To be confused by the Halal meat thing.

[LEMmingaround]

I don't understand why this is a problem. 90% of the animals are stunned before they are killed anyway - so what is the problem?

I do think it should be labelled as there are some religeons (sihks i think) for who this would be a problem but people getting upset over halal meat served in subway/pizza express? REALLY? To me it just sounds like an excuse for prejudice. Those people quite happy to eat the meat from there tht is not halal and probably don't give a flying fuck what happened to the animals during their lives or at their slaughter. If you were tht worried about that sort of thing you would a) be vegetarian/vegan or b) only ever eat meat that you knew where it came from and that was treated properly. Am i being niave that thinking that having to respect and pray for an animal at slaughter (even if the slaughter is not pleasant) that they may well have good welfare standards? Most of the meat you get from TEsco comes from the EU and the standards don't meat the UK standards for living conditions.

But surely people are entitled to have the choice whether to eat halal or non halal. By not labelling this choice is taken away. What can possibly be wrong with giving people the choice by labelling the meat. It doesn't matter whether I am personally happy or not to eat halal or non halal, surely people have the right to make an informed decision about the food they eat.

Homehelp, for the avoidance of doubt, I will reply in full to your questions.

1. the quote I gave was from a lecturer in meat inspection. His name was Mr Povey. No doubt as it was 30 years ago he is dead and therefore cannot be followed up about this. I have it in my text book which I dug out when I saw this thread. Putting something in quotes is perfectly acceptable if you are quoting something which someone has said. did I say it was in a religious text. No I did not. and being as you are so pedantic, I am surprised you didn't pick this up. you use the word visit in quotes because it is what you said.

1. you quote facts and figures about slaughter but have never experienced it. sorry but that makes you no expert in my book. you can have an opinion on it of course. just not one that I value personally.

1. i'll say it again. I saw unstunned slaughter in both an halal and at Zifs which was (and may still be) somewhere that cattle were slaughtered under Jewish law. I saw the cow go into a hold, be turned upside down, have its throat slit. the man doing the cutting was very skilled but still, the animal HAD NOT BEEN STUNNED. Can I make this any clearer. I saw on numerous occasions ritual Jewish slaughter of animals. And no, before you ask, I didn't take photos or have anything signed by the people at Zifs.

1. yes I am acknowledging that any sort of poultry slaughter is awful.

1. The question regarding meat is relevant since you have very clear views about slaughter yet have never seen it. I wondered therefore if talking about the sale and consumption of meat was something you held strong views about yet had not actually experienced for yourself.

If a method of slaughter has been deemed legal then however unpleasant I view it then it is legal. however, I do not want to eat the product of it. this isn't anything to do with race, religion or anything else. it is about traceability.

the rejected bits of meat and offal from ritually slaughtered animals providing they are deemed fit on inspection, make their way into the food chain. ritually slaughtered meat is not only for the consumption of those who support this form of slaughter. it is eaten by everyone else.

Genuinely interested - why? I think it is quite ludicrous that the meat people eat should be determined by whether the animal did or did not hear a jumble of words that it would never understand in the minutes before it died

Interesting point of view, and your going to ask a Muslim that question are you.....about the animal hearing a jumble of words...and why on earth should they care....

In fact your style of theory could go on to apply to all relgions and ceremonies couldn't it...

You should search for an episode of country file that was on several weeks ago. It covered the topic of halal butchery and was really interesting.

In the case of Judaism, if anyone's interested, there is no passage in Torah which describes the method of slaughter. The only reference is 'kill the animal as I taught you'. The method is ascribed to oral tradition

I didn't know that, but can't say I'm surprised. It seems to be the case with many religions (Christianity is the same) that these things grow and develop over time, coming to be regarded as musts rather than just interpretations, if that makes sense?

I was raised a methodist myself, and as you probably know, they reckon to avoid alcohol. I don't recall anything being said in the bible about that either ... !!

As a vegan I chuckle . I can't believe people eat anything without questioning the provenance . I try to check everything- within reason .
Of course we should know if its halal . Why not ? I can't see the issue .

melonade I have no idea where that video will have been shot. it sounds like a PETA style video with sounds superimposed possibly in an illegal/badly run house.

