What Countries Eat Horse Meat?

My son has recently gotten a pen pal through school—someone he writes and receives letters to and from regularly, updating each other on their lives and sharing news.

It’s been really great for him and he’s loved it.

The pen pal lives in Belgium, and recently he shared in a letter that he had been to a very traditional wedding at which one of the main dishes was horse meat!

My son was confused by this since he didn’t know anyone ate horse.

He asked me which other countries ate horse, and I wasn’t really sure, so I decided to look into it.

So, what countries eat horse meat?

There are many across the world. On our own continent it is eaten in Mexico and parts of South America like Chile. China produces the most horse meat of any country in the world. It is also eaten in many countries like Spain, Iceland, France, Russia, and Kazakhstan.

So, though there is somewhat of a taboo surrounding it in the USA, it is routinely eaten in many other parts of the world and often considered a delicacy.

There’s really nothing that unusual about eating horse meat when we’re talking globally.

Let’s look at it in more detail.

What country eats the most horse meat?

So, as I said, the country that produces and eats the most horse meat by volume is China.

In 2018, China slaughtered 1.5 million horses, and produced 200,000 tonnes of meat.

Much of this will of course be exported, but there is a great deal of domestic consumption as well.

Interestingly, Belgium actually imports as much as 44 million pounds of horse meat every year, so this gives you an idea how much is consumed or used in manufacturing food products there.

This makes Belgium the largest consumer of horse meat per capita.

China produces a lot more by volume, but Belgium eats a lot more per person.

Where there are countries that do eat horse meat regularly like Belgium or France, a survey of the population in 2012 showed that only 7% of the population did so regularly. 20% did so sometimes.

Horse meat consumption is far, far lower than other kinds of meat, but there is still a lot more of it being consumed than you might think.

What countries still eat horse meat?

Getting a picture of which countries still regularly eat horse meat is much easier than breaking down exactly which country eats the most.

Kazakhstan is the second largest producer after China, and much of it is eaten domestically.

Horse meat is very popular in parts of Kazakhstan that are economically deprived, since it is typically cheaper than beef or pork.

Mexico is another big consumer of horse meat, slaughtering as many as 600,000 horses per year for meat.

Again, economic deprivation can lead to the consumption of horse meat in many areas.

Beyond that, you will find lots of horse meat in Mongolia, Russia, Canada and Brazil.

All of these countries still annually produce large amounts of horse meat, and the population eats a lot of it domestically.

So, why does the US appear to be absent from this list?

Is it illegal to eat horse meat in the United States?

Eating horse meat is not strictly illegal in the US.

You can import horse meat from elsewhere to eat in the US, and that’s perfectly legal.

What you will not find is horse meat that is produced domestically in the US.

So, you can legally eat horse in America.

However, if you were the one who raised the animal and slaughtered it on US soil, that is a legal offence and you can be charged.

Selling, raising and slaughtering horses for meat is illegal, and can come with hefty charges.

So, you can eat it with no problem, but you can’t raise a horse for slaughter.

Why is this the case?

Why is horse meat banned in the US?

There are a few reasons, the simplest legal reason being that several years ago, federal funding for horse meat plant inspections was removed from agricultural spending.

Essentially, this closed down all the remaining plants that were producing horse meat.

Part of the reason for this was a perceived lack of good hygiene in horse meat.

Since horses are used for other purposes than meat, typically, a taboo arose around them that it was a certain state of desperation that would lead one to eat horse.

Beyond that, there have been concerns about the cleanliness of horse slaughterhouses specifically.

All in all, though, it’s really just a question of social taboo.

There’s really nothing wrong or unusual about eating horse and plenty of developed nations do it.

Standards and perceptions are very different across different countries, and this is the simplest reason for the disparity in horse-eating populations.

In the United States, it is simply considered a taboo for a number of reasons, and there are no slaughterhouses providing horse meat as the sale of it is banned.

However, this is really just for certain historical and social reasons—there’s nothing wrong with eating horse!