The big issue is traceability and control. How is unvetted meat making its way into the market? What else does it tell us about the state of the meat market? There are meant to be controls that protect consumers.

A more minor related consideration is what these horses are. Could it include sports horses, who are given a cocktail of drugs unfit for human consumption?

In addition, plenty of consumers specifically avoid horse -- and the UK scandal 15 years ago also included pork, which many cultures and religions specially shun.

If I buy ground beef and there’s horse in it, what the actual fuck? Hell, if I buy ground pork and there’s beef in it, what the actual fuck? Also horse meat is not something tjat just whoopsies its way into something, that’s a super deliberate case of fraud.

One of the horse employees fell into the machine

Moose sausage is delicious

A mouse can sneak into an industrial grinder. Not likely, but possible. A horse, less so. And the customers are not paying for horse meat, not is the chance of there being horse meat being disclosed. Not even a teeny-tiny little bit of morality or health or anything matters when it comes to the practice of eating a meat that was never supposed to be in there in the first place.

Here’s an extreme example, to get the point across: You never asked to get pegged but your partner suddenly shoves a huge plastic dick up your ass without your consent. You say “hey, what the fuck?!” and they hit you with “it’s fine, plenty of people like it and you’re weird for being mad at me.”

Why are we so trained to immediately go to bat for companies that half the comments in here are like “horse meat’s not so bad, actually”?

Unfortunately the government has blocked any release of brand names or company names. Which is disgraceful.

The issue is the lying.

If you're going to eat meat it's no worse than others, the issue is that you should be able to trust that the food you bought contains what it says on the labelling.

Apart from the lying and profiteering, there's the issue of animal welfare and people's health. Horses are slaughtered in knackeries, not in abattoirs (which supposedly only slaughter animals for human consumption). Knackeries must comply with their state or territory animal welfare legislation but every state differs, so if there is horse meat in your mince you do not know under what conditions in was slaughtered. If you want to know a little more: https://www.farmtransparency.org/kb/food/knackeries

Healthier if it's legal and regulated, but these are just random horses. Some have medical issues, so have built up medicine in them that's not necessary healthy for humans.