Educate me, does halal mean lower welfare standards or is it just Dail Mail style scaremongering?

AIUI Halal is killed by a knife to the throat while conscious, killed in the name of Allah and blood drained from veins. Welfare comparisons depend on your reference point.

All animals killed for human consumption in the UK must be bled to death in order to remove quickly any potential toxins that occur in the blood at the point of death.
The only real difference is that non-halal is usually stunned first, however a massive wound to the neck is reputedly enough to cause a near-instantaneous loss of consciousness anyway.
Whether you find that offensive is up to you and your conscience basically.

If I do find it offensive am I allowed to register my dislike or would I be accused of being a religerist?

In welfare terms its only a difference in the instant of death not in the conditions of life up to that point.

If I die peacefully in my sleep or fall into a threshing machine it won’t change how happy or sad a life I’ve had to that point.

Sorry, I guess I meant a crueller death rather than ‘welfare standards’.

If so, why is it so widespread, e.g. in nationwide takeaway/restaurant chains such as KFC, Nandos’ and many schools*?

* Although I seem to remember outrage by the Muslim community in Lancashire that the halal wasn’t ‘proper’ halal.

I got accused of being racist by a Muslim colleague when we were having a conversation about Halal. All I said was that I thought it was cruel for the animal to die in this way. Obviously that make me racist 🙄

why is it so widespread

if it doesn’t deter non-muslim customers (and the fast-food market isn’t a renownedly fussy one) why turn away potential custom from muslims. Its only a small proportion of the market but when you’re selling food you’re operating at a loss for most of the day and only go into profit with the last few meals, so a small percent of you overall turnover is a big chunk of your profit

There are other faith /cultural groups that have their own foodie peccadilloes – about pork or beef for instance but a broad menu means they can just choose something else. But Halal being different preparation rather than different meat means you either accommodate or exclude a group of people entirely with your menu.

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the captive bolt is there to protect the slaughterman, not the animal. in modern slaughterhouses you have the situation of a conscious but paralysed animal waiting for the knife. this situation cannot occur with halal. i have some limited experience of both methods and when i had a small holding our lambs were slaughtered halal style but without the prayers (since we are non religious)
if you really care though just stop eating meat since the whole process from birth to plate is pretty horrible these days

Fair point.

All animals killed for human consumption in the UK must be bled to death in order to remove quickly any potential toxins that occur in the blood at the point of death.
The only real difference is that non-halal is usually stunned first, however a massive wound to the neck is reputedly enough to cause a near-instantaneous loss of consciousness anyway.

]

I didn’t realise the importance/safety of quick bleeding. Is this another one of those ‘public health’ religious laws? -perhaps halal butchering made sense food-hygeine-wise back in the day.

All animals killed for human consumption in the UK must be bled to death in order to remove quickly any potential toxins that occur in the blood at the point of death.

Does this apply to game too?

The real question here is,
Does Chicken Cottage taste any good?

look up some videos of ‘conventional’ v halal and decide for yourself.

A Muslim friend has done a lot of research into this. It’s worth remembering that it’s considered extremely bad form for the slaughtered animal to suffer, the idea is that the animal loses consciousness quickly and that any pain is kept to an absolute minimum.

The animal itself must only be slaughtered by a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian (a “person of the book” ie of Abrahamic faith) and the ritual utterance of “Bismillah” means “in the name of God” – ie the slaughter of one of Allah’s creatures for food is carried out in accordance with Islamic practice.

It’s extremely close to the Jewish practice of Kosher, except that in Judaism, the animal is completely drained of blood before the meat is cooked.

The Western practice of mechanized slaughter is not as painless or ethical as most of us would like to think, it merely takes place behind closed doors.

The knife used should be Samurai sword sharp otherwise it’s like sawing the neck of the animal. 😕

Does this apply to game too?

stuff like deer you gut (gralloch) them on the hillside as soon as you can – getting the blood and guts out for two reasons – one its where the bacteria live and you don’t have the animal’s immune system keeping them in check anymore- and the other is they hold heat and are keeping the stuff you want to keep fresh warm too so you want to get all that out promptly to help the meat to cool down. Theres a third reason too – a big deer can weigh a 1/4 of a ton, you don’t want to drag more of that down a hillside than you have to.

In that context Halal slaughter is just basic food hygiene enacted through ritual

maccruiskeen – Member

Does this apply to game too?

In that context Halal slaughter is just basic food hygiene enacted through ritual

Same process. Bless the animal first then a swift cut to the throat … 😕

Stopped at a services in Ross on Wye the other week. The ploughmans and egg sandwiches my friends picked up were both Halal…
How does that work then? 🙄

I’m vegetarian and increasingly anti-religious, so I think I’ll say nothing more than that I find the practise, done in the name of religion, utterly abhorrent.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sOS9Y77yOU[/video]

The ploughmans and egg sandwiches my friends picked up were both Halal…
How does that work then?

They don’t contain anything that’s non-halal, therefore they’re halal.

Not difficult really.

Although it is funny to see the morons of the EDL work themselves up and threaten boycotts when they discover that (vegan) Haribo or Kingsmill bread is halal….If it’s got no meat, it couldn’t NOT be halal!

bails – Member
They don’t contain anything that’s non-halal, therefore they’re halal.

Not difficult really.

Well yes, obviously. But why put it at all? Vegetarian would do…
These nuts may contain Halal nuts?

I didn’t watch all of that vid, but from the first minute or so I can tell you know, that what they are doing would not be considered ‘properly’ Halal.

Ideally the animals must be kept/bred free-range and not fed any toxins while they’re alive (i.e. organic). In terms of the slaughter the animals must be anxiety free and if there is any sign of stress in the animal before slaughter then it should not go ahead.

