Horse meat: production, consumption and nutritionalvalue

Abstract

Meat is one of the major sources of nutrients in human food, for its contributionof high-biological value protein. Recently, there has been an interestin meats from alternative sources, other than bovine, swine and poultry.This article analyzes the main features of the production and consumptionof horse-meat, and presents its composition and nutritional value, in orderto increase awareness of producers and consumers on this potential sourceof red meat.The equine species supplies 0.25% of the world meat production. The mainproducers of horse-meat are China, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Argentina,while Mongolia, Switzerland, Italy, Kazakhstan and Russia are thelargest consumers. Horse-meat contains significant amounts of mono andpolyunsaturated fatty acids. Moreover, it is a valuable source of minerals(mainly iron, phosphorus, zinc, magnesium and copper) and essential (lysine,leucine and arginine) and no essential amino acids (glutamic acid,aspartic acid and alanine). These nutritional characteristics make horse-meat an interesting protein source for human consumption. However,due to cultural and social reasons, and because of the mistrust generatedby the illegal practices in the slaughter and marketing activities, its consumptionhas been questioned in many countries. Therefore, it is necessaryto implement strategies allowing the standardization of the productivechain of this type of meat, in order to obtain a food product with thequality standards required by the market and consumers.