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.

The UK does more than many other countries to promote animal welfare, and at the same time it gives the right to religious freedom. At the moment, these two intentions sometimes collide, and it needs to be resolved.The religious will certainly put in their twopenn`orth.

However we are also a society, thanks in the main to the religious lobby, that currently allows human beings at the end of life, or with terminal illness, or with cruel disabilities, to have no more say in the manner or time of their own death than has a pig or cow. Many people suffer terribly until death, almost certainly more painfully, with more self awareness, and for much, much longer, than surely it must take for even a panicked and unstunned animal to be slaughtered.

We are all, humans and animals, going to die. I think by and large any animal in this country has a higher chance of a swift, clean death than most human beings. I can imagine a hundred deaths worse than queing up at the slaughterhouse.

Religión is the ´reasoning´ behind so much stupidity and unecessary suffering in this world.

Quintlessshadows most people in the uk are also eating halal meat without choice / realising

YANBU OP. You can boycott whatever you like and anything that increases footfall in independent greengrocers is a good thing.

I still boycott Danish pork. The conditions that pigs are kept in was one of the main reasons I was vegetarian for 6 years. I now eat meat and I have to say that the highest welfare meat that I have eaten has been killed without being stunned. I have no problems with Halal or Kosher. I don't mind prayers or blessings over my food either.

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

By this logic, you could say if you don't have children, you shouldn't be concerned about child abuse?

It is possible to be concerned about the slaughter of these animals even if you do not eat meat.

I boycott shops selling Halal and products made form Halal, I absolutely despise the cruelty involved. I can't believe a civilised, animal caring country like Britain allows it to happen. You're not on your own Penguin.

I think there are plenty of us disgusted by this process.

Momof2 do you know how cruel all slaughter houses are? Do you buy meat from supermarkets?

Dione If you want to be sure you are not buying Danish pork you should try the kosher shops, you should be all right there . . .

Andrew

it needs to be labelled, I'm not keen on eating halal meat and hope I am not eating it without realising.

Mom2, my BiL is a sheep farmer. He drives his own sheep to slaughter and stays with them on the run. They are stunned, then slaughtered. They are Halal. There is no cruelty, he wouldn't tolerate it. My BiL loves his sheep.

I am really not buying into these pathetic arguments:

• animals mostly have quite a nice life really so it doesn't really matter what happens to them just before death or how they die - seriously? You think as long as a living creature has a nice life, the method of death doesn't really matter? So the same would apply to someone who dies from a violent assault - as long as its quick. Or you could just send your pet horses to slaughter after they've worked all their lives, true they might spend a few weeks being transported from pillar to post, distressed, bewildered, roughly handled (the electric cattle prod?) but that doesn't really matter? Are you mad/inhumane?

• We should follow what Muslims say about animal welfare and sharp knives meaning a quick, cruelty free death - no, we have way more advanced animal welfare laws in the EU than in Muslim countries, its difficult to think of a Muslim country that doesn't have an appalling record for the treatment of animals. Tip - don't go to Egypt on holiday if you're squeamish about animal cruelty or Turkey on a market day.

• Slaughterhouses won't accept damaged animals/we won't eat damaged animals - it doesn't matter whether they get thrown away for dog meat or used for the human food chain - work towards less long journeys to slaughter. Its not rocket science.

• halal slaughter is great and we shouldn't worry our pretty little Western European heads about it because 88% is pre-stunned. By that analogy, it wouldn't matter if 12% of animals were cruelly treated, or 12% of children abused - is that seriously presented as a logical argument?

• Danes are evil because they use sow crates. Well actually in the last 10 years, Danes have been at the forefront of research into swine welfare - they want to ban castration of piglets for welfare reasons but have run up against opposition from other EU countries, they have banned non-pre-stun slaughter, they do massive research into improving pig welfare.

• some people have seen a goat killed on a family farm in a Muslim country and it was all hunky dory. Well I've seen one dragged, with a broken leg, in Morocco and struggling for at least 5 minutes while it bled to death, because it knew while it was being dragged forcibly by two men that it was being led to slaughter. There are ways, we as humans, can do things, to make an end of life kinder, less cruel, less traumatic - why on earth are we not using them and making it compulsory by law?

There is plenty of video evidence out there (google it) on what happens when throat slitting doesn't work quickly...not from the UK, its almost impossible to film in a slaughterhouse in the UK, so none of us really know what goes on, away from the inspections. Sure, most of them will be run very well, but there are always the exceptions. But inform yourself...if you have the stomach.

I actually think the market is going to change significantly, led by EU harmonisation of welfare standards (the Danes are trying to promote this but are being blocked by Germany, amongst others), and as consumers inform themselves better and become more aware. Stressed animals before slaughter release stress hormones which taint the flavour of the meat - there are numerous issues we should be looking at and regulating, rather than accepting this idiotic and patronising pat on the head from those who have an interest in maintaining the quite frankly out of date status quo.

Dione Mom2, my BiL is a sheep farmer. He drives his own sheep to slaughter and stays with them on the run. They are stunned, then slaughtered. They are Halal. There is no cruelty, he wouldn't tolerate it. My BiL loves his sheep.

That's what I want to hear. I would pay way more, more than double at least, for sheep slaughtered with such standards. Admittedly, I haven't been able to bring myself to eat lamb for a few years now, and barely eat any meat at all, but that's the sort of thing that would encourage me to start eating it again.

Just for interest, changing the subject slightly, I wonder if anyone knows where the word "boycott" comes from, without googling it.

YANBU

For anyone interested in the ethics of the pretty horrendous way in which farm animals are treated, there's this brilliant film by Joaquin Phoenix called Earthlings vimeo.com/95571304

baby I didn't make it past the first 30 minutes of Earthlings I was already vegan at that point so didn't feel the need to press on further. I'd already seen countless videos and pictures of slaughterhouses and animals en route to them. I still have an image imprinted in my brain of a spent dairy cow too weak to walk to her death, being scooped up in digger like a heap of manure.

Earthlings is a harrowing film but definitely informative for those who think that meat is produced humanely. I think I switched it off shortly after seeing overcrowded pigs eating each other alive.

You guys have no idea about farming. DH is heavily involved in danish farming and my family were dairy farmers in the UK until 20 years ago. The standards in Denmark are the highest I've seen. DH has problems with polish, Irish, English and Spanish farms passing inspections by his customers but the Danes always pass with flying colours.

Sow crates are very useful at preventing a sow from crushing her litter. DH has seen a sow crush half a litter. It isn't a quick death most of the time. It also helps the farmer get in to attend to the sow if needs be. A sow is approx 400-500lbs. Not some cute little 80lb babe.

tarashill From the Irish Land Leaguers in the late nineteenth century who agreed to have no contact with anyone who rented a farm from which a tenant had been dispossessed. The firs victim was a certain Captain Boycott.

I enjoy meat, and would rather the animal had a good life and a bad end as opposed to a bad life but stunned before death. I think if I was to campaign for anything it would be better rights for the animals while alive.

Yes Andrew, Captain Boycott was the much feared and hated land agent whose cruel policies of extortionate rent rises and enforced evictions caused the Irish to peacefully protest by refusing to work on any of his lands, the word to "boycott" was since added to the English language.
Sorry to digress everyone.

Cafelatte, who said that Denmark is clearly a nation of racist, Islamophobic bigots?