Stunned meat (98% of all lamb and beef ) is taken separately into an area, electrically or bolt stunned calmly. Hung onto the conveyer belt, throats cut and hung to bleed.

The amimal will kick and move that's just the fact of how nerves work. They aren't conscious or even alive generally.

Non stun are taken into a space, they stick their head through an interesting looking hole, their throats are cut then they are hung to bleed and the process is the same as above.

They go from living animal to skinned, gutted, head off, spine removed, and halved in about 3 minutes it's actually quite amazing.

If you want meat that has high welfare standards, audited abbatoirs and definitely stunned from England then buy a lamb or beef from a Quality Standard Mark butcher or marked pack in supermarket. In Wales look for Welsh lamb quality Mark.

Waltons the issue is wastage, especially with Kosher.
You wouldn't buy a pack marked Kosher and they won't eat half the carcass that means every time half a cow would be binned. Financially un viable, environmentally disastrous.

Softlysoftly - I wouldn't buy a pack marked Kosher, but if you price it right, someone will. It wouldn't get binned. Why shouldn't I and other consumers have that choice?

Because it will be a choice based on myth and EDL bollocks, and there is enough cheap meat out there to prevent people having to choose one marked halal or Kosher. And do we really want to make meat even cheaper? Make farmers even less likely to keep their livelihoods and therefore have more imported meat, more food fraud, lower animal welfare standards?

People would see Halal and think "cruel", when in fact it's killed in exactly the same way, it's no more cruel than "normal" meat as it's mainly stunned. But this thread alone shows us you can try and hit that point home with a hammer and the majority will carry on believing the propaganda obliviously.

So what is the choice actually? To mark something halal you may as we'll write "killed in exactly the same way but had a prayer said near it". There is a small minority that have a legitimate reason to care about the prayer.

If we blanket ban stun, do the words said near an unconscious animal honestly matter enough to you to increase wastage and drive down prices in that way? And if so why?

Knitted, no I'm not going to ask anyone that "question", because what you quoted wasn't the question I asked. I simply asked another poster, out of genuine interest in the answer, why as an atheist she cared if a religious ritual had been performed in the presence of the animals providing her meat. Also because you have only quoted part of my post, which made it perfectly clear that my attitude is very much live and let live. I think the introduction of religious considerations into food choices is irrational, but it doesn't bother me in the least if other people want to make their choices that way.

Obviously people with religious beliefs will care, but I was interested in why it bothers a fellow atheist.

This makes no bloody sense . I am losing the plot (again). So you are saying dont mark it as halal even if it is . So how does a Muslim know its halal?
So at some point it's labelled ! So it's all halal but not labelled halal unless its for Muslim use ?
(Badly worded !)

Animals deserve the right to a painless and stressless death. Methods of slaughter the halal way is most certainly not. Having worked alongside vets in a predominantly large animal practice, I have seen first hand how stressed animals can get..they can feel panic and we all know animals can feel pain. While I respect other people's religious beliefs I think halal slaughter has no place in our society. .to say its about religion is bollocks., its cruel and barbaric. No wonder vets and animal welfare inspectors and trying to get laws changed. I remember passing a local convenience store and being stunned (pardon the pun :-) to see a sign "book your animal sacrifice" I was upset and disgusted and went in and said as much. Sign was taken down and re written In punjab. Im vegetarian but my dh and ds aren't and I definitely want the choice of what meat I buy.

Oh and by the way. .they are not killed in the same way! If the animals arent stunned they are going to be aware of the pain and stress of having their throats cut and strung upside down to bleed to death. Oh lets not forget the "prayer" they hear in their last moments (makes all the difference then eh??) All animals in slaughter houses should be stunned..its not good enough to say the "majority" are.

I am also wondering how on earth Muslims know that the meat they're buying is okay for them to eat. You pick up a pack of lamb mince in a supermarket - some of it may come from parts of the animal you shouldn't eat; some may have been stunned; some may have had prayers said over it - how the hell do you know?

I agree that the media fuss around this is deeply unpleasant and Islamophobic, and I have a problem with that on principle. But if Muslims are really fussed about non-stunned halal meat, they can buy it at specialist butchers, same as those of us who care about grass-fed, local, organic, whatever do.

Surely the solution is more rigorous labelling?

