Horse d'œuvre's In Miami?

When I first heard this story of horses in Miami being slaughtered for their meat, I was a bit baffled. I'd heard reported that horse meat was going for north of $40 a pound. Why the sudden price jump for a commodity I'd always understood as being a cheap alternative to beef?


Having never sought out horse meat as a comestible I was in the dark regarding the legality of the consumption of horse flesh, but I had assumed it was entirely legal. That's why both Mrs. Gnarly and I simultaneously sat up in bed and proclaimed 'aha!' this morning when we heard it reported on Fox News that sales of horse meat had been illegal since '07. Everyone knows (or rather everyone should know) that once a desirable commodity is made illegal it instantly gains value and creates a criminal enterprise. Furthermore, if the commodity in question is already endangered or in short supply the skyrocketing price will exacerbate the problem inevitably leading towards exhaustion or extinction. John Stossel did a pretty good feature exploring the phenomenon a few months ago called 'How To Save Endangered Tigers: Kill Them?'

Upon doing a little net research of my own, it turns out that the Fox News report was wrong, and sale, trade, and consumption of horse meat is technically legal in Florida (laws differ state by state with horse meat indeed being illegal in many). I say technically legal because any horse flesh consumed by humans must be USDA inspected. The last three abattoirs in the country which slaughtered horses were closed in '07, ergo no USDA inspection, so it can be said that trade in horse meat for human consumption is de facto illegal in this country.

So why despite the unintended consequences of good intentions are we seeing this black market in horse meat only now? Apparently our national obsession with importing people with exotic tastes and bizarre cultural prerogatives who refuse to assimilate, reinforcing their predilections not to do so, and then concentrating them in glorious cultural salad bowls like Miami creates certain markets which would otherwise never have materialized in our erstwhile homogeneous culture.

There are in this case but two solutions to the plight of horse owners in South Florida and perhaps soon the nation. Either free up markets, or clamp down on our borders and insist the 'wretched refuse' assimilates. Preferably both.