Easter Roast

[Calm33]

Over the past couple of years I have been cooking Roast lamb for the Easter Sunday which everyone seems to enjoy and was wondering if it is true that New Zealand lamb is all halal?

Its just that my guests would object to this way of killing and I know they have stopped going into certain restaurants i.e. Nando's.
I also feel not inclined to eat Halal meat and find it seems quite hidden now in many shops and restaurants and many people don't realise they are eating it.

The majority of UK lamb is pre-stun halal so just the same as normal slaughter but with a prayer. You'll have to check your preferred supplier to see what their policy is. Kosher will never be pre-stunned. I think NZ lamb is pre-stunned halal by national policy but would have to check (but, why buy NZ when there's locally produced anyway?)

Easter lamb is more likely to be from lambs born this time last year than this year's indoor reared as well- it's called old season lamb and as long as it is under 12 months old that's perfectly acceptable labelling.

Weebitawks Local lamb would be lovely, but it's vastly more expensive than NZ, and not worth the extra, ime.

ghosty that's like saying people who eat meat aren't allowed to care when stories of outrageous cruelty are exposed in abbatoirs etc

there is a middle ground

People can eat meat but also not support animal torture

Welsh lamb is fed indoors for much of the year on pellets. NZ lamb is in the fields eating grass etc. Guess which tastes better. NZ is not as obsessed as Europe with producing the leanest lamb, again guess which tastes better.

Here is where to buy your meat..

www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink/uk-supermarkets-restaurants-sell-halal-1320398

@justasking111 where are you getting your ideas from?!

Lol at free range meat being better than halal. How’d you think they kill them? Tickling to death?

If you’re going to eat meat they have to kill animals. Either by stunning, slitting their throats, shooting, suffocating or any other way. If you don’t like one way you’re a vegan surely? Stunning an animal doesn’t necessarily work, so there are some that are still aware when their throat is slit. Free range or not. And you’ll never know.

I eat meat. I’ve been to a slaughterhouse and observed what happens. I don’t eat cheap meat so animals have a semblance of a decent existence prior to their death, and I don’t eat dairy because that is a fucking awful industry. But you can’t get uppity about dying one way or another.

Although I won't argue that the EUROP carcasse classification favours leaner meat to a certain extent and that it's a struggle to get 'heavy' lambs away at certain times of year

Support British Farmers and buy British lamb! Less air mile, high standards or welfare and tastes bloody lovely

Teddy - your stance is that RSPCA are dead wrong on this?

What do you think is their motivation?

Thepacksurvives, buying British is a nice thought but may depend on how much is in your wallet?? I live in sheep land and find NZ lamb tastes better because it is not fed on pellets but a mixture of different grasses, heathers, herbs.

The NZ meat board link above clearly states that all meat is prestunned in NZ.
So although the slaughter itself may be halal (specific prayers during exsanguination) the animal is prestunned just as it would be otherwise.
Where is the welfare concern there if you don't have a welfare concern over the death of animal generally?

Menu can you link to the latest figures? The ones I have found from 2012 say 84% of lamb is stunned

That was 2012, there was such a hoo ha about it in NZ and Europe in 2014 they had to make some changes. Until then none of us had any idea what was going on behind our backs. Reading another link it has since caused confusion for muslims and jews alike as to whether their meat has been prepared in the correct way for them.

I mean, kosher meat is killed in the same way and I don’t see people kicking up a stink about that. Smacks of covert racism to me. In fact there is no mention of it on the RSPCA website.

Justasking111 where you live may supplement with pellets but the majority in the UK are grassfed.

I'm "up north", we've got nearly 2000 ewes who are grassfed and supplemented cake just before lambing time. Of all out lambs born theres maybe 500 which are supplemented with cake alongside grass and that the case for most farmers

UK lamb is available all year round but easter is the only time shop's push and promote British lamb hard. Obviously our opinions differ but I think British tastes much nicer

@teddyisahe kosher isn't killed the same. Meat can NEVER be labelled Kosher if it's been stunned but it's an interpretational issue with halal, many Muslims agree pre-stun is acceptable hence why such a high percentage is, there's the small percentage that's no-stun to cater for those Muslims who won't accept the more moderate version.

You're right though the majority of tabloid newspapers omit to make the distinction and that's why anti no-stun is often misrepresented as anti-halal.

@thepacksurvives well explained. My ewes (far less than you!) live out and get fed in the worst months to top up their hay and whatever grass they are picking, but most of the lambs won't see any hard feed except for if they nick a bit when we're bringing in the flock as we use food bribes in the absence of a sheepdog. We keep a breed that goes as hoggett as well so they will have a bit of the winter feed with everyone else, but the majority is grass, whatever they find in the rough edges and hedges, hay from our own old pastures with all sorts of plants in it, and some fodder beet.

ghosty it was on the rspca link upthread

i'm not an expert on the subject but would hope the rspca weren't lying etc or acting on a covert racist agenda

i mean you never know, seems to be the implication

Can you get kosher meat in NZ then?

assume they export a lot to countries where it needs to be halal so do that as a matter of course

if it's all halal and all stunned then anyone can have it imo so good business sense

well not jewish people but muslim + christian + anyone whose not religious + other religions prob too

its not a religious issue for chritians to eat things that have been blessed by other religions is it? i've never heard anything like that. if it was then a quick pray over dinner would maybe negate preiovus blessings?

The 35% non-stunned includes all species, not just lamb ( a lot of chicken in those figures, very little beef). Without seeing the source of the RSPCA figures, I can't be certain, but they seem to be referring to the percentage of meat sold as halal, not the percentage that is slaughtered halal. A lot of meat is just not stamped up halal and sold as conventional, but this is a pre- stunned. There is a growing demand for non-stunned and this is sold through specialist suppliers.
There's only one Halal certification board in the UK that I am aware of that does not accept pre-stun. If you are buying your meat in a supermarket or local non-halal butcher, it's been stunned.

weeds this statement from rspca link is inaccurate?

"In the UK, 65 percent of Halal meat comes from animals which have been stunned before slaughter and certified Halal, highlighting that stunning and slaughter for religious purposes can work together."

It seems quite clear haave i misread or are you looking at a differeent page or something?

www.rspca.org.uk/whatwedo/latest/details/-/articleName/2019_02_06_take_action_to_end_non_stun

other rspca link

yes is all animals

"The latest figures from 2017-18 reveal that over 120 million animals were slaughtered without being stunned first - more than three animals slaughtered every second on average. "

That is WAY more than needed to meet demand of muslim community in UK who are specifically after non stunned halal meat

oh here

"The most up-to-date FSA figures show that between October 2017 to September 2018, over 120 million animals were slaughtered without pre-stunning, including:

118 million meat poultry (11 percent of the total number of poultry slaughtered)
3 million sheep and goats (25 percent of the total number of sheep and goats slaughtered)
24 thousand cattle (1 percent of the total number of cattle slaughtered)
All animals slaughtered under the Shechita (for Kosher) are non-stunned, however, between two thirds and three quarters of meat labelled Halal is from animals that have been pre-stunned."