Is Amazon Actually Selling Products With Illegal Donkey Meat In Them?

From humble beginnings as an online bookstore in the 1990s, Amazon has transformed itself into one of the most influential companies on the market. Whether it's delivering books or furniture through Amazon Prime or providing entertainment through its own streaming network, Amazon is a juggernaut in the entertainment and online shopping industry. It's only natural then for Amazon to step out of its comfort zone of online delivery and entertainment and move into the world of grocery and food delivery, such as introducing its own grocery service called Amazon Fresh.

But while Amazon can brag about two-day shipping and the ease of its online grocery system, it seems that many have some rather disturbing accusations about just what kind of foodstuffs the company is actually selling. In 2012, Amazon was forced to remove products containing dolphin meat from its Japanese-based sites following extreme backlash from environmentalist groups. In 2019, the company was suspected of selling expired foods it had acquired from third parties, leading many to call into question the quality of the foods and drinks they were ordering and how long such a practice had been going on. While Amazon no doubt would want to assure customers that all of its products are of high quality, there are those who take such claims with a grain of salt.

One of the newest scandals regarding food items being sold on Amazon has to do with meat, or more specifically, the type of meat that customers may unknowingly be eating.

When you think of a donkey, you might think of Shrek's ever-optimistic companion rather than the braying beast being served up medium-rare. Although donkey meat is regularly consumed in places like northern Italy, Americans don't have an appetite for it as much as they do for beef, lamb, or chicken. It's also illegal to sell donkey or horse meat for human consumption in the U.S. It seems, however, that Amazon is under fire for supposedly selling products that contain traces of donkey or equine meat.

Wired reports that The Center for Contemporary Equine Studies is claiming that Amazon sells products that contain a substance known as "ejiao," or gelatin that's derived from donkey meat. While the gelatin is popular in China for its supposed beneficial properties, animal rights groups argue that Amazon shouldn't be selling such a product in the United States. A study by the animal rights group The Donkey Sanctuary revealed that donkey populations across the world come under extreme threat from the ejiao trade, with 4.8 million animals being kept in squalid and foul conditions and in states of suffering in 2019 alone. To add to these shocking claims, looking up "ejiao" on Amazon's website brings up an incredible amount of foods, snacks, and other products.

Amazon, for its part, has yet to make any official statements regarding the sale of these products and time will tell if these donkey-based products will be removed from the company's website.