The Princess Royal has suggested Britons consider eating horsemeat as a way of ensuring the animals are treated better because of their eventual value as meat.

Anne, a former British eventing champion, told the World Horse Welfare charity, of which she is president, that horse owners might take better care of their animals if they think they can sell them profitably for meat.

"Our attitudes to the horsemeat trade and the value of horsemeat may have to change," the Princess said at the annual conference in central London.

She told delegates she had been told that in France a fillet of horsemeat was the most expensive meat in local butchers.

"If that's true then, that they value their horses, they look after them well, because they're in the horsemeat trade ... should we be considering a real market for horsemeat and would that reduce the number of welfare cases if there was a real value in the horsemeat sector?

"I chuck that out for what it's worth because I think it needs a debate."

Anne said the focus of the horsemeat scandal was that food was improperly labelled rather than the use of the animal in products.

"We've got to face that," she said. "We've got to understand whether that value has also a part to play in how we reduce welfare cases.

"The value of the animal to every individual is slightly different, but if it has real financial value then you look a little bit further ahead in the way you look after your animals."

The horsemeat scandal first began to unfold in January when it emerged that frozen burgers supplied to several supermarkets including Tesco contained horse DNA.

Investigations found other beef products sold by retailers including lasagne and spaghetti bolognese were contaminated while meals in schools and hospitals had to be withdrawn after it was found they contained horse meat.

The Princess Royal's comments follow warnings by charities of a horse welfare crisis, with 7,000 horses currently at risk of abandonment and neglect.

This lets you into the mind of how these people think.
Not caring for an animal out of instinctive compassion and only thinking of it in a monetary value when their loaded already,that's the royal way.

humanspirit wrote: I doubt it's just animals they think of in those terms HS mate.

She ought to be more careful about what she says seeing as she looks like a horse...

I'd happily eat horsemeat any time....provided it was labelled correctly.

yeah they already pressure wash meat off bones and make it into paste to sell for pennies to people who cant afford it. slaughtering a few horses for the 'most expensive cuts of meat' is sure to get people off welfare. everyone will buy up that luxury item.