For the actual practice of slaughter, there are number of other ‘rules’ which must be adhered to for the slaughter to be considered properly Halal. I can’t remember it all exactly but it’s stuff like the specific position of the tongue of the animal while cutting, the angle that the head must be tilted up/back at etc. I know that there’s science behind it like for example the way the tongue is affects muscular tension in the throat, and knife has to be so sharp that in one single motion the entire throat must be cut right back to the spine but stopped there.

I know there was a scientific study carried out buy some University (German perhaps) quite some years ago and it found the stunning caused more pain to the animal as it was electrocuted first, whereas with the ‘strict’ Halal method the brain is the first thing to go as it looses blood straight away and the animal feels no pain at all.

Professor Schultz and his colleague Dr Hazim of the Hanover University, Germany, proved through an experiment, using an electroencephalograph (EEG) and electrocardiogram (ECG) that the Islamic method of slaughter is more humane than the captive bolt stunning method, that causes severe pain to the animal. The results surprised many.

In terms of the slaughter the animals must be anxiety free and if there is any sign of stress in the animal before slaughter then it should not go ahead

I’m sure the abbatoir workers can tell how stressed the cattle are while giving them a nice hug, just before they slit their throats with a blade that they diligently sharpen every few kills… To hell with the piecework pay 😕

Professor Schultz and his colleague Dr Hazim of the Hanover University, Germany, proved through an experiment, using an electroencephalograph (EEG) and electrocardiogram (ECG) that the Islamic method of slaughter is more humane than the captive bolt stunning method, that causes severe pain to the animal. The results surprised many.

That one method is slightly less hideous than another method, does not make it good. It doesn’t surprise me, generally only people who take no more interest in these things than beyond their plates.

I understand that recent scientific research shows that the halal method is more stressful to the animal, been some recent papers on it I think, I’m not going to do the time honoured stw approach of googling tenuous links because they won’t be available without subscription.

Found a link, not the actual paper I read years ago, but some highlights from it:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Halal+method+humane.-a0242340184

Regarding the actual term ‘Halal’, quite simply I suppose it would mean in English ‘allowed’ and applies to all things in life not just food and drink. The opposite of Halal is Haraam, which basically means it’s ‘not allowed’.

My sister actually is more or less a vegetarian, and she’s one of more religious members of my family.

There’s nothing saying you can’t be a vegetarian and be a Muslim.

Everyone has totally missed the point here. You were watching the one show?!

Always find it interesting that people are keener to be offended about halal slaughter than kosher slaughter. And likewise that people will happily believe that the meat they eat is completely humane. I think once you take religion out of it, anyone who’s disgusted by halal or kosher slaughter should probably be disgusted by the whole deal.

Me, I like steaks. Mmmmm. Frankly they could beat the cow to death with a rusty pipe, if it enhanced the flavour.

I’ve done quite a bit of reading round and reflecting on this over the last few years and my own conclusion is that ritual slaughter can be unnecessarily cruel – particularly for larger animals e.g. in a study by the British Veterinary Association, 13% of cows that had their throats slit for halal slaughter fell to the ground and then stood up – the veins on the back of their necks mean it can take up to 3 minutes to dye in what can only be horrendous and barbaric conditions. The BVA have described ritual slaughter as intolerable cruelty – an analogy would be letting a relative experience major surgery with no anaesthetic.

Ritually slaughtered meat now accounts for up to 25% of all meat sold and most of it’s not labelled so consumers can’t even make an informed choice – this is nothing to do with religion but consumers should be allowed to choose whether to buy meat produced in a cruel way – even the likes of Waitrose with their squeaky clean ethical image have been busy selling halal meat on the quiet for a long time – ask the butcher behind the counter and he / she will reluctantly admit that all of the fresh lamb apart from “Duchy” branded lamb is in fact ritually slaughtered. It’s just wrong that for years the law has been developed to strengthen the protection given to animals and now 25% of animals are killed outside of the very well placed legislation and consumers can’t even make an active choice.

Then we have the many restaurants that use religiously slaughtered mean to cut costs and fail to put this on menus – I made a point of writing to Gourmet Burger Kitchen to complain (and have never been in there since) when I found out after the even that their chicken burgers were made from ritually slaughtered meat -as the consumer this failure to put something highly relevant about the source of the raw ingredients is something I see as deceptive and says a lot about the way a company is run.

There are two other angles to this worth considering over and above the cruelty aspect though – many people object to eating food blessed for religious slaughter and this applies to atheists and followers of other religions who are not allowed to eat food blessed in the name of another deity.

On the specific point of “halal” – the certification / logo on food is part of a wider system of payments and certifications that are not transparent and in some cases place additional controls on who may / may not be employed or own organisations that produce halal food. Again putting aside the religious aspect I personally refuse to give money to any company that enters into arrangements that ultimately place restrictions on who can be recruited into jobs on the ground of their religion or who can run the organisation / own it – it’s just wrong and seems a lot like the discriminatory behaviour that is quite rightly against the law in other areas.

The only downside to making a personal choice not to eat ritually slaughtered meat is that many popular choices are now off the menu – for me that includes:

– Costa coffee
– Whitbread and Fullers managed pubs
– Meat from Asda, Tesco and Sainsburys
– Pizza Hut / Domino’s Pizza
– Nandos
– Gourmet Burger Kitchen
– Subway
– KFC

The upside is that I now eat less junk food and meat so in theory should be healthier – if only I could ween myself off cakes!

I can’t speak for most of those, but I believe that for two of them at least – Nando’s and KFC – the serving of halal meat is restricted to particular individual restaurants, and they’re a minority of stores in the chain (usually, obviously, in areas with a higher muslim population).