Source: KRGV News
International Food Safety Documentation Tossed to the Wind
MCALLEN –Beef prices are at an all-time in Reynosa, Mexico. The concern prompted a livestock association to find other alternatives for consumers. They think horse meat could be the answer.
Gildardo Lopez, president of Reynosa Livestock Association, said studies showed that horse meat is cheaper than beef. He said Mexican consumers pay up to $13 for two pounds of beef, compared to the $7 they would spend on horse meat.
“We’re trying to focus on helping the low to middle class citizens,” Lopez said. “The high prices of beef increased significantly. In the world market it went up about 300 percent. Our alternative is to sacrifice horses for human consumption.”
Lopez said horses between the ages of 3 to 5 will be target for human consumption. The first animal will be prepared at a local slaughter house on Wednesday.
On Friday, the livestock association will invite the public to a Reynosa meat market, where they will offer a variety of dishes for consumers to try for free. They will also provide nutritional information.
“Studies show horse meat is nutritious,” Lopez said. “It doesn’t have grease. It’s low in cholesterol. It’s high in protein and rich in iron and other vitamins.”
Officials said it will likely take a while before local residents buy in on the concept of consuming horse meat.
The process of educating the public will be essential.
“We’re not going to fool anybody,” Lopez said. “We’re not going to start businesses and not tell people what they’re buying. They’ll know if it’s horse meat.”
Lopez said residents are already doing research on their own. They’re going online and checking out other countries that sell horse meat.
Gildardo Lopez said about 20 percent of people talking about the it are in support of horse meat consumption. He said he expects the number to grow.
The meat market that will offer the free sample is located on Heron Ramirez Street in Reynosa. They will be sampling on Friday from noon to 4 p.m.
Cynthia Martinez, a registered dietician, said she isn’t familiar with horse meat and would look into it’s nutritional values.
People cannot cross horse meat from Mexico to the United States through cargo or passenger lanes at any port of entry. The meat can only be enterable from foot and mouth disease-free countries like Canada and New Zealand. Argentina and Paraguay are also approved countries, because they have horse meat inspection systems that are approved by the USDA.
Consumers can learn more about horse meat through the USDA website.
Categories: Horse Slaughter
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
They are already consuming horse meat unknowingly, per the full Theses for the Chapman study. 39% of ground beef in Mexico contains horse meat
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I have seen ground beef that says MEXICO in one store here( not sure which of two). Wouldn’t trust it, wouldn’t buy it!
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Horses are not meat to eat, never have been, we use medicine’s on horses we can’t eat, that stay in the body, will make us sick or kill us/
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Well, Dave D. must be literally jumping up & down with joy! Strange nothing was mentioned about the horses being transported TO Mexico! Just the young Mexican horses being considered for food there. The dietician they interviewed said she felt there were many other options rather than horsemeat.
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I don’t know who they are being advised by but they need to know the toxins in Horses are carcinogenic and will cause Cancer, medicines we give our Horses has a statement clearly on the dispenser, DON’T GIVE TO HORSES TO BE USED FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION, we never worry about it because we don’t eat a sentient being and when these Cancers start the smallest victims will be the children, they have no choice, but if they ingest Horse meat tainted with Bute it causes Aplastic Anemia a cancer in the Bone Marrow and that child has no future, I know many will say if they eat Horses we won’t shed a tear when their ravaged with Cancer but the children will also suffer and die. I was sick the first time I saw a video of how they kill our Wild Horses in Mexico, they have the most savage way of killing our Wild Horses, they put them in shutes and then people on each side take knives and just start stabbing the Horse in the spine util it dies, in Canada they use a device called the Captive Bolt which was designed to kill Cattle not Horses, it is not effective on Horses, they have long necks and the bolt doesn’t kill them, so they hang them up and cut their throats while their still alive and then begin the process of skinning them and all that’s left of what was a beautiful Horse is the head,skin and hooves. Nothing about killing Horses for consumption is acceptable, they were never meant to be a food source and should not be now, we have more than enough food in our Country and theirs to leave Horses alone. Our Humanity has devolved while our technology has evolved, why is that, why don’t these people see the dangerous precedent they are setting, will Dogs be next, will they find a nutrious formula to justify eating Dogs. God charged us all with the care of his animals and we have failed him and sadly the animals as well, but at the root of all evil lies GREED and Gluttony and this has both.
