Horse - Heleen Peeters

The human and the horse share a long history together. At first horses were working animals, serving as a means of transport in agriculture and in war. Nowadays, horses are domestic pets with a moral status: used for recreation, in competitions, and for medical therapy. A less documented part of that history is the horse serving as food. In 1948 the grandfather of Peeters began a business in what many now consider to be taboo: horse meat. At that time, people were poor, recovering from World War II, and horse meat, being a high quality product for an affordable price, was in high demand. Starting at the family business, Peeters explored horse (meat) culture around the world and navigates from breeders, competitions and rescue centers to slaughterhouses, factories and butchers.