Horse Meat

Horse meat is the flesh of horses eaten as food, forming a significant part of the culinary traditions of many countries, especially in Europe and Asia, where the eight largest consuming nations together process about 4.3 million horses a year. Wild horses were a protein source through hunting for most of human history, with archaic humans hunting them hundreds of thousands of years ago at sites such as Boxgrove, about 500,000 years ago, and Schoningen, about 300,000 years ago. It is notably lean: 100 grams of raw horse meat provides 133 calories, 21 grams of protein and 5 grams of fat, with a slightly sweet taste often compared to beef, and many people cannot distinguish the two by taste. It is commonly eaten across much of Europe and Asia but is taboo or unavailable in English-speaking countries such as the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, an attitude traced partly to Pope Gregory III's eighth-century ban, which no longer binds Catholics; China leads production at about 200,000 tonnes a year, followed by Kazakhstan and Mexico.