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Yep. Paperwork stating the horse is free from toxins like Bute are falsified. Our horses are not sitting on feedlots for six months! They are purchased at auction, shipped to feedlots out of state (California) then within the week, shipped out of country with paperwork stating no Bute or anything was given. No matter how loud we get, no one will listen anyway and our poisoned horse meat continues export to foreign countries. Bon Appetit!
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Why poison the low class people?They’re not your guinea pigs, and you know dam well horse meat is not safe, especially comming from US. Beef doesn’t have to be expensive, they eat the same dam hay as horses do. Your a disgusting country, and no consideration for your people’s well being.
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From ANIMALS’ ANGELS
Dennis Chavez Feedlot, Los Lunas, NM; 8/21/15 & additional dates
http://www.animalsangels.org/investigations/horses/dennis-chavez-feedlot-los-lunas-nm-8-21-15-additional-dates
Friday, August 21, 2015
Animals’ Angels investigators returned to the Southwest Livestock Auction in Los Lunas to check the conditions for the horses and cows kept in the vast pen area. The auction also serves as a slaughter horse feedlot for New Mexico’s largest kill buyer Dennis Chavez, who ships approximately 10,000 horses per year to slaughter in Mexico.
Chavez made national news in 2012, after Animals’ Angels documented four dying horse in horrific condition at his feedlot. The 13th Judicial District Attorney Lemuel Martinez’s office filed 12 counts against Chavez — four counts each of animal cruelty, lack of a bill of sale, and failure to euthanize a non-ambulatory animal. After securing an outrageous plea agreement, Chavez pleaded guilty on November 25, 2013 to not having a bill of sale on the four emaciated horses. He was sentenced to one year unsupervised probation and a payment of $5,000 to one of three horse rescue organizations in New Mexico.
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From ANIMALS’ ANGELS
Premises of Don Gatz, Patterson, CA; 8/6/15
http://www.animalsangels.org/investigations/horses/premises-don-gatz-patterson-ca-8-6-15
As many of you are aware, Don Gatz
is a California horse trader who has been buying and selling horses for at least five decades. Based in Patterson, CA, Gatz frequents auctions in Turlock, Madeira and Escalon as well as in New Mexico. Known to provide horses to several kill buyers, Gatz also has a history of abusing and neglecting the horses in his care. Despite his egregious offenses, Gatz has managed to evade any form of real justice, prompting Animals’ Angels to continue monitoring his operations.
To this end, investigators returned to the Gatz property in Patterson, CA on August 6th. Upon arrival, the investigators immediately noted that the location appeared to be abandoned. Fields were overgrown with tall weeds and brush; there were no animals or fresh horse manure to even indicate the presence of animals in recent days.
Animals Angels had received information that Gatz was leasing property from the City of Patterson, so investigators surveyed properties surrounding the Water Treatment Plant. They did locate a group of 25 geldings, mares and colts that appeared suspicious as they were located in one of the large, barren lots adjacent to the Plant.
The entire lot was covered in horse manure, indicating that the lot had been used to keep these or other horses for quite some time yet there is no one who removes the manure. The horses were nibbling on the dry grass sprouting between the manure piles, apparently looking for something to eat. There were no feed troughs visible. However, due to the size of the lot if the troughs were located at the very back, they would not have been seen by our investigators.
Several horses appeared lethargic and not moving, but rather simply stood there with their heads down. There were no obvious injuries and all appeared to be a decent weight, but the lack of movement was concerning.
After multiple requests regarding the status of Gatz’ lease from the City of Patterson, we were finally informed by the City Clerk that the City of Patterson has not had a Lease Agreement with Don Gatz since fiscal year 2011/2012. It is therefore unclear if the group of horses observed really belongs to Gatz.
Based on the recent observations however, it appears that Gatz has indeed moved on to a new location. AA will continue to investigate
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Horse are NOT inspected as food animals in the USA. US horses are treated with all kinds of medicines and chemicals that are labeled as “Not for use in animals intended for human consimption.” US horses are FULL of POISONS.
