{"id":121318,"date":"2025-05-27T11:12:06","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T09:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.veganok.com\/en\/?p=121318"},"modified":"2025-05-27T11:12:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T09:12:06","slug":"horse-meat-italians-say-no-to-horse-meat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.veganok.com\/en\/horse-meat-italians-say-no-to-horse-meat\/","title":{"rendered":"Horse Meat: Italians Say No to Horse Meat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Across Italy, from north to south, horse meat is still considered a part of the country&#8217;s culinary tradition\u2014a gourmet dish in Piacenza, a local specialty in Catania and Lombardy. Yet many Italians now believe it&#8217;s time <strong>to put an end to the slaughter of horses<\/strong>\u2014<strong>a practice that leads to the death of around 21,000 animals each year in Italy<\/strong>. Behind this brutality lies a supply chain often shrouded in secrecy, marred by illegal trade and clandestine slaughterhouses.<\/p>\n<p>But now, things are beginning to change. <a href=\"https:\/\/animalequality.it\/campagna\/stop-macellazione-cavalli\/#petition\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Animal Equality<\/strong><\/a> <strong>has launched a new campaign<\/strong> demanding a nationwide ban on horse slaughter. With <strong>nearly 200,000 signatures already collected<\/strong> and a public demonstration held in Milan\u2019s Piazza Duomo, activists are giving a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves.<\/p>\n<h2>A cruelty we can no longer ignore<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-126215 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.veganok.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/cavallo-animale-da-compagnia.jpg\" alt=\"horses\" width=\"1080\" height=\"1080\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Over the years, Animal Equality has documented the cruelty of horse slaughter in countries such as Spain, Mexico, and Italy. Their investigations have revealed <strong>horses being struck while still conscious<\/strong>, <strong>transported for hours without food or water<\/strong>, and treated like inanimate cargo rather than sentient beings capable of suffering. For these animals, the torment begins long before they reach the slaughterhouse.<\/p>\n<p>This treatment is at odds with the sentiments of the vast majority of Italians. According to a recent Ipsos <a href=\"https:\/\/animalequality.it\/app\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Report-ipsos-cavalli-2025.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">survey<\/a> carried out in collaboration with Animal Equality, <strong>73% of respondents said they empathize with horses and consider them no different from cats and dogs<\/strong>. And yet, their fate remains in limbo.<\/p>\n<p>While consumption of horse meat is declining\u2014only 17% of meat-eating Italians report eating it at least once a month\u2014Italy still holds a troubling distinction: <strong>it remains the leading country in Europe for both the consumption and import of horse meat<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2>Legislative steps forward<\/h2>\n<p>In light of the more than 100,000 signatures collected through the petition (now nearing 200,000), political action is beginning to follow. MP Carmen Di Lauro, a member of the Social Affairs Committee, has submitted a parliamentary question to the Minister of Health, <strong>calling for horses to be officially recognized as pets<\/strong>. The initiative has also been endorsed by MPs Andrea Quartini and Gaetano Amato.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_126213\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-126213\" style=\"width: 1335px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-126213 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.veganok.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/stop-macellazione-cavalli.jpg\" alt=\"stop to horses slaughter\" width=\"1335\" height=\"655\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-126213\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: Animal Equality Italia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Meanwhile, animal rights advocates have welcomed the introduction of <strong>two new legislative proposals that would prohibit the slaughter of all equines in Italy<\/strong>\u2014bringing national legislation in line with Greece, where since 2020, horses and donkeys have been legally granted the same status as cats and dogs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new campaign calls for a national ban on horse slaughter, as 73% of Italians view horses as equal to dogs and cats<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-updates"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - 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