To think the new halal and kosher labelling bill is a great idea?

True. The secondary school near me serves all halal meat in its meals. It has a Muslim population of about 35%. No doubt the school thinks it's fine to serve halal meat to non Muslims and to not inform them.

Non stunned slaughter should be banned, both halal and kosher. This is fair. All communities need to comply with the law.

Well it's not "finding it's way in", someone in charge of those organizations has made the decision to do so.

It's important that halal and kosher meat is labelled. If it's labelled as such, I'll know not to buy it.

It's worrying that halal meat in particular is finding its way into supermarkets, hospitals, prisons, schools etc, and people are consuming it without knowing.

Kosher and halal can't really be compared on price point due to the difference in demand. I'm not sure that the difference in price is justified or if it's just that shops can charge much higher because they have a monopoly. AFAIK kosher meat is confined to Jewish owned shops and not available in Asda/Morrisons the way that halal is (I know there are prepackaged kosher meals in Tesco/Sainsbury's but I'm talking about fresh butcher style meat). There is a lot less demand for kosher than there is halal, so there will be a premium on that too. However, a poster confirmed that the hind of a kosher slaughtered animal is not considered kosher for Jewish people, so it's sold to other suppliers and obviously will not be labelled as such.
Regardless, slaughterhouses sell to the supplier, they are not usually selling directly to the supermarkets so whether or not it's labelled does not affect them.

There are many labels that you might not see because you aren't looking for them. I eat halal so yes I see it because I look for it. I never noticed kosher hechshers (sp) because I wasn't aware of them, but now I know the main ones I recognize them. The majority of meat in supermarket butchers will not be halal, but chicken breasts usually are.

Just because you can't see a halal sign (can you read Arabic?) doesn't mean it isn't there Generally when you can’t see something, it’s because it’s not there. The packaging of supermarket meat does not tend to have Arabic writing on it anywhere. Have you looked recently?

There are also codes that indicate something is halal/kosher without the official logo being there.

What codes are these? Do you mean the code for the slaughterhouse that you can do an internet search on to eventually find if it complies with standard EU regulations or not.? It’s hardly ‘clear’ labelling.

This is my point. PP is claiming it is more expensive to run a halal (PP said halal, not me) slaughterhouse. I said that doesn’t make good business sense if you can’t charge that additional cost to your customers by clearly labelling the product. So either halal slaughterhouses selling unlabelled but more expensive to produce meat that they can’t charge for or it is actually cheaper to produce this meat. What are your thoughts?

Kosher appears to be clearly labelled and they charge a premium so are not relevant to this.

No I keep referring to non stun slaughter if you read my posts. I have mentioned halal where relevant. Funnily enough kosher food seems to be labelled more effectively so is not being given to people without their consent. To be crystal clear for you, I have an issue with ALL non stun slaughter, be it halal or kosher.

Who else rears animals commercially for food if not farmers? I really can’t see the distinction you are attempting to make.

Why wouldn't it make sense? Just because you can't see a halal sign (can you read Arabic?) doesn't mean it isn't there. There are also codes that indicate something is halal/kosher without the official logo being there. Also meat is imported and often does not require an official label, so why should a company cost themselves extra? Slaughter houses are private businesses so it must make financial sense to them.

I'm not referring to farmers (although I'm sure there are ones that aren't great), I'm talking about the whole concept of rearing an animal for the purpose of human consumption.

You keep referring to halal slaughter but haven't once mentioned kosher, which is 100% unstunned, so there was making thinking you only have a problem with Muslims. Apologies if I'm wrong!

That makes no sense at all.

Why are all these slaughterhouses supplying a product that costs them more to produce but not labelling it and therefore not being able to charge a premium?

That makes no business sense at all.

I've literally never seen anyone who is against halal slaughter say they approve of kosher slaughter. It really sounds like you are somehow trying to make Jewish people out to be the bad guys here? You're taking such an incredible weird and seemingly purposely provocative stance on this.

So the animal welfare experts of the EU and UK are talking nonsense and the huge amount of trouble and cost taken to make detailed regulations and laws on stunning is a huge waste of time? Interesting.

Agreed. I also buy my meat from a local butcher sourcing from very local farms and have actually seen some of the animals and know some of the farmers personally.

I agree that there should be highest welfare standards achievable around slaughter. Stunning has been deemed as necessary to reduce suffering to the extent that a law requiring it is in place. I have no idea why some apps are suggesting it makes no difference.

No one has even mentioned farmers?

Eh? You said this:

How do you rear, transport and kill an animal in a way that doesn't cause suffering?

Who do you think rears the animals?

Clue: it’s farmers.

but you sound a tad islamophobic.

Can you explain how calling for clear labelling of all non stun slaughter is ‘Islamophobic’? I’m really not following your thinking here…. you’re not just throwing around spurious accusations by any chance?

Rearing and killing animals without suffering is actually really easy. The transport and industrialised slaughter methods is much harder to make free from suffering.

I personally buy my beef from a farm that does on prem slaughter , which I definitely feel is the least cruel method but it's not viable at the scale at which we now consume meat, and is also much more expensive.

You're conflating halal with non-stun. They are separate.

A halal AND non -stun slaughter house is the most expensive type of slaughtering because they have a slower through put and reduced numbers of animals going through them. It's why when you get non stun halal meat from an islamic butcher it's super expensive.

Stunning animals actually makes the process easier and quicker as there's reduced risk of struggling. If false to say lack of stunning is due to cost.

No one has even mentioned farmers? Poultry farming though as an industry is very inhumane, I think there is very little respect given to the animals and welfare guidelines are low. We are however mostly talking about the slaughter process here, which always involves suffering as the animal dies for the purpose of human consumption of meat. And halal is very likely to come from the same farmers as non halal. No one is trying to demonise any farmers, but you sound a tad islamophobic.

How do you rear, transport and kill an animal in a way that doesn't cause suffering?

You behave like a normal human being (which most farmers are) and treat your animals with respect. This constant lying about and demonising farmers for the behaviour of a minority is shocking.

But it would be ok to repeal the laws around stunning animals for slaughter?

Surely if stunning for slaughter has been deemed necessary to reduce suffering, it should apply to all? If you deem it to make no difference, then we can allow ALL slaughter to be non stun - surely?

The argument frequently mentions halal because it is halal meat that is being widely distributed to the public without clear labelling for *reasons.

I have been clear in my posts that I am referring to ALL non stun slaughter.

If animal welfare laws mandate stunning as a more humane method then killing an animal without stunning has been deemed poor treatment. Presumably by animal welfare experts.

But if your position is that any slaughter is cruel and stunning makes little difference, why don’t we repeal those laws and allow ALL slaughterhouses to do non stun slaughter?

What’s the point of these laws at all if a declaration of religion makes you exempt?

Irrelevant to my post, I didn’t call
for no labelling.

I’ve just looked it up and you can get a halal certificate for £500 or there are monthly fees.

I’m sure they would gain noticeable cost savings by quicker throughput and less use of stunning, if they use it at all.

But religious slaughter DOESN'T mean poor treatment of animals. Our industrial slaughter processes do.

And no, I don't think we should repeal the animal cruelty laws because they cover things like access to medical treatment, food and water. I think they should be much, much tighter actually.

What annoys me is this argument about halal meat (which actually isn't about halal meat, it's about non stun slaughter) is being hailed as improving animal cruelty when it won't, it'll just change labeling.