To ask if a school turning its canteen halal of kosher is them imposing a faith on people

[Souredstones]

I don't know how I feel about this but a Facebook post has really made me think if a school canteen is halal or kosher then isn't it imposing a faith on its pupils? Or is it? I don't know so I defer to the wise ladies of Mumsnet for a decision

Mehim to answer your question, yes a Muslim would eat a sandwich on which grace has been recited. In fact Muslims don't eat standard supermarket meat precisely because grace hasn't been recited (apart from the farming and stunning issues). They are allowed to eat meat slaughtered by Christians and Jews as long as it has been done in the name of God. That's because they believe animals are, you know, living beings with a soul and feelings.
Apart from that, Muslim and Jewish families actually pay tax and school meals like normal British people so I can't see why they shouldn't ask for halal and kosher meals in areas where they represent the majority, as long as they are respectful of other parents' feelings.
If you are an atheist anyway I don't see what difference it makes that the meat has been "blessed". It's not as if it had marinated in holy water or something.

I'm off to bed but please can I ask anyone who is worried or interested or shocked by this discussion to look at www.hsa.org.uk/

I'm a happy meat eater and I'm proud of British welfare standards. Things go wrong, mistakes are made and there are bad apples but what we have here is very very good by comparison to most other countries. There always room for improvement and that's where the HSA come in.

If people only eat meat when they need to, they will save a lot of unnecessary animal suffering.

Whether you are religious or not, overeating meat or wasting it is cruel.

I can't understand the argument that it doesn't matter how an animal dies.

I mean would you rather be tortured to death over the course of a week or simply cease to be from a calm happy state?

I am not saying any of the methods discussed here either sink to those depths or aspire to those heights...I am saying that the method of dying matters...a tremendous amount.

Can i just point out that a lot of the meat eaten in UK schools probably doesn't even come from the UK . I am not an expert on the slaughterhouse practices of any other of the EU countries , but i certainly wouldnt guarentee that they all abide by out srtingent rules .

IceBeing - I totally agree.

Many moons ago when I still lived in London(NW) very frequently I have used Halal and Kosher butchers, meat was always beautifully fresh and really well cleaned and prepared, lot more expensive then supermarket/regular butcher meat, but well worth it for the quality, I wouldn't have a problem with my children consuming either, simply because they are meat eaters anyway, would not bother me the slightest.
Kosher "salt beef brisket" is to die for, very palatable indeed.

It really does make me laugh that people are going on about the correct slaughter of an animal . You eat lamb , you are eating something's baby , that sheep will have bleated her heart out for days calling for that lamb you are eating , same goes for beef , that cow will call constantly for about 3 days for the calf . You drink milk , chances are the calf was killed at birth because it was born with testicles . You eat free range eggs , free range = about a metre and half around the the unit to share with 3,000 other chickens ( better than being in a broiler unit ) . If you eat meat then you accept this , if you dont better stick to wood pigeon and rabbit , not sure where shooting your meat registers with Halal and kosher ? Perhaps you could learn to hunt with a hawk ?

Not sure where ferreting figures either ?

Animals slaughtered without stunning:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20374866
Mean collapse time of 20s - that's hardly an 'instant kill'. 8% of animals take 60s to collapse, and can display swelling of their carotid artery ends (they are clotting and healing).

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22062756
Prevalence of carotid clotting much higher in non-stunned animals. Risk of sustained consciousness.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20416612
Non-stunned animals have higher amount of blood in their lungs. They remain breathing longer.

I was horrified at the age of 14 when I first saw pigs being slaughtered for meat. This was meat killed in the "ordinary" western way, but I found it absolutely barbaric. Five years later, when living in an Islamic country, I witnessed a goat being killed according to halal rituals. I found it equally barbaric, but it did not strike me that the animal's suffering was any more or any less than what I had witnessed previously.

Personally, I choose not to eat meat at all, and haven't done so since seeing that "traditional" slaughterhouse at the age of 14. My dd's school offers veggie, halal and "ordinary" choices, which I find reasonable. My DH is Sikh, and I love the philosophy behind the langar meal, which has inclusivity at its core!

If it's so inhumane, why aren't the RSPCA bothered about it?

'It would be a different matter If the food had blessed as the kids choice would have been taken away.'

I really dont see the issue with this, especially if you are an athiest and dont believe in the magic words.

FreudiansSlipper

oh I agree I suddenly started reciting the Koran after eating an Indian takeaway

How amazingly ignorant.

I am vegetarian but DD eats meat for now. Disgusted that the entire country is changing butchering to something less humane to accommodate one religious group. Why this but we havent ruled out pork or shellfish from our Supermarkets to accommodate Jews? Different strokes...

Silly Christians for not having similar rules. Perhaps we should lobby for fish only on Fridays. The mind doth boggle.

whoever made the comment about demanding they have quorn ...schools already provide a vegetarian option - if they only offered meat you would probably not be happy

AdventureTed There is a fine balance between promoting good welfare (European law says animals must be stunned...) and religious freedom (...unless you have a religious reason not to). There are many campaigns afoot to have religious slaughter banned in the UK. However, as someone rightly pointed out earlier, the amount of halal meat that isn't derived from stunned animals is the minority, so perhaps its more a point of principle than practicality. I wouldn't trust the RSPCA to lead on anything, let alone this...

Williamina, they aren't. Do you believe everything you read on facebook/the internet?

Yourhecat my understanding is that there is more halal butchering taking place and eats easier for suppliers to buy all halal then two of the same animals butchered in two different ways. Am I wrong?

"Kosher food tends to be quite unpalatable to those unused to it."

@bonsoir - what utter rubbish!!!

If only muslim males can make meat halal, a lot of other people will soon be out of their jobs won't they?

The meat used in the school where I work is not Halal. I wouldn't have a problem if it was.

The original facebook post about Halal meat in schools is a work of fiction put about by such groups as the EDL to rile up the daily mail reading masses. It is a load of hooey.

Anyone who believes that kind of crap and spreads it around facebook as truth is a massive bigot, imo.

hth

Crescentmoon -I thought they had to say that the muslim deity is the greatest at the time of slaughter. They can't say that truthfully if they don't believe it.