A meat-packing scandal, where traces of horse meat have been found in beef products, erupts in Europe. CNN's Lisa Sylvester reports.
RELATED STORY: The brutal business of horse meat
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What really needs to be considered in this issue is the serious risk to human health that is contained in commercially slaughtered horse meat. The levels of adrenaline and cortisol produced by equines are far, far greater than any legal levels found in any other meat harvested for human consumption. Horses are specifically bred for adrenaline production, not for human consumption.
The fatally flawed head-shot kill method (severe head trauma) used in all commercial horse slaughter ensures that all of the adrenaline and cortisol that can possibly be produced by the animal is delivered throughout the flesh post shot. This is evidenced to any layman by the pulsing of the animal. In commercial beef production they call this “dark cutting” and the meat is not (supposed to be) legally approved for human consumption. Adrenaline and cortisol consumption by humans causes Colorectal and other forms of cancer.
It is not just the existence of prohibited medications and other man-made substances in the meat that is illegal-it is the abundance of naturally occurring hormones and steroids that make horse meat more carcinogenic than any other commercially slaughtered meat.