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Horses have never been intended for food they have carried many men into war as well as out to safety they’ve been used as entertainment and beauty NEVER intended for food the should be worshipped and loved for the majestic magnificent animal they are not abused and slaughtered in those barbaric ways horses have feelings they feel pain and fear they have a soul that was not meant to be crushed by humans without a heart or conscience
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EU’s move in Mexico a help in political fight over slaughter trade
Horsetalk.co.nz 7 January 2015
http://horsetalk.co.nz/2015/01/07/eu-move-mexico-political-fight-slaughter/#axzz3nFhmgAcI
The European Union’s decision to end American horse meat imports from Mexico is a fantastic card to play in the political push to end the slaughter trade, the president of the Equine Welfare Alliance says.
John Holland told members in a New Year message that he believed there was real potential for 2015 to mark the end of the slaughter trade in US horses.
His prediction followed what he described as two big developments in 2015 – the federal defunding of inspections at slaughter plants, and the EU ban on Mexican horse meat.
“As we all know, Mexico has customers for its horse meat other than the EU. So we all wanted to know what percentage of their horsemeat goes to non-EU countries.”
Holland predicted that the pro-slaughter side would “go back to their play book of spreading stories about how the sky is falling without horse slaughter”.
It would be a mistake to underestimate their reach, he said.
“I can say that 2015 promises to be an exciting year, and we intend to work harder than ever. The successes of the past year were not the exclusive work of one group or another. They were the result of all of us all working together.”
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On another front, some good news, shows if you stand together you can win.
http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/30/transcanada-drops-lawsuit
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The US is rounding up wild horses and burros and sending those to slaughter . . . . BUT, I am sure there would not be a bat of an eye to slaughter show horses that might turn out up in a kill pen from thieves. There are plenty of third world countries that would love to have horse meat to eat . . . China lists it proudly on the menu in fine eating establishments. Dogs for sale can be seen in cages on the sides of roads . . . . wealth buys more luxuries than most can imagine!
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Totally wrong to slaughter horses. This is animal abuse.
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Actually if you want an alternative to beef seafood is the answer, I happened to know that seafood in fact is a lot healthier than beef, pork, or chicken. In fact I find seafood tastes better too. I’m starting to think we humans aren’t really made to eat any kind of land meat. First off it makes you fat, and second land meats just tastes bad there’s always mad cow and all kinds of diseases that come out of land animals. One I think about where a cow or anything like that has been beef is kind of gross. Who wants to eat something that lives in feces. That’s why the only meat I really like comes from the ocean like fish.
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Joe—–it sounds to me like you are asumming that fish is a cleaner meat. Read this article and if you are hoping that fish are more humanly butchered remember fish cannot scream because they have no vocal cords.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/10/full-scale-plastic-worlds-oceans-revealed-first-time-pollution
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http://globalnews.ca/news/1843538/hunks-of-plastic-found-inside-fraser-river-steelhead
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Joe, hate to disappoint you but if you do some research, most of our fisheries are in trouble and we are harvesting younger fish from declining populations worldwide. Farmed fish inject a lot of problems into their local environs as well, and create health risks for wild fish, including that they all live in their own filth, plus that of human runoff into the waterways. I don’t eat any fish at all anymore for these and related reasons. Check into it yourself – things are not so black and white anymore regarding food choices, if they ever really were.
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Cows weren’t put on this earth to look at Joe. Just because some have used feedlots and such to grow them faster and treat them mean doesn’t mean all beef is like that. These animals aren’t pets they were put here to consume. If we kept all the beef in this country for pets we wouldn’t have nothing to consume because they would eat it all.
