Welcome to Cop, I'm Apu. According to statistics, about 4.7 million horses are slaughtered worldwide every year, most of which are served on the table, and the number of horses in Inner Mongolia in China in 2016 has reached 877,000. Since horses are not unusual animals for us, why does our country never seem to eat horse meat?
As a "country on horseback", Kazakhstan regards horses as the most valuable domestic animals, and the life of drinking horse milk and eating horse meat every day has been deeply rooted in their national culture. Someone once said that the most popular horse meat in the world is the wolf, followed by the Kazakhs, and it is indeed worthy of the name.
However, if you look at horse meat with an objective eye, you will find that its protein content is actually higher than beef. Because the horse itself is very good at running, its fat content will be relatively less than that of quiet animals such as cattle and sheep. Simply put, horse meat is basically all lean meat, so eating horse meat does not have to worry about gaining weight.
At the same time, the unsaturated fatty acids in horse meat can promote metabolism and allow human functions to function more efficiently and healthily, which can not only prevent arteriosclerosis but also delay aging. But if this is the case, why doesn't our country "attack" horses?
As mentioned above, horses are very good at running animals, so there should be enough space to raise horses. In China, in addition to zoos and horse farms, the only thing that can see galloping wild horses is the vast grassland. It is precisely because of the characteristics of love of sports that horses consume a lot of food to eat. It is different from pigs, cattle and sheep sleeping after eating, waking up and eating again, so the cost of feeding will be higher. And no more than cattle have four stomachs, the acceptance of food is more extensive, can be used to store or slowly digest food, while horses only have one stomach, the digestive system is far inferior to cattle, so the horse's growth rate is also slower than cattle.
According to relevant data, feeding cattle and sheep 100 catties of hay can grow about 1 catty of meat. But if you want to make the horse grow 1 pound of meat, you have to feed about 200 pounds of hay, from this point of view, the cost is doubled. In addition to the difficulties of breeding, the most important thing is our doubts about horse meat. Li Shizhen once recorded in the "Compendium of Materia Medica" that "those who eat horse meat poisoning, drink the juice of reeds, eat almonds can be solved", pointing out that horse meat may be poisonous. In ancient times, horse meat was even once used as a murderous weapon.
In addition, there is also a well-known proverb in the folk, "donkey meat is fragrant, horse meat stinks, kill and do not eat mule meat", the meaning is very obvious. Almost all people who have eaten horse meat say that horse meat is not easy to chew, and there is also a sour taste, which is because the muscle fibers of horse meat are very thick, so the taste is not very good. And the fishy taste of the horse meat itself is very strong, if it is not done well, it is really difficult to eat, especially can not be fried to eat, can only be stewed in large pieces, which is like to eat stir-fried vegetables in the Central Plains people, it is indeed more troublesome.
However, in Contrast, in Japan, horse meat is also known as "cherry meat" in Japan during the cherry blossom season when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom every year. The Japanese believe that horse meat is sweet and rich in taste, and it is closer to beef than venison, and later it was made into horse meat sashimi, which people who have not eaten horse meat should not understand it.
However, although China is not a country that likes to eat horse meat, horse meat is a specialty of Xinjiang in China, and the smoked horse meat and smoked horse intestines of Ili are also essential foods for the Kazakh people to spend the winter. So, will you eat horse meat?