Why We Don’t Eat Horse Meat—And What Happens to American Horses

Last updated: October 2, 2026

By: Miles HenryFact Checked

Horses are large, domesticated animals, so it’s fair to wonder why Americans raise cattle, hogs, and sheep for meat but leave horses off the menu. In France, Japan, and several other countries, horse meat is still bought and eaten. In the United States, though, you won’t find it in a grocery-store meat case. So why is that?

Here’s how horses came to occupy such a different place in American life, why horse meat never became an ordinary food here, and what the law says today.

Why Don’t Americans Eat Horse Meat?

It mostly comes down to how we think about horses. Cattle and hogs were raised for the table. Horses carried soldiers, settled the West, worked cattle, pulled plows, and now race, rope, and run barrels. You can see that history in the breeds that served in war and in the rodeo arenas my kids compete in today. Many Americans think of horses more like they think of dogs, as animals they know individually and work with. You don’t eat a partner.

The taboo is a lot older than America, though. I was reading one of Bernard Cornwell’s novels about the Viking invasion of England, and in one part the Vikings find it strange that the Saxons won’t eat horse meat. That’s fiction, but the history behind it holds up. Archaeologists studying Anglo-Saxon animal bones found that horse meat fell out of the English diet between the sixth and eighth centuries, likely because the spreading Christian church tied it to pagan worship. Church leaders discouraged it because of those perceived links to pagan beliefs. So when Viking raiders arrived at the end of that century, the Christian Saxons had largely given it up, while horse meat stayed on the menu farther north, where the old pagan ways held on longer. The English carried that aversion to America.

Did Americans Ever Eat Horse Meat?

Yes, when times got hard. During World War II, when beef was rationed, butchers in parts of the country sold horse meat. When beef prices jumped in the early 1970s, some budget-minded shoppers bought it again, according to NBC News. Harvard’s Faculty Club even served horse meat during the war and kept it on the menu for decades afterward. Horse meat has shown up in America when times were hard. It just never stuck.

Is It Illegal to Eat or Sell Horse Meat in the U.S.?

No federal law makes it a crime to eat horse meat. The practical barrier is federal inspection. Horses are among the animals covered by federal meat inspection law, and meat sold commercially for human food has to be inspected before and after slaughter. Since 2005, Congress has repeatedly put language in USDA’s spending bills that bars the agency from paying for the required pre-slaughter inspection of horses. When the industry tried paying for inspection itself, Congress closed that door too, starting with the fiscal year 2008 spending bill, which barred both appropriated funds and user fees, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The result, as the Congressional Research Service notes in its current bill summary, is that there are no USDA-inspected horse slaughter plants in the United States. The last three, two in Texas and one in Illinois, slaughtered nearly 105,000 horses in 2006, mostly for buyers in Europe and Asia, and closed in 2007 after court rulings and a new Illinois ban. The funding restriction lapsed from late 2011 into 2014, and a few plants were proposed, but none went into operation.

Some states have their own laws restricting horse slaughter, the sale of horse meat, or both, and those laws vary, so check the law in your state rather than relying on a national summary. A permanent federal ban, the SAFE Act, would outlaw both slaughter here and shipping horses abroad for slaughter. As of fall 2026, it hasn’t become law.

What Happens to American Horses Sent for Slaughter?

Closing U.S. plants didn’t end the slaughter of American horses for meat. It moved it across the border. For years, kill buyers have bought horses at auctions and trucked them to plants in Mexico and Canada, with the meat mostly sold overseas. The ASPCA puts the 2025 total at roughly 25,000 American horses, far below the 2012 peak of more than 166,000 but up from the year before. Most went to Mexico.

That picture changed in 2026. Because of New World screwworm, USDA says Mexico is prohibiting exports of U.S. horses for slaughter. Rules for other kinds of horse movement into Mexico have been shifting, so check USDA’s current guidance before relying on any one report. Either way, older statistics about horses shipped to Mexico for slaughter don’t describe what’s happening right now, and export rules can change quickly.

Horse people don’t agree on what should happen next. Animal welfare groups push the SAFE Act to shut down exports for good. Some livestock and veterinary groups have argued that inspected slaughter at home would be more humane than long hauls across the border, and that a ban without a plan for unwanted horses leaves them worse off. Most horses never enter that system at all. When their time comes, a vet euthanizes them, and owners choose burial, composting, cremation, or a disposal service, depending on local rules. My guide on what to do when a horse dies covers those options.

Is Horse Meat Safe to Eat?

Horse meat itself isn’t inherently unsafe. People eat it in countries where horses are raised and managed as food animals. The issue with a typical American horse is its medical history. A racehorse, ranch horse, or backyard horse isn’t raised with the expectation that it’ll ever enter the food chain. Over its life it may get dewormers, vaccines, pain relievers, sedatives, and other medications, and it usually doesn’t have the kind of complete lifetime record that would show it was managed as an animal intended for people to eat.

Phenylbutazone, or bute, is the classic example. It’s about as common in a horse barn as aspirin is in a kitchen, and FDA-approved bute products for horses carry the label warning “Do not use in horses intended for human consumption.” It’s worth keeping the risk in proportion. After bute turned up in horse carcasses during Europe’s 2013 horse meat scandal, European food safety agencies judged the actual risk to consumers low but concluded that no safe residue level can be set, so treated horses shouldn’t enter the food chain. The question isn’t whether horse meat can be eaten safely. It’s whether a particular horse was raised under a system designed to protect the people who eat it.

Which Countries Eat Horse Meat?

Horse meat is part of the food culture in a number of countries, though how common it is varies a lot. China is one of the world’s largest markets. In Kazakhstan, horse meat is a familiar part of the national cuisine, and NPR found it carries none of the stigma it does here. Japan serves thinly sliced raw horse meat called basashi, and horse meat is also sold in parts of France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Mexico, and Canada. The line between horse as a working animal and horse as food simply developed differently in those places than it did in England and the United States.

Horse Meat FAQs

Americans don’t eat horse meat largely because of the relationship we’ve built with horses, one with roots that run back through English history. They’re athletes, working partners, and animals we know by name, so putting one on the dinner table feels completely different here than it does where horse meat stayed part of the food system. The harder question is how we handle unwanted horses and end-of-life decisions, and that’s a lot more complicated than whether Americans eat horse meat.

Miles Henry

About Miles Henry

Racehorse Owner & Author | 30+ Years in Thoroughbred Racing

Miles Henry (legal name: William Bradley) is a professional horseman based in Folsom, Louisiana. He holds Louisiana Racing License #67012 and has spent over three decades managing Thoroughbreds at premier tracks including Fair Grounds, Delta Downs, and Evangeline Downs.
Expertise & Hands-On Experience: Beyond the track, Miles has decades of experience in specialized equine care, covering everything from hoof health and nutrition to training protocols for Quarter Horses, Friesians, and Paints. Every guide on Horse Racing Sense is rooted in this “boots-on-the-ground” perspective.
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