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There is another way some farmers are making millions off of horses. This information came in from Animals Angels today its called blood farms. What is being done is that these people have sometimes several hundred mares to use for extracting blood that is sold to pharmaceutical companies here and other countries to be used vet meds along with using blood from pregnant mare to create a drug that brings pigs into heat for breeding on the pig farms. This also goes on in Uruguay and and Argentina both of these countries have these farms out on hundreds of acres in the middle of no where and are hard to find. The farms operating in the US have no oversight as far as animal welfare goes no one pays any attention to them just like the ones in the other two countries. They keep the mare’s foal only if it is female as a replacement for its mother because the blood removed causes anemia in the mare and when her health is ruined and she can’t breed anymore she is sent to slaughter along with the male foals. I didn’t see any farms on this article in the US
I checked their website but the article was not on there yet. The cruelty at the farms in both South American countries is what you see when the horses are being unloaded at one of the Mexican slaughter plants. The horses are brought to pens and each horse has a needle put in a vein and drained of a liter of blood. You can see the blood bags hanging from a rack. The ones in South America take so much blood at one time the horses are too weak to walk. Many of them are thin because of this they are on pasture which is not enough food losing that much blood every week what they eat does not make up the blood loss. This is the first time I have ever heard of blood farms these people are making millions on this and again the horses are paying the price. The farmers in the US another group that pays off the DC senators to never pass any anti-horse slaughter bill. These farms have been operating for decades one of them in Uruguay has been doing this for 30 years.
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Gildardo Lopez seems not to care that domesticated horses were not bread to be consumed by humans. Domesticated horses are given drugs and other topical items that are dangerous to humans. What he’s doing is trying to lift the Mexican economy by slaughtering Americans orders for his gain. He should not be the president of the livestock Association or anywhere associated with animals. He’s just another creditor trying to make a buck at the expense of peoples lives.
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How about stop eating all animals you sicko Mexican. Eat veggies and grains you animal murdering Mexican terrorists. Tell the poor to bad eat veggies.
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Belgium imports tons of horsemeat into the US via the Port of Houston. We can’t find out where it’s going. The Belgians are still operating out of Kaufman, Tx.
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Eating horse meat is as close to becoming cannibals as humans can get.
!Horse DNA similar to humans
Posted by David Maxwell Braun of National Geographic on November 6, 2009
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American slaughterhouse hopefuls must be behind this, or cheering it on. Always try to make it seem like it’s for the benefit of humanity. Blech!
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Science My A**
http://www.beefusa.org/newsreleases1.aspx?newsid=5213
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‘Those taking care of the land’ is even more tragicomic. I wish more people would stop eating beef. We’ve given the cattle industry too much power. I’m happy they don’t control me.
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So the National Cattlemen’s Beef Assn. has the scientific answers! RIGHT!
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This article is surprising only in that it seems to presume the Mexican people haven’t been eating horse meat for generations. This is not news but marketing.
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June 29 2013
FBI busts OK horse farm for Mexican drug cartel money laundering
Source: the FBI
https://rtfitchauthor.com/2013/06/29/fbi-busts-ok-horse-farm-for-mexican-drug-cartel-money-laundering/
By outward appearances, the owner of an Oklahoma farm bought American quarter horses to train, breed, and race. But Jose Trevino Morales, the brother of two leaders of the violent and powerful Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas, was not just in the horse business: He was using the farm as a front to launder millions of dollars of the cartel’s illicit profits.
A three-year investigation led by the FBI resulted in convictions recently in federal court against Trevino and three others for conspiracy to commit money laundering. The case was significant because it revealed the reach and influence of Los Zetas in the U.S.—and it also illustrated how effective our investigators have become at targeting the cartel’s leaders.
“Core family members of the cartel and key business partners were impacted by this case,” said Special Agent David Villarreal, who supervised the investigation from our Laredo, Texas Resident Agency. “The FBI is targeting the highest echelons of the cartel’s leadership, and that sends a strong message not only to the cartel but to the people who are laundering their money on the American side of the border.”
The investigation, conducted through the Department of Justice-run Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program, showed that since 2008, Trevino and his associates bought and sold racehorses with Los Zetas drug money using shell companies and front men. Testimony at trial revealed that during a 30-month period, the defendants spent $16 million in New Mexico, Oklahoma, California, and Texas on the horse farm operation.
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Latest article I found on horsemeat
The Horsemeat scandle—is it dangerous?
http://www.thestkittsnevisobserver.com/2015/08/17/the-horse-meat-scandal-is-it-dangerous
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