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!!)

Personally OP, I think if your family eat meat (as mine do) you need to accept that no method of slaughter is guaranteed to be pain free. I notice the DM get very fired up about halal slaughter, I always saw it as anti Muslim propaganda (look at what the barbarians are doing!).

Unless a slaughterman finds a way to gently cuddle the animals to death, I think you should stop trying to "rank" the ways they die.

spot on hazle, all this chat about the 'cruelty' of halal is just an anti-Muslim stance, I notice people do not seem to get hot under the collar about Kosher, which is very very similar.

I don't think it's anti-Muslim to feel uncomfortable about Halal slaughter. I don't feel massively comfortable about Kosher either.

I don't and won't eat it. If other people want to that's fine,their right to choose. That's why I like Britain,people can choose how they worship,what they eat etc.

The DM is probably the most racist newspaper going,I wouldn't use it as toilet paper. Nothing positive to say about anyone excerpt very wealthy white people who live in the Home Counties.

Zombie thread people...

Haven't read the whole thread but I do know that all lamb in Waitrose is halal except for Duchy products. Have been lobbying them for ages to stop this or at least make it clear on the packaging which at the time of writing, they do not.

Think Sainsbury's also does Halal lamb

mignonette
Why does it matter if it is Halal provided that is has been pre-stunned before slaughter?

My local supermarket deliver halal meat Mullaco As a Muslim, eating halal meat is what we believe God ordered therefore we trust that God (who we believe) created all people and animals, knows Himself what is the most humane way of slaughter. So science/research regarding slaughter methods will likely not influence us.

OP do you eat things like miss millies? Indian? If so you already eat halal meat so you cannot really object to feeding your house guest halal if you eat it yourself.

Most asda stock it, and sainsburys and tescos if you don't want to do massive trips.

I am totally amazed at the tone of this thread, at the 'facts' that some people have written and the web links that have been provided as 'evidence'.

In answer to the OP, of course you should respect the religious beliefs of your guest and I think you are being very thoughtful to make a long trip to get the meat that he requires. Of course you shouldn't 'pretend' that non-halal meat is halal, that would be awful. But, if you are as against halal slaughter as much as I am then of course your guest should not expect you to prepare such meat, which is not 'standard' in the UK for him. Stick with vegetarian and fish then he can always eat with Muslim friends/at halal restaurants if he wants.

The OP asks about the ethical side of halal slaughter (and I guess kosher could be put in the same argument). There have been several links to religious websites which say that halal is not cruel. I would say that those websites have a huge bias and are not appropriate evidence. As of course an anti-muslim website or something like viva would be just an inappropriate as it would have a huge bias the other way. But I do trust the work of agencies and charities who do not benefit from their conclusions either way, such as the RSPCA and DEFRA.

www.rspca.org.uk/servlet/Satellite?blobcol=urlblob&blobheader=application/pdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=RSPCABlob&blobwhere=1109267162636&ssbinary=true

www.defra.gov.uk/food-farm/animals/welfare/slaughter/

Animal slaughter is never going to pleasant, there is always going to be stress and suffering caused. We breed and grow animals for food and I am not squeemish about that. I buy meat from small, free range producers and wish that we could go back to the system of local abbattoirs to prevent unnecessary suffering. But halal slaughtering (which of course is mostly done on exactly the same conveyer belt system as 'standard' slaugherhouses, and often in the same ones actually) is unneccessarily cruel, as shown by many official reports.

Yes, I am an athiest. Yes, I am friends with people from many religions and couldn't give two hoots about if they believe in one god, ten gods or the flying spaghetti monster, as long as they are good people. But it makes me incredibly angry that the law in the UK is that animals must be stunned before they are stuck, but that for religious reasons this law can be overturned. It makes me even more angry that halal meat is so widely used, both in supermarkets and restaurants, to appease the views of the minority that the majority are not aware of what they are eating. Halal meat should be clearly labelled both in the supermarkets and in restaurants to allow consumers to make the choices that are correct for them.

Phew, off my soapbox, you can see that this is a particularly emotive subject for me! I will now prepare myself for being labelled as some kind of anti Muslim get-them-out-of-here sort. And hope that most of you will see that that is not the case at all.

I wouldn't trust anything the RSPCA says.

THREAD IS THREE YEARS OLD. STOP ADVISING OP WHAT TO DO.

The Asda near to me has a Halal meat counter and Halal section in the ready meals bit. There's a high concentration of Muslims where I live,I haven't noticed the counters in other Asda's I've been to in the city. So they're supplying to demand,which is fair enough.

InNeed - I read your first post and thought "Halal cookies?". I was confusing Miss Millie's with Millie's Cookies!

How does saying that you object how halal meat or kosher is killed is or anti Islam. Everyone has a choice and people are free to say they disagree with halal meat without being accused of being against a religion.

I also agree that meat needs to be clearly labeled as such in supermarkets so people who disagree with this type of slaughter can choose not to consume it. Please look at some of the videos on you tube and you will see how horrendous it is.

Why is this allowed because of religion as it would not normally be allowed as it is considered a cruel way of killing animals

Spot on Gobsmacked. It angers me that halal meat is exempt on "religious grounds" and slipped onto mainstream supermarket shelves without appropriate labelling too.

"Religious grounds" should be no excuse for getting around any law IMO. I may just make up a religion and see how far I get with getting various exemptions from the law. Not far I'd imagine.