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

@UniquePinkSwan , how ill informed you are.

@JHound, we have a law in this country that animals must be stunned before slaughter. Animals slaughtered for Halal and Kosher meat are currently exempted from this law and as a result experience greater suffering. You don’t care how much suffering those animals experience? Dear God!

We need meat. All vitamins are bioavailable in meat unlike plants. You get everything your body needs in meat, unlike plants.

Absolutely spot on!

So as I understand it, the situation is that:
When people are buying meat, only about 5% of meat-consumers actually want their meat to be Halal/Kosher.
However, if a herd/flock of animals/birds is ready for the slaughterhouse the owner often doesn't at that point know who their immediate customer (the "middle man" processor who prepares and packages the meat for sale) is going to be.
If they use a non-religious slaughter method their market of potential buyers will be 5% smaller than if they use a religious method. If you use the "wrong" method for some buyers you might end up not making a sale or having the whole batch downgraded for pet food if you can't match to a buyer so it makes sense to use the religious slaughter method unless you already have a deal made with a processor who isn't looking for religiously-slaughtered meat.

But this is based on the assumption that everyone who doesn't want halal/kosher meat doesn't give a monkeys about slaughter method. If all meat has to be labelled with its slaughter method then the balance of decision making would shift because the unknown factor is how many meat consumers would actively avoid buying religiously slaughtered meat. If that turns out to be more than 5% then you get the same market-contraction either way so it will be more important to have an advance arrangement with a buyer.

The overall effect in the supermarket will be all meat going up in price by about 2-3% because of the loss in market efficiency.

Kosher meat has always been labelled as such. Only a kosher restaurant/butcher would stock kosher meat as it’s so expensive - this is due to the stringent laws of kashrut and having a qualified person on the premises to ensure the laws are observed..
Certain supermarkets may stock it in areas where Jews reside, but it will be in the kosher section so no-one would inadvertently buy it.
Halal is different as many restaurants use halal to cater for Muslims. It’s usually indicated on the menu.

I agree with labelling and agree they should be treated the same but I assume all the anti groups focused on halal are because it's much more widespread and there are huge pushes for it in a way that there aren't with kosher. Two years ago all DC's school started using all halal meat, all local takeaways use halal meat, etc.

I welcome this. I eat mostly vegetarian and moving towards a plant based diet due to the horror of this industry. I actively avoid halal and also do not believe we should be saying Muslim prayers in slaughterhouses in the Uk.

Stunned doesn’t necessarily mean an animal can’t feel the slaughter. The slit throat means that the death is almost instant with the halal/kosher method of slaughter so whilst it sounds more painful, the loss of consciousness within seconds means it’s over quickly then the draining of blood takes place for hygiene reasons. Stunned processes often take longer and as the stun lasts momentarily it can be more traumatic for the animals. Stunning by can be like paralysis, seeing, hearing and knowing you’re being killed with no way of stopping it. Also halal and kosher is not just about the way an animal is slaughtered and a prayer. An animal cannot be sick, old, diseased etc and also must be looked after before slaughter.

I also don't understand this comment as it seems to be the opposite of what you've said in the OP about not caring how the animal is killed.

But there are lots of practices within the meat industry which are unspeakable cruel. Wouldn't you want to avoid those too?

I don't eat meat so this won't affect me directly.

I don't think labelling meat as halal or kosher is particularly useful, except for people with religious restrictions on their diets - so Jews, Muslims and Sikhs (because they are not supposed to eat ritually slaughtered meat).

I would welcome labelling as to whether the product was stunned/non-stunned, but I don't think that alone would be sufficient information for anyone with concerns about animal welfare. Perhaps all meat should be sold with a factual statement (no spin!) about the conditions in which the animal was kept while alive and the method by which it was killed? Then people could make truly informed choices about what they were eating.

This has no chance of becoming law. It’s a 10 minute rule bill. Essentially a way to make a point:

www.parallelparliament.co.uk/glossary/ten-minute-rule-bill#:~:text=A%20Ten%20Minute%20Rule%20Bill%20is%20a,awareness%20and%20show%20support%20for%20an%20issue

Doesn’t have to be an either/or. We should care for welfare during life as well as a decent death.

The more information people have about the food they eat is great. They can make the choices best suited to them.

This is a much needed update to our current labelling laws.

In a society where the majority of people eat meat both are important.
Personally, I am vegetarian but if animals are going to be killed then the most humane method is better.
I find it disgusting that human believes around religion (fantasy) are put before animal welfare (fact).

I wrote to Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury’s (Lidl and Aldi as well but they didn’t reply) and all 3 replied saying that the slaughter law in this country is that animals are stunned but prayers are said before slaughter for Halal. If you go to a specialty Halal butcher I don’t suppose this is the case

We should care about both.

I find most Jews get their meat from a Kosher deli anyway, I’d imagine Muslims do the same with halal? It should obviously be labelled in a supermarket, otherwise I’m not sure how Jews and Muslims would be able to differentiate.

I’m veggie so meat is meat to me, it’s all pretty shitty.

These animals have had natural lives and it is a part of nature. Industrial farming and killing does not seem comparable

How is how humans kill and eat their meat any different from how any carnivores eat their meat? Have you watched a heron swallowing fish live? A lion eating a wildebeest? All of those are horrific, none of them are stunned prior to killing. Humans are just animals.

That’s great that there is a slaughterhouse so close. Id buy my meat there too.

It’s unusual these days now there are only a couple of hundred abbatoirs in the whole of the uk. When I first started working there were plenty of small local abbatoirs about and plenty of butchers who killed their own animals. I saw plenty of questionable hygiene and animal welfare practices back then.