I recall Hugh fernallywitteringlyposh trying to raise the issue of cheap factory farmed chicken meat . He struggled to raise concern for the misery and pain those animals endured all their lives . Yet people are up in arms about slaughtering methods ?!
I'd love it if this was a cruelty issue , but doubt it is if people were honest .

It really annoys me sometimes when I come across people who say I don't want to or choose not to eat halal meat. People who go on and on about it and don't have a clue what they are talking about. Let me ask a question to all those who choose not to buy meat in a supermarket because it's halal, do you go to Indian, Pakistani, Afghan, Middle Eastern restaurants? Or ever eat from any take aways as above? Well surprise surprise, you eat halal meet. It makes me laugh when I see idiots go on about halal meet and then they end up in a takeaway on a Friday night ordering a kebab.

softly - myself, SueDNim and countless others would not be making that choice based on 'myth and EDL bollocks' I really think you should give people a bit more credit. Anyway if sales were hit you can bet there'll be a huge campaign by the meat producers to educate people about these 'myths'.

Consumers cannot make choices without the correct information. We are entitled to know full stop.

Softlysoftly - I didn't say that I wouldn't buy halal if marked as halal. I wouldn't buy Kosher because it isn't stunned. I'd happily buy meat if it was killed using the methods considered "humane" by vets etc. I don't care if a prayer is said over it. I don't particularly want it to be marked as "Halal" or "Kosher", just for it to be clear whether they stun before slaughter. I don't want all meat to get cheaper. I am happy to pay a fair price for meat. And there will always be a market for the leftovers of Kosher slaughter if only based on being able to price it below the normal market rate. That doesn't mean that farmers should miss out - the net impact is that people buying the Kosher parts of the animal would pay more to cover the loss on the non-Kosher parts.

Strongagain, I do not eat in 'Indian, Pakistani, Afghan, Middle Eastern restaurants'. I choose not to because I don't like halal slaughter.
I am angry that the supermarkets think that it doesn't matter when there are many of us who do care. Surely if people who want halal meat can have it then people like me should also have a choice. The meat should be labelled.

SoftlySoftly no, it wasn't a PETA video (not an organisation I favour, along with the RSPCA) and I'm quite capable of determining what is genuine and what is not (its the main part of my job). It was taken in Austrailia.

You are doing a very good cover up job. I love your idea of the *interesting looking hole" the beast stick their heads through in order to have their throats slit. I wonder what happens to this perfect Eutopian view in practice, and I think it is you who is pushing your own propaganda.

The fact remains that 10% of halal meat at least in this country is not pre-stunned.

And I, and many others, do not want to eat halal meat. There is no reason not to use the most up to date humanely devised method of slaughter possible. The fact that the head vet in the country is in favour of this is far more influential to me than someone who thinks animals as sticking their heads through interesting looking holes. If you knew anything about fight or flight animals whatsoever, you would know that sticking their heads through a hole in a time of stress and herd disruption is the last thing they would willingly do.

SueDNim, what is your rationale? Is it about cruelty? What about failed stuns? Don't they bother you enough that you refuse to eat meat? If unstunned is beyond the pale, why isn't failed stunning?

The worst slaughter I saw was when I was in Algeria and a goat was dragged by two men through some city streets to have its throat slit. It knew it was about to be killed, it looked like it broke its leg in the struggle to escape and it was so overpowered and helpless. The screaming when the knife was raised was awful. I am sure there would have been better ways of doing this. I never actually knew animals could scream until I heard that noise, and I heard it in that video again.

Some countries do have appalling records on animal welfare and treatment, and I see no reason to downgrade standards to their levels.

strongagain no, I don't eat takeaways or eat at any restaurants of doubtful animal treatment ethics. Not everyone eats the same diet.

Haven't RTFT (which would never have existed pre-9/11 - real objections undoubtedly have little do with the halal nature of the meat and more to do with the proponents of halal meat) but the reason why Sikhs are discouraged from eating halal meat is because back in the day the slitting of the beast's throat to let the blood/impurities/sins flow out before human consumption was considered by the relevant Sikh guru (I forget which one) to be cruel. Sikhism promotes vegetarianism and kindness to man, woman and beast alike.

We're talking about 500-odd years ago, before mass slaughter houses with the means to save an animal unnecessary cruelty (beyond eating them, of course)) existed. I guess if the religion were to be born today there guidelines might be different.