To boycott establishments that sell halal meat?

[penguinpear]

www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/food/article4333133.ece

I don't eat meat and am aware that a lot of meat in this country has been produced with dubious animal welfare standards, but for halal abattoirs to trade on the fact that their meat is 'stun free' ie the animal dies in panic and agony and they promote this, seems very wrong to me.

The British Veterinary Association objects to it too.

I'm not suggesting that people shouldn't eat meat, that's a choice people make for themselves. I am upset though that a cruel method of slaughter is being used for religious reasons, it makes no difference to the taste of the meat if the animal has been stunned.

you seem quiet ill informed for someone who feels so strongly about it

I've been boycotting celery for over 30 years and it's still bloody everywhere.

Just to be clear, it's not halal meat you need to boycott, it's any meat where you disagree with the slaughter methods.

Usually thus means all the value ranges in supermarkets and an awful lot of the chicken on sale. I'm not Muslim, but I find it infuriating that these methods of slaughter are just referred to as 'halal' as if animals would be stroked to sleep without it.

These methods are widespread and predominantly due to high demand for low cost. Often, to make the meat produced 'halal' all that is needed is the recital of some prayers as the methods have already been in place for years.

My point is, I'd you think it's inhumane, boycott away, but it's not halal food you should be boycotting. It's all food slaughtered in this way.

I do think it's a particularly cruel method of slaughter but - having witnessed what happened over a few pencil drawings - can you imagine the response if Halal was banned?

who'd risk it?

im less offended by non stun slaughter than i am by factory farming. By a long long shot. Boycott who you like, but theres a hellish world of animal abuse going on in farms that produce cheap meat.
The actual slaughter must be blessed relief for many.
If halal is for some reason your priority, then thats up to you

When I lived in a high Jewish population area I avoided kosher as well. Since you can't differentiate between stunned and not stunned I choose to avoid it all together

I'm really not at all convinced that Halal practices when properly carried out are any less humane than other abattoirs. Particularly the smaller ones. My understanding is that stunning in the larger abattoirs isn't always very effective.

But if you feel strongly about it - yes go ahead and boycott. How are you going to decide which shops are Halal meat free? I was going to suggest local butchers where they can tell you where the meat comes from but of course you don't need meat so that's not relevant!

I suppose as others have suggested you could just buy all your food at local shops which don't sell meat at all. If they sell tinned food I don't see how you can be sure the meat in them isn't Halal (maybe it would be on the tin).

You can buy almost everything (with very little choice) from Abel and Cole or health food shops but you might go bankrupt very quickly.

There's halal supplier stickers on halal shops.

What Branleuse said.

halal is usually an easy scapegoat/target for people who wish that they could be a bit more open about their mistrust of other cultures, under the guise of animal welfare.
Check out how pigs are kept and slaughtered in factory farms, and maybe look at the practices you and your friends support first.

Well if you read the article from the Times and BVA, the number of sheep and goats slaughtered without being stunned grew by 70% to 1.5 million between 2003 and 2011, the number of poultry killed in this way also quadrupled to 32 million per year. I would prefer all of these animals were stunned, but if you care more about religious preferences than kindness and humanity then of course iabu and over sensitive.

84 - 90% of UK Halal meat is stunned

100% of Kosher meat isn't

so why is Halal the one people always focus on

but if you don't eat meat anyway I can't see the issue :)

and yes Factory farming is more of an issue for me as well

Halal is not crueler than any other meat. It's a swift, humane form of death. There's torture in all parts of the meat and dairy industry. Being shot in the head with a bolt is hardly kinder than the jugular vein being swiftly cut.
Do you eat eggs? For you to do that the male newborn chickens are sent alive through meat grinder as we don't need them but they are still born unfortunately.
Hatred for halal over the rest of the meat industry which is equally cruel is just racism.

Another "what Branleuse said" here too.

I coo over the baby lambs in the field next our house and love love a leg of lamb.

It's all cruel really isn't it. But I still love bacon, pork and lamb.

Here we go again!

The RSPCA have found that the vast majority of halal meat in the UK is pre-stunned therefore to boycott establishments that sell pre-stunned halal meat would be rather silly.

By all means protest against non-stun halal meat if you wish but do try and check your facts before you start frothing!

I can understand why you would boycott shops that sold Pak Mecca Meats, or why you would
Boycott Welsh produce (the article is about government subsidy). Not all Halal meat is unstunned, so I don't understand your rationale for boycotting Halal. Can you explain?

You have that much disregard for animals that you don't even care whether or not they die humanely?

If an animal is slaughtered in an abattoir then it dies in fear, pain and panic irrespective. 'Humane slaughter' is an oxymoron.

Animals are rarely properly stunned before slaughter,those who are often start to regain consciousness before being killed.

It is European law that animals must be stunned before slaughter. The exception is where there are religious reasons not to stun. Why does religion trump humanity?

There are two types of halal meat, stunned and non-stunned.
You'd be hard-pressed to buy the non-stunned stuff from anywhere other than a specialist Halal butcher in a predominantly Muslim area.
In Tooting, South London, you can see butchers with 'Guaranteed non-stunned' signs up in their windows, to differentiate themselves from the places that sell stunned Halal meat which the fundamentalists devout don't consider 'proper' Halal. So boycott away, but I'd be amazed if you had ever bought any in the first place.

Then we have stunned Halal meat. This is what was at the centre of the storm in a teacup last year, when the press were churning out all the 'OMG your Subway/Burger King/KFC/Tesco meat is actually, secretly Halal'.

Here is why that story happened:

The vast majority of chickens are killed in meat processing plants. Chickens start in a pen and are hung feet-first onto a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt firstly goes over a big water bath which has an electric current run thought it. As the chickens heads hit the water, then are stunned.
The conveyor belt then takes them onto the slaughter room where they have their throats cut and bleed to death pretty instantly. Then they are plucked etc and you get chicken to make into sandwiches or put into plastic trays to sell in the supermarket.

Years ago, someone realised that if you have a loudspeaker playing the relevant holy words at the chickens while they have their throats cut, you are effectively producing Halal meat, which can obviously be sold to an even bigger market.
Of the chicken that is produced that day, some will be labeled Halal and sold on to places and people who specify it, the rest will be labeled as chicken.

Lamb is produced in a not-too-disimilar way, hence halal lamb is also widespread.

The real issue is not whether they are played some words through a stereo on the wall. It is whether chickens should be slaughtered this way at all.
So if you really care about animal welfare, buy organic, buy local and buy from producers who care about the life AND death the animals have had before they become your meal

do you answer questions? or just spout sound bites?

What branleuse said.

And as for avoiding kosher food, at £8 for a packet of mince I reckon damn wasn't on the verge of buying up the shop's stock of kosher goods anyway.

I don't eat meat and I boycott places that serve halal. I think it's cruel.

pakmeccameats.co.uk/

Promotion of the non-stun method in slaughter, the BVA have reported on this.

This is a very good article on why it is not Haram to stun an animal prior to slaughter and why in fact the majority of Halal meat in this country is in fact stunned first.

www.organic-halal-meat.com/article/stunning.php

It is only one opinion and there are many but it is a sensible one.

If you prefer a non-islamic source the RSPCA report in 2004 said that 90% of halal meat was stunned first. It didn't take me long to find that out.