To buy Halal meat, or not buy Halal meat?

[FimbleHobbs]

I need opinions and facts please - we have a student staying with us as a long term (paying) house guest.

Hes 19, first time away from home (Saudi Arabia) and speaks very little english.

We discovered when he arrives that he only eats halal food. Our town does not have a halal butcher so at the weekend we did a 40 mile round trip to buy a halal chicken. Other than that we have given him vegetarian food, which he has eaten happily although not with the gusto that he ate the chicken with!

I don't really mind the hassle of serving halal meat once or twice a week (have room in freezer to stock up so wouldn't mean lots of driving to other town).

BUT - I am not sure about the ethical side of halal meat - I have read a little bit (wiki/google) and there is a lot of opposition to the method, saying it is really cruel. I have never seen a chicken slaughtered either way so don't really know. I just wondered if anyone had any opinions or useful information to help me make my mind up?

NB I should maybe add that DH is all for whatever makes our guest happy and sod the principles(mainly because he wants to spend the rent money on a new gadget!!)

OP, if your lodger is requesting halal food due to religious reasons, it's my understanding that there is a koranic saying he can say to bless the food. This has the effect to 'absolve him' of the sin of either knowingly or suspecting eating non-halal meat.

Of course, goes without saying pork and all it's byproducts remain totally forbidden, as does alcohol, even in cooking. There are tables of length of time cooking with alcohol to ensure that it's all burnt off, but it's pretty mindboggling.. So best avoided TBH.

if it's for culinary reasons, it'll be to do with the blood being totally drained. The aim of not pre-stunning halal slaughtered food is to not have the immense rushes of fear stoked adrenalin, which harms the texture and taste of the meat. I dare say the animals do sense their impending end, but it's supposedly minimised.

If you're stuck, vegetarian or fish would be a good stand in. As he is a paying guest, and as it's not overly inconvenient for you to go and stock up, then perhaps that's the best path.

i havent read the post, but it would be wrong of you to serve him meat if its not halal, regardless of what you think of it being slaughtered.
if you dont wana serve hi halal meat don't but dont deceive him at all. maybe you should ask someone else to lookafter him if you can not.
dont lie to him, whoever suggested it is just a twat!

"I am a bit confused about this bit "With the conventional UK approved method, although the animal was unconcious, the pain registered for minutes."

Surely if the animal was unconscious, it doens't matter if the pain is registering in the brain, as the animal is unconscious and so can't feel it."

OK, the problem with this is, where the electric shock is delivered (or captive bolt) it is subject to human error, and the bolt go in slghtly the wrong place, or the stun not in the right place, and the animal feels all the pain, yet can't do a thing about it. On visits to abatoirs, it did become apparent that, where the slaughtermen were well trained etc, there was a conveyor belt, and they tried to do their job as quickly as possible (although I do reckon that it is the chickens that suffer most in this area), and this is when mistakes happen.

Halal and kosher abatoirs are also big, but because their religion dictates how they treat the animals prior to killing, there does seem to be more care taken.

Obviously, I haven't visited all abatoirs in the country, so some may be better or worse than others, but from what I've found out, I would be as happy to buy halal meat (which TBH I don't, as the nearest butcher is miles away!) as any, as long as it's lived a good life up to be killed - which in my opinion should be the thing that consumers should be unhappy with, not the method of killing.

mumblechum i just re-read you don't have a clue about islam or the Qur'aan so try to keep your useless comments to yourself

groundhogs there really isn't anything you can say, food is either halaal or not.

Mama2Leah, there's no need to be rude, as you have been to me and to another poster.

I may not be an expert on Islam, but know enough to find many of its tenets abhorrent.

I am entitled to my opinion, as are you.

The link that seaglass posted below is from an Islamic website, it's going to be as biased in it's belief that Halal isn't cruel as a pro-meat web site is going to be that pretty much any approved method isn't a problem.

Neither are reliable places to gather information from.

The claim that electric shocks or bolts have a "problem" in that they are subject to human error applies equally to halal slaughtering which is something that does require some skill to do well.

Surely the "best" method is a penetrating bolt, different from a stunning bolt, that when done correctly almost instantaneously destroys the animals brain making it impossible for it to feel pain?

i was being rude to you, as you annoyed me by getting a basic fact so wrong, muhammad wrote the quraan?!?!?!?!? even wiki would give better answers.
groundhogs, hope you didn't take it as i was being rude to you, i was just saying you cant recite over food to make it halaal once its ready2eat.

I do agree that an Islamic website is going to be biased, but they mirrored results that were done by an unbiased veterinary group, and I can't for the life of me find any of the paperwork, or any unbiased links

Yes, the captive bolt method is probably the most idiot proof, but there is still a margin of error.

Sorry, dictated to by Allah then

That makes it all so much more plausible.

There IS a passage that the person can say for non-halal slaughtered food to be blessed so that it is acceptable in the eyes of islam. I know this.

True, if food IS halal, it is, and to a muslim it's acceptable to be eaten as it is.

If it's not halal slaughtered and assuming that it's not haram for other reasons, a muslim can eat it provided they ask for blessing of the non halal food.

