to be very suprised at the school letter about Halal meat?

[fromparistoberlin]

opended DS bag and read a letter with a voting slip basically saying

alot of parents have asked for Halal meat (fair enough)
The school dinner providers can only do Halal OR non-Halal (erm we are in London, slightly surpised)

so we either vote for ALL Halal, or non Halal

so basically an ethical dilemna!

Vote A, feel like a bigot

Vote B, feel slightly uncomfortable that something I dont really fully understand is being imposed

I am going to write and say this is a really unfair way to handle it and they should fucking change suppliers, we are in London FFS

nice little ethical mind fuck THANKS school!

School give a choice - outrage

School implement - outrage

School go veggi - outrage

School make halal /kosher/ anything being a packed lunch- outrage due to inclusion act or whatever.

Honestly think about it, can school win whatever they do??
It's gonna upset somebody . That's what happens when there are large groups of people together. We are a diverse country with people if all religions and beliefs etc. there is no way to keep everyone happy all the time. Ultimately they are there for the education. The scho doesn't actually have to provide hot dinners, many dont.

No pork but ham (don't ask, I have no idea how that works).

Probably turkey ham.

As an aside, often the bacon you get from your local pizza delivery place is turkey due to the whole pork thing. They just don't mention it (illegally as it happens). I found this out on one of those "fake Britain" type programmes.

Bit annoyed I got misquoted up thread, but it was pages ago now so will leave it at please read carefully instead of making assumptions.

Halal meat is cheaper in my area.i will eat halal meat is just a different way of preparing shall we call it,its just meat at the end of the day.i think that its nicer to be all halal because then all the children can have the same food x

'I'm pretty sure that animal welfare reasons actually mean "I'm under the misguided impression that other meat is killed nicely with no cruelty"

That sums it up. Meat, especially cheap meat is cruel. Lets have some honesty here.

Your right there infamous most the animals meant for cheap meat are treated like shot. All this RSPCA freestone food sticker nonsense is just that, nonsense. The standards deemed acceptable are still incredibly low.

Unless you buy organic from local farms you can't garuntee anything. And schools cant afford that. Cheap meat tases like crap because the animals were treated like crap. And with recent developments , if I had a child who ate school meals I'd be more concerned about what meat and filler they were eating than whether it was halal or not.

But what about kosher, sikh, vegetarians? It's a minefield!

Most muslims I know would just go veggie for 2 reasons: they wouldn't risk eating meat that may have been prepared alongside non halal stuff, or they wouldn't want everyone else to have to accommodate their preferences, so will work around the 'norm'. This was never ever an issue when (muslim) DH or his siblings were at school and no-one ever thought to raise the issue.

Turkey meat ham, whatever next? It really does look like processed pork - all pinky and shiny. Yuk!

I make sure all our meat is british on the basis that our animal welfare laws are superior to elsewhere in the world. What's the bloody point when the rules can be 'bent' when it suits without even telling us? . (If that makes me a 'bigot' then I don't care).
Ds has recently started having school dinners. Now I'm going to have check what they are serving and possibly go back to packed lunches. And he's autistic so no he won't have the veggie option.

They could, megsmouse, and in our school, which is minority Muslim, that's what they do. However I think the OP's school has a majority of Muslim parents, hence it might be more efficient to force the small minority of parents who feel strongly against halal meat to go veggie (or have packed lunches).

I make sure all our meat is british on the basis that our animal welfare laws are superior to elsewhere in the world.

Whether it's British or not makes no difference. You need to check that the stuff you are eating is free range & ethically farmed - not just from the UK.

Whatever choice you make, not all the children will be able to eat it, because some won't be allowed to eat non halal meat and some won't be allowed to eat halal meat. It's a lose lose situation.

Well I do, ours comes from a proper butcher. I can't speak for the school (yet).

School lunch was never a principal part of my diet nor my children's. I see the sense in the lunches being either halal or non halal. I don't quite agree with the let there be veggie option because if the children aren't veggie at home they may fancy the meat option at school and that will raise issues around policing and disagreements when parents find out.

Go halal and those who don't like can opt for packed lunch; go non halal and the same applies. What then will the families with strong views whose children are entitled to free school meals do though? Could there be a voucher system where parents buy stuff for packed lunches?? In my experience though a good packed lunch costs more than a school dinner !

Nothing wrong with going veggie! My dads favourite meal was maccaroni cheese and he was definately a veg 'n two meat kind of guy.

'I make sure all our meat is british on the basis that our animal welfare laws are superior to elsewhere in the world.'

cos that totally works. Horse burger anyone?

Laughing at proper butcher meat being better.

Yes the animal tends to cared for better but that's as far as it goes its still killed in the same way.

The animals get sent away to be killed and the butchers buy the meat and butcher it.

I have an autistic brother but I've never come across the variant of ASD which means you eat anything with meat in and nothing that doesn't have meat in. Breakfast cereals must be tasty with added bacon.

Don't blame you crescent

Also very about this thread.

with you sock

There are divisions within Islam about what is actually halal meat - stunned v. unstunned for example, so even if the school does make all its meat halal it may find that some Muslim students are still unable to eat it. I know that is the position in the school I work in.

Was the horse in British meat? I thought it came in from Romania or similar.

Was some Irish? Its all gone quiet about that so I assume we'll hear at some point.

Isn't most NZ lamb halal? Wasn't that in the papers not that long ago?