What is Halal Meat?

[FreeSpirit89]

My friends DS goes to a different school to my DS, and she contacted me today about the introduction of a few Halal meat dishes at her DS school. So from what I understand they have a choice of 3 main dishes per day, a standard meat option, a veggie option and a Halal option.

She is upset about this, and asked if our school had done the same. I told her it hadn't and she responded that I should worry as it will probably follow suit.

Now I didn't say it at the time, but What is Halal meat? Have I been living under a rock or something? I have no idea what the big deal is about it.

Is there a place I can go to find out maybe a website of some description? I have had a quick google, but I only seem to come across forum threads like this. I'm sort of looking for factual advice not opinions.

Thank you.

OP doesn't know exactly what halal meat is. Perfectly within reason to come on here and ask what it is. I could name plenty of people around hre who would umm and arr over what it actually was without a prompt! Not everyone in every area knows.

Yes. Air rifle, pellet through the head / eye.

I also skin and clean them myself.

Kosher slaughter I believe is even more harsh and mostly prevents pre-stunning. Correct me if I am wrong someone.

And of course if you're going to be bothered about the slaughter practices around kosher meat then you need to accept you've probably eaten it unknowingly (as you probably have halal). Eg only the front half of a cow goes to kosher beef, but the back half will still be sold as "normal" beef.

Over 80% of meat sold as halal in the UK is stunned - it's practically the same as other slaughter only with a tape of prayers playing in the background. The unstunned meat is approved by a different halal authority and generally ends up in specialist local butchers and restaurants - so halal meat sold by large caterers is most likely to have been stunned. The UK Halal Food Authority allows stunning.

Kosher meat can't be stunned but it's very rare to find this outside businesses catering specifically to the Jewish community.

Thanks Nomama, a friend was considering this, but we couldn't think the best way to kill.

Not as simple as a chicken.

I was waiting for the backlash....

Rabbits have a really useful behaviour, they sit up, perfectly still and listen... if they are sideways on you can aim for that very large eye and get an instant kill with little of the 'icky' bits.

I don't do pigeons, their eyes and heads are too small. DH is a more confident shot and takes them.

But then he doesn't like killing chickens... I used to earn a penny for every 4 (I was about 7 at the time ).

No backlash from me, Nomama.

I have considered vegetarianism (some of my family are), but ... while I'm a meat eater ... then the best things I can consider for the animals are the breeding, the care and the kill.

Very partial to rabbit and a friend is considering adding some to her farm stock, just for the 'family kitchen' not to sell, so we had discussed dispatch. Using the abattoir would be prohibitively expensive per kilo, not to mention unacceptably stressful for the rabbits. We hadn't yet thought of an alternative.

Then I saw your post, so thought I'd ask, Didn't realise an air rifle would do the job.

I have pmd you, ADish...

I don't believe I am taking the focus out of the argument at all. And I think you are deluding yourself about just how nice life is for European cattle and sheep, which also of course includes dairy cows.