Halal meat - should it be labeled as such?

You cannot slaughter an animal that has not been stunned. It's a legal requirement and nearly every vet I know would refuse to supervise the slaughter of animal that was not stunned before slaughter for reasons of ethics - that means the carcass wouldn't be stamped, the vet won't sign off on the slaughter, which means the meat can't be sold.

I don't doubt there are videos on liveleak but were they shot (excuse the pun) in EU slaughterhouses?

Effectively, the only difference in this part of the world between Halal and conventional slaughter is the prayer.

In fact, you could argue that conventional slaughter 'caught up' with Halal when they discontinued pithing, which was always outlawed by the Halal requirements.

RandomName2 wrote: »

Most people here, I think, would hope that we could come to the point where animals can be guaranteed to be raised and handled with due care, and be slaughtered quickly and painlessly as possible.

Halal guarantees a lingering death, but makes no pronouncement about the rest. I find it has dubious merit to slaughter animals in a particular way just to cater to a particular belief system.

I seriously doubt that most slaughterhouses would practice halal as a matter of course, or if they did, it would primarily be accidental. :eek:

Those arguing that the Qur'an says nothing that prohibits animals being stunned are neglecting the fact that the thing (like all holy scripture) is open to interpretation. Can be guaranteed that certain sects will disdain from meat that was stunned before being bled out.

Conventional slaughter and halal both induce death through exsanguination and both use stunning - as I said, apart from the prayer there's not a whole lot to choose between them in the EU.

If anything, the Halal approach promotes greater respect for the animal, and it wouldn't allow, for example, casualty animals (emergency slaughter) to be eaten. The animal has to be healthy at slaughter (usually taken to mean it has to walk in unassisted).

Yeah, and if you ever watched it being done, you'd agree with the ban. I jacked in finishing cattle as it came to the point where every line was halal for some reason. "Down that road without me" was my attitude.

Nodin wrote: »

Never does, regardless of whose slaughterhouse they go in.

There's slaughtering an animal and there's slaughtering an animal. Some dead-eyed gowl with a butchers knife slicing their throat raw isn't my idea of getting an unpleasant but necessary job done in a proper manner. Same goes for the gowl with the prod getting carried away with the electric whip to move the animal along. If they did it to mine, they'd wake up with a crowd standing round them and my foot up their hole.

I had prime cattle, so I had a good relationship with the factories, front of the queue style, that and the fact slaughtering was my old mans trade when he was young, so squeamish I am not. I was reared getting dragged around factories and slaughter lines, but I have 0.002 seconds time for someone who does not realise there is a way of going on and a way of not going on. Sadly, it's a career that attracts the less sensitive type, but that's no reason to act the hoor. Some "rules" laid down in the dark-ages need not be the way it is done nowadays.

kebabs are nice

shedweller wrote: »

I think Tail Docker below might disagree with this. As do i.
Being cut through the throat and let bleed to death is nowhere near respect for the animal.
Have a look at a beheading video and marvel at all the respect. A beheading is where they cut a persons head off from the front of the throat and ending up at the back, where the spinal cord is. This means you are fully conscious as the knife goes through your throat and on towards your jugular vein and arteries etc. I see no respect here and to say respect is shown to an animal by slaughtering it similarly is either because of naievety or an agenda.

Reality check - whether the animal is slaughtered according to the Halal tradition or not, that's how it dies!

In conventional, westernised slaughter the animal is stunned then bled - it's the bleeding out (exsanguination) that kills it.

Halal meat from EU slaughterhouses comes from animals that are stunned. For the umpteenth time, the only practical difference is that a prayer is said as the bleeding is initiated.

Plus, as I said earlier, on farm casualty slaughter can be used for meat, but that meat can never be Halal. Halal requires animals to be uninjured, unlike conventional slaughter. Animals have to be fit to travel if they are going to be used for Halal meat - that's not the case for conventional meat which means you end up with lame / injured animals occasionally arriving at the abattoir.

shedweller wrote: »

So i should be ok with a muslim prayer said over my meat before i buy it?
Reverse the situation for a minute and imagine the ****storm.
And dont deny that there is non stun halal going on. Remember the horsemeat scandal? How can we trust anyone to do anything right.
Argue all you want. The fact still remains.

This is completely different to the horsemeat incident - for start if meat is Halal it must be certified as such - in other words, it's an extra level of audit and certification beyond the regular level of official control - in the same way 'organic' meat is subject to extra certification before that label can be applied.

Horsemeat was about meat going into cheap composite products, not about cuts of meat.

pO1Neil wrote: »

What exactly is Halal meat & why do only Muslims eat it? Is it a bit like the way only Catholics eat potato's?

It's a traditional method of slaughter that dates back to antiquity and founded on fairly sound public health practices - the Q'uran just codified it. For example, the requirement that the animal be injury free and healthy is not a bad starting point - and one we could do with re-introducing back into westernised slaughtering practices. The animal must be fed, watered and rested before slaughter and not slaughtered in sight of other animals (again, good husbandry practices, in common with westernised slaughter).

The prayer is said to bless the food (a bit like the old Christian practice of grace before / after meals) and to expressly differentiate between sacrifice (which would amount to the sin of idolatry) and slaughter for food.

--LOS-- wrote: »

but they're not knocked out first!



I don't know if you're being sarcastic? But how are you equating 'good wholesome', 'died peacefully of old age', 'surrounded by their loved ones' with factory farming/slaughterhouses?

.....but they are.

Yes.