If a food is sold as halal, but isn't really, the person buying/eating it will not be the one deemed as sinning, the person selling it as halal, knowing it's not, is.

I wouldn't write on this particular subject if I didn't know.. Mama2Leah, there is no need to be tetchy or actually downright rude with others on this subject, no-one is insulting anyone. This is an open and proper discussion. If it's too hot a subject for you to be able to discuss, then just press hide, and go about your business.

can you show me this passage?

The EEG study appears to have been German and dates back to the late 1970's. It did conclude that if the cut was carried out properly than it was painless.

The Government's independent advisory body the Farm Animal Welfare Council investigated this in 2003 and were "persuaded that such a massive injury would result in very significant pain and distress in the period before insensibility supervenes" and concluded that it considered halal slaughter "unacceptable" and recommended that "any animal not stunned before slaughter should receive an immediate post-cut stun".

The Government rejected that recommendation and continued to allow halal slaughtering.

The RSPCA, whose opinion has surely got to be respected, are also against halal slaughtering.

They say: "Scientific research has clearly demonstrated that the slaughter of an animal without stunning can cause unnecessary suffering. Accordingly, the RSPCA is opposed to the slaughter of any food animal without first rendering it insensible to pain and suffering until death supervenes."

in one of my very very glamorous incarnations at work i worked for a farming magazine-spent a lot of time on farms/around the food production business.
I don't think that anyone who wants to eat an animal eventually should have the right to start getting sniffy about how it lives or dies to be honest.
And if your guest only eats halal and you're being paid to feed him then yes,you should totally cater to his diet/religion and culture.

Thanks for all the replies - just wanted to clarify the decision I need to make is do I feed him vegetarian food, or do I also feed him halal meat. Either way I am catering for his diet, religion and culture. There is no way in the world I would feed him non-halal meat.

The college who have organised his stay have said that it is fine to provide vegetarian food only and not to go to the trouble of giving him halal meat.

I didn't know about the blessing of non-halal food. My student's english is not really up to discussing this though so it doesn't really apply to this situation.

havent read the thread, but OP, tesco and sainsbury here sell halal meat (but that might be a regional thing) and also Lidl sell halal chicken.

I have to say I think all this stuff about unconcious animals feeling pain is piffle. Humans do not feel pain when unconscious, otherwise how would we ever do any surgery? When trauma occurs, blood pressure etc will respond, as physical mechanisms, the brain reacts as well I'm sure. However if the subject is unconscious they will be unaware of it all.

For that reason alone I am rather about seaglass's arguments.

groundhogs if you're refering to people just saying bismillah and eat it, its not a strong opinion most people are not willing to do like that... i dont think OP can expect him to just adopt that view, especially as he has specifically asked about the halal meat I doubt he is willing to go down that route.
however whoever suggested the fish on the previous page is quite a good solution, serve him a lot of fish and the odd halal meat here and there, some vegetarian foods aswel. fish has a kind of meaty taste in a way and we are allowed any of the fish, so may be easy on all of you if you just go for more fish than meat. well aslong as he likes fish that is!

Ok i dont want to go into the debate on this really but thought i should provide a few links and clear up a few mistakes on the thread

There is no passage to make non-halal food halal. groundhog If you would like to provide us with this 'passage' and its origin i can pass it on to get it assessed by a scholar and accepted /rejected.

The true meaning of halal meat, involves taking an animal aside where its death wont be witnessed by other animals to avoid upsetting them and should be done in a calm way with the least stress to the animal. This obv doesnt fit well with modern slaughterhouses

This company sells organic/ free range meat that has been slaughtered in a halal manner but with a great deal of effort to make sur ethe animals are treated right (Hugh FW uses their goat) but is extremly ££££. Perhaps you could compromise on using meat like this occassionally but the majority of the time providing veggie food

I dont think that it would be unacceptable to provide 100% vegetarian (plus fish) food though if you decide you would prefer that.

oh sorry one last point is that kosher meat is not permissable to most muslims and is quite controversial so it prob is easier just to avoid that altogether in this situation

Wow! littleducks, that site looks good for non-muslims too. I has always assumed that halal was more cruel but I may have a look into it now.

As somebody who has worked in both types of slaughterhouses, both are barbaric. The problem is that like it or not, almost every slaughterhouse is now a production line - including halal. The animals smell the blood and are terrified regardless. I honestly dont think one way is better than the other. If done well, the non halal method would seem kinder as the path to unconsiousness is faster. Halal does seem barbaric and certainly the animals I saw (over a few weeks) were extremely distressed. A lot of the awfulness is in the transportation of the animals where a lot of poultry die due to suffocation etc, pigs fall and break legs etc. Awful. Then they arrive and are kept in the premise where there are animals being killed - they smell and hear it. Bring back the small, local, backyard slaughterhouses and I may go back to eating meat.

but if they have died in transport due to suffocation, that can never be a halal meat because that's carrion, and nor can the pig who fell and broke his legs, because its a pig?

This thread seems to have become very anti islamic.

Also people who have no knowledge are permitting the eating of non halal food...kosher not allowed either.

Provide evidence please.