origin of its equine meat by claiming that it comes from “USDA inspected plants” when in fact the horses used in Bravo’s animal diets are killed on their property. Additionally, the horses used to produce their raw pet food are made from sick, injured, and dead animals. Even worse, there is proof that the horses at Bravo are kept in cruel conditions for an unknown period of time, going without food, until their bodies have the lean quality that the company’s owner prefers to use in its pet food formulas.
The owner of Bravo only decides to use a knife to kill one of his horses or other animals when he wants “fresh meat.” 22 rifle. Even if the shooter misses, which is common, they continue to fire until the animal is ultimately killed. They kill the animals in front of the other animals while disregarding their cries of fear and pain.
While it is required by state and federal animal welfare laws that suffering animals be put to sleep humanely and that ailing, elderly horses be put to sleep by a qualified veterinarian, this is not the case at Bravo Packing. At Bravo, horses are slaughtered, not humanely euthanized.
And if a dead horse is brought to Bravo, there’s a chance that pentobarbital was used to put it to sleep.
I noticed a note about an inspection at Bravo Packing in 2016 when the FDA alerted consumers about bacteria-filled pet food found there in a recent announcement. It stated that the agency had obtained horse meat chunk animal food samples from Bravo Packing that “tested positive for the drugs pentobarbital and phenytoin.” ”.
The FDA “analyzed a sample of horse meat in response to a complaint from one of Bravo Packing’s customers,” according to Phyllis Entis of eFoodAlert. Four exotic cats allegedly got sick after being fed the meat, according to the complaint. Two of the animals had to be euthanized. Pentobarbital was detected in both the horse meat sample and a pre-euthanasia blood sample from one of the animals. ”.
But it’s not clear why there was never a recall for the horse meat chunk pet food.
Horsemeat poses a serious risk to human health (and presumably animal health as well) if it is consumed, in addition to the risk posed by pentobarbital. According to a study that was published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology in May 2010, substances that are regularly given to American horses have harmful adverse effects on humans. Phenylbutazone (bute), a commonly used anti-inflammatory medication, can be fatal if consumed by people. Bute is a carcinogen, as determined by the National Toxicology Program. The FDA prohibits the use of this substance in food for these reasons. We can’t be sure, however, that Bravo Packing takes any safety measures to ensure that the horses it uses to produce food for animals are not tainted with lethal drugs – of any kind.
Bravo Packing takes advantage of a little-known exception to the rule prohibiting the slaughter of horses, which permits the practice as long as the horses are used as pet food or livestock feed. And as long as Bravo is engaged in the business of producing food for animals, not humans, they are able to get around the laws prohibiting the practice of transporting, holding, or selling horse flesh.
Surprisingly, nowhere in the United States is there a law that forbids the production or sale of horsemeat for animal consumption. S. Additionally, the definitions that apply to animal products refer to tissues from slaughtered “mammals” of any species, so even the Association of Animal Feed Control Officials does not specifically prohibit the use of horsemeat in pet food or animal feed.
Although the public started to view horses as domestic pets rather than beasts of burden in the past, the use of horses in pet food fell out of favor. Nowadays, no reputable pet food or animal feed company would dare to include horsemeat as an ingredient.
There was a time when a law prohibiting horse slaughter in the State of New Jersey, where Bravo Packing is located, could have been passed, but that didn’t end up happening.
A law that forbids the sale of horseflesh for human consumption and the slaughter of horses was signed into law by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in 2012. Because the sale of horseflesh for use in animal consumption and horse slaughter were not prohibited by that legislation. See how the law omits mentioning food for animal consumption here: (my emphasis)
A bill known as the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act of 2019 was introduced into Congress this year on June 27, 2019, in an effort to protect human food and horses. It would outlaw the slaughter of horses for human consumption in the United States as well as the export of live horses for the same purpose. Although it hasn’t yet, there is still hope that it will Unfortunately, though, it won’t stop Bravo from continuing its terrible trade even if it should.
In a curious twist, U. S. One of the bill’s sponsors is Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat from the state of New Jersey, where Bravo Packing is located.
And Sen. Menendez worked to outlaw horsemeat by cutting funding for U.S. government-mandated meat inspections. S. Department of Agriculture at the slaughterhouses to which horses are transported, effectively forbidding the killing of horses However, Bravo Packing is exempt from USDA regulations and is therefore permitted to continue slaughtering horses.
Horses have always been essential to the American experience as a whole, and they richly deserve our protection and consideration. However, the compassion they merit is no greater than that which any other animal should be permitted to enjoy because all animals merit that privilege.
The sole reason that livestock are born, bred, live, and die is so that humans can consume their flesh, so our culture does not share the same empathy and compassion for livestock as we do for horses. While we lavish our love and affection on our pets, including our horses, we ignore the experiences and suffering of cows, pigs, and chickens. It is unimaginable that we would allow the systemic mistreatment and neglect of livestock to continue on such a massive scale while we would never tolerate the suffering of pets.
It is simple to criticize our moral bankruptcy and lack of moral fiber for elevating the suffering of one species over that of another, for honoring one while devouring the other.
But to ignore the duty to treat the animals we raise for food and to be unaware of their sentience is to abdicate our responsibility. I’m hoping that one day everyone will realize that all animals deserve to be treated and loved equally.
Where Pet Food Companies Stand
While eating horse meat is still common in many cultures, it has remained a highly taboo topic in the United States. Horse meat is not used in pet food recipes because pet food companies are afraid of the backlash and the potential for falling sales.
The History of Horse Meat in Pet Foods
Horse meat was frequently used in pet foods in the early 1920s. Even slaughterhouses started their own pet food businesses to get rid of extra horse meat. For many years, the primary ingredient in many pet foods was horse meat; however, due to pressure on manufacturers as a result of the moral and ethical controversies surrounding the practice, the use of horse meat has since been discontinued.
With the domestication of horses for use in transportation, agricultural labor, and eventually in sport and leisure, the outlook changed in some parts of the world. Although humans have been eating horses for well over 400,000 years, In the United States, the last domestic slaughterhouse shut down in 2007, following the imposition of a nationwide ban on horse slaughter.
Despite the fact that the ban had since expired in 2011, unwanted horses in America are still shipped to either Mexico or Canada to be butchered because funding for USDA inspections has not been allocated. Numerous organizations and rescues are working to put an end to the cruel practices that horses are subjected to as a result of the ongoing debate surrounding this topic’s humane aspects.
Is horse meat in dog food UK?
Although there are several abattoirs in the UK that kill horses and ponies for use in pet food and export to other nations, the UK does not breed and raise horses for meat on a significant scale.
FAQ
What food has horse meat?
Horse meat is used in many different dishes, including the Veronese stew pastissada, steaks, carpaccio, and bresaola. Thin strips of horse meat called sfilacci are popular. There is horse fat in dishes like pezzetti di cavallo.
What kind of meat is dog food made of?
The majority of the “meat” in dog food, according to the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), is actually muscle from cows, pigs, sheep, or goats.
Are wild horses used for dog food?
Millions of wild horses once roamed North America, but as the open range vanished in the early 20th century, they were almost all hunted down and used as dog food and fertilizer.
Does Alpo dog food have horse meat in it?
Because Alpo doesn’t use horsemeat, those horses won’t be saved. He claimed that he only promotes Alpo’s beef and grain products. (An Alpo spokesman. Greene was a spokesperson for all Alpo products, according to Bart Campbell, who disagreed. However, Alpo’s dog food does not contain wild horses, he added. ).