Hunger Games

Princess Anne: Let's Eat Horses!

We know they are a horsey family, what with Zara in the Olympic show jumping team and all, but this is taking things a bit far.

Princess Anne today suggested that more people should consider eating horse meat.

Speaking at the World Horse Welfare Organisation annual meeting she made the comments when discussing the horse meat scandal which spread across Europe this year, when hundreds of beef products were found to be made with up to 100% horse meat.The Queen's daughter said, "Our attitudes to the horse meat trade may have to change" adding that if those in the horse meat trade do indeed "value their horses and look after them well … should we be considering a real market for horse meat and would that reduce the number of welfare cases?""I think this need a debate," the Princess Royal said, "Arguably, our response to the horse meat scandal - the scandal was that it was food which was improperly marked, not that it had horse meat in it, and that if you had put the correct label on it and put it back on the shelves that would have been the correct answer for everybody, because we need to be more honest about what's happening."

She said that "the most expensive piece of meat in a local butcher [in France] is a fillet of horse meat."

"We've got to face that and understand whether that value has a part to play in how we reduce welfare cases…if it has real financial value then you look a little bit further ahead in the way you look after your animals."

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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