not tot want to eat halal meat?

[Charis1]

I am finding it harder and harder to avoid. I do my best to ensure any meat I eat has lived and died humanely, and I think a lot of halal meat dies cruelly. I don't want to eat it. But all meat provided at work is halal. Much of the places to eat out cheaply around work and home is halal, and I've even heard a lot of the local super market meat is also halal, even if it isn't marked.

Why can't we have an option of guaranteed non halal meat clearly marked and available?

Tbh most Muslims I know are not bothered about halal food at schools, hospitals etc. I grew up in the 80's. We just ate fish and chips everyday at school . Most Muslims are happy to just eat the fish/veg option. Most of us are not lobbying all these big organisations/corporations and insisting on halal meat. Maybe there is another reason why halal meat is everywhere.

I understand what you're saying pie but labelling halal meat has nothing to do with Muslims and cannot prove our religious tolerance because we are not in charge of halal meat being in shops nor the labelling of them! It literally has nothing to do with us

Actually I want to amend my post above because I don't actually believe halal meat is 'everywhere'. That's just daily mail scaremongering. It is available is areas with a high Muslim population but it is no more or less available than non halal meat which actually really is EVERYWHERE.

I would like to see all meat properly labelled. I choose not to eat factory farmed chicken so I'm careful what I buy in supermarkets. If I were to eat chicken provided in a restaurant I know it would almost certainly be factory farmed so I avoid it.
I think the OP is just wanting to know how the meat she eats is killed. I cannot see any reason why she shouldn't have that information.
I think full and proper labelling for all meat would be best then everyone could make an informed choice.
I would like to ask those people who suggest that we meat eaters turn vegetarian if they would be happy to eat vegetables that had been subjected to some process of which they disapprove.

Pyjamas is right. It is actually quite hard to get a halal meal outside the house unless you are after a curry. My dh doesn't care about halal but I know those who do struggle. As for going for the fish option at school, my teenage ds once chose a fish pie at school dinners only to find half way through it contained bacon. I mean since when has that been an essential ingredient of a fish pie? He stopped having school dinners after that because he was really annoyed at the lack of labelling.

Of course lem. It's really really hard to get a halal meal on a regular basis. I work near a tesco express, sainsburys and M&S and none of those do halal meals of lunches. I'm really not bothered. V used to cheese sandwiches!

Out of interest, does the killing of fish for food have to comply with 'halal' rules ?

No

Enjoying imagining how a fish might be slaughtered. . Slippery buggers!

The default position is that everything is halal unless specifically mentioned otherwise.

Halal also means permissible so is applicable to everything, not just food or meat specifically. The instructions for how animals should be slaughtered in order for their meat to be halal is called dhabiha.

Animals apart from fish, then.

Yes

Tbh most Muslims I know are not bothered about halal food at schools, hospitals etc

It was a big deal at DS's primary school, Pyjamas, where ~70% of the school population were from Muslim families, and where enough of these families asked for halal that two separate meat menus were always offered. The school once did a survey to see if all school meals should be halal, as it would be easier than serving the two parallel meat menus, but (rightly, IMO) the outcome was such that those two options had to continue to be served. All the food at the school fairs, etc, was always halal, though.

(FWIW, on my survey form I recommended they just switch to 100% vegetarian menu, as it wouldn't kill the kids not to eat meat at lunchtimes. I am not a vegetarian, but in terms of food waste it would have been much more efficient as everyone could eat everything. This was not a popular option and not taken up!)

Pyjamas I understand what your saying, however, I think I need to expand, if everyone of all faiths took an equal interest and concern in acknowledging and calling for the need for food labels I think it would show tolerance. Obviously it's not the responsibility of any one religion to do this, it's the food industry. They sell the product therefore it's their responsibility to be transparent to the consumer.

The reason I said religious tolerance was that surely if people of all faiths came together to recognise their needs and the needs of others and press for changes, even food labelling, it leaves little room for the bigots to complain. Some nasty bigot will say that Muslims come over here, into our country, bringing their halal meat with them and don't care if it's labelled or not but it's the British that suffer eating it and in our own country too bla bla. Disclaimer - these are absolutely not my views whatsoever, however there are some minorities who spout this nonsense and that is racist and phobic in my book certainly and together we all need to stop this.

So in my opinion if we all come together and show religious tolerance towards each other, there is no room for the mindless bigots to spout out rubbish, there won't be anything for them to complain about iyswim and if we are all on the same page, we cannot be divided therefore we all show religious tolerance.

If you don't want to eat halal meat, don't eat it. But it is hypocritical to claim that you don't want to eat it because the slaughter is somehow more cruel; it isn't.

This is absolutely ridiculous. For a start Muslims benefit from halal food being properly labeled because it improves their choice. The fact is that most of the time you hear stories about Muslims supposedly making demands that the general population conform to their way of lives it doesn't come from Muslims at all. It comes from pearl clutching politically correct whingers who prioritise their posturing over decent community relations.

I've never heard if or met Muslims who demand that schools or hospitals don't offer a choice of halal or non-halal. I've never heard a Muslim demand that people who don't want to eat halal go vegetarian. I have heard white councillors and NHS execs make and defend the decision not to offer a choice though.

And then of course people blame Muslims for it and it gives a load of white whingers the opportunity to be outraged at the racism and smugly pat themselves on their back for being so enlightened and not joining in with the finger pointed they've provoked.

It's not just the slaughter methods, there are plenty of other religious and ideological reasons why people don't want to eat halal.

Which Muslims tend to understand because they make the same choices. And unlike a lot of the posturing liberals on here, a lot of them are sensible enough to realise that their beliefs don't automatically trump those of everybody else.

Yes pie I see what you are saying and I agree. Muslims would never be opposed to clear labelling and benefit as much as anyone else. I'm not really sure when there is this non labelling happening though? How many times have people really really eaten halal and not known about it?

Great post Aermingers

His many people have eaten horse without knowing it?

I hate abbatoirs. I hate the concept.
I eat chickens that I kill myself, fish or game. If there is none of those I go veggie.
I don't have a problem with eating meat, but I do have a problem with how it's treated when alive and how it's killed.

chocolateyay. That's what I really object to!

YAB totally and utterly U. Go veggie/vegan and top up with B12 and iron tablets - all meat is inherently inhumanely prepared (I speak as a meat-eater btw). A ludicrous amount of people suddenly cared about halal meat and the labelling thereof when there were scaaaaary Muslims involved.

I've never heard if or met Muslims who demand that schools or hospitals don't offer a choice of halal or non-halal.

Think this is a bit of a straw man, tbh. I don't think this has been posited on this thread - or if it has, nobody has paid it any mind.

But plenty of people on this thread are demanding that people either give up meat of go vegetarian instead of labelling being put on. And not a single one has identified themselves as a Muslim.

Just being sensible, if you were a Muslim and you were grabbing something on the way home from work, wouldn't you prefer just to have a label on it saying that it was suitable so you could chuck it in the basket rather than having to discuss with staff if it was halal? Wouldn't it piss you off if there was stuff in the supermarket which was suitable for you and the staff didn't know, but it wasn't made clear so you had to make an extra trip to a specialist butcher?

Proper labelling is a win win situation. I really can't see why anyone would object.

Oh, I absolutely agree - that's what I've been arguing for, too. (But plenty of people on this thread have been saying it doesn't matter whether meat is halal or not so we should all just relax.)

Yanbu, halal meat is cruel, but then so I'd factory farming. Try to have meat free days or at least buy organic free range meat from a reputable source.