Should you be told if the meat you're served is halal?

[YouWillNeverGuessMyUsername]

If you go to a restaurant or cafe or cafeteria at work or whatever. Would you expect to be informed that they were serving halal meat?

There are quite a number of factors that feed into this.

Firstly, operating halal slaughter lines allows abbatoirs, restaurants, supermarkets etc to capture more of the market, but it's often inefficient or not possible to have both halal and non-halal lines, so it's easier and more financially astute to just run the one halal line.

Secondly, it depends on the type of meat. The Muslim population in the UK eats a disproportionate amount of lamb compared to the average, so you're much more likely to find halal lamb than beef.

Thirdly, a significant amount of restaurants and takeaways in the UK are Muslim-owned, especially in cities which is obviously where you'll find most restaurants and takeaways. Muslim-owned venues are obviously going to want to use halal meat even if non-Muslims are not their main / target customer.

Why not label it all? We should surely know if in the future meat is lab grown.

Maybe meat should have a picture of the slaughter on the package like cigarettes do?

No it isn't. My best friend is Muslim and I've been to Denmark, Norway, and Greece (albeit not Iceland) with her and seen her eat Halal?

I believe for these countries the animal must be stunned prior to slaughter, however as many PPs have said, this is how 90% of Halal meat in the UK is prepared anyway.

Absolutely,
I’m veggie but never eat in halal or kosher restaurants as the slaughter method is crueler.
I probably have unknowingly, but I do my best to make sure I don’t.
It’s really hard in real life to bring it up without sounding like a flag shagger.

Denmark, Norway and Sweden banned slaughter of animals that hadnt been pre-stunned.

Obviously this impacts all kosher meat. And halal meat that hasnt come from pre-stunned animals ( noting that 88% of halal meat in the UK comes from pre-stunned animals).

Many groups (and Israel's deputy minister of religious services) complained that the new laws were antisemitic.

Denmark banned it in 2014 and David Cameron rejected calls to implement similar here (apparently we had sovereignty after all).

To be halal the animal has to be able to hear the prayer.

there is also a difference between stunning. Some places use ‘recoverable stun’ instead of ‘total stun’. So they can say ‘yes we stun’ but the stun wears off after a few seconds so the animals can hear the prayer.

This Is absolutely why it should be labelled but don’t you think it’s sad that you can’t have freedom to choose without fear of prejudice?

Why should asking or knowing about the meat/food your eating be seen as anything but personal preference.

Agree. Most on the thread sound like it will have no impact, for those who want the information they can find it useful. Food items have various labelling elements and clarity is usually better. Why not on this too

I don’t understand why you would want to know if it’s halal meat (unless you are Muslim). What does it matter?

Exactly!

Label it and let people choose for themselves. I takes away any inference that there is something untoward going on.

In this case as previously mentioned it’s probably to do with bulk wholesale price or cost saving on having to segregate and safely prepare different meat options or both.

I would be annoyed if Halal was the automatic go to. I could always tell when (the few times) my ex cooked with Halal meat. Islamic and Kosher restrictions are almost aligned and probably arose from food hygiene considerations. People should be allowed to decide for themselves; be it in the Public Sector or restaurants.

Because not everyone agrees with the slaughter methods so should have the right to choose.

it Is very sad that you can’t be open, I think if more people were aware of the brutality of it, they too would avoid it. But, we can’t talk about it because you immediately sound racist - and I couldn’t give a shiny shit about any of that.

editing to clarify, I couldn’t care less about who you worship, don’t worship, what colour anyone is etc!

I agree. I'm not a meat eater, but if I was I would certainly want to know if the animal was slaughtered by a halal or kosher abattoir for the same reasons.

Consumer disclosure is generally good. It matters to many people (Muslims and some non-Muslims) so should be disclosed too.

We can’t get into judging why people want to know or what their beliefs are founded on. That way madness lies.

(Some people here have said that saying a prayer over meat ‘makes no difference’, despite what the consumer themselves may believe. But then it ‘makes no difference’ equally for Muslims and non-Muslims and the justification for having halal meat at all falls away entirely. We could use the same meat and just stick the Halal label or non-Halal label on at the till).

Yes. 💯

I think it would make sense to say 'all our meat is halal' and people can either welcome this or reject this. If it's a mainstream cafe / restaurant it seems odd to serve halal meat. Do they serve ham / bacon / pork sausages at the place in question?. If it's a place clearly run by Muslim people eg a Lebanese or Turkish restaurant then I'd not be surprised to see a sign saying all our meat is halal. it wouldn't bother me to be honest either way.

Well you might not approve of the slaughter method, and if you are religious you might not approve of a different religion's prayers being used (ie the Sikhs).

You also may just not want to eat halal food.
Dr taj hargey has an interesting article on this and why it matters
He is a Muslim/gay/allows men and women to pray together and allowed ex Muslims who wanted to pray in as well.

He was driven out I think by the Muslim council of gb
He is a progressive modern Muslim

Thank you for providing this information
I will admit I was totally ignorant of all this information
so when other posters were saying some halal meat isn’t stunned, I felt I should avoid it as the likelihood would still be higher of not being stunned. But Nut usefulto learn the circumstances for this to have a balanced context. Also for kosher and again likelihood

How could you tell?

Psychic abilities. There is no other way to know.

https://www.rspca.org.uk/getinvolved/campaign/slaughter?fbclid=IwRlRTSAPYJgxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEe9sTx-Gdj63vW_c4M-0S3P8R-W3uBH7_09EZtQASMTdHdIWjkaw1nbj9Juno_aem_Rb5ATrFKCDlWf_sI40cUYg

The RSPCA are trying to have religious slaughter banned as it is cruel and inhumane. Please see the link.

No, they're trying to have non-stun slaughter banned. They acknowledge that 88% of halal slaughter in the UK is pre-stunned.