This post is in response: to "The Big Questions". (Series 5 Episode 15) screened on BBC 1 on 29th April 2012 presented by Nicky Campbell.
The topic being debated was "Should halal and kosher meat be labelled?"
The argument presented by the pro halal guests was that there is no need to label halal slaughtered meat products because halal slaughter is more humane than the slaughter of a stunned animal.
Watch this video and decide for yourself.
The video is extremely graphic. Don't say I didn't warn you.
The first few seconds shows a standard animal slaughter.
The rest of the video shows how Muslims insist their animals are slaughtered.
Fast Food Chains in the UK sell Halal meat without any indication it is Halal.
- Domino's Pizza:- Most of their Chicken is Halal
- Pizza Hut: - Some Chicken is Halal
- KFC:- Some Chicken is Halal (Excludes Halal only branches)
- Nando's:- A Small amout of Chicken is Halal in all branches (Excludes Halal only branches)
- SubWays:- Less than 5% Halal - Not Stunned (Excludes Halal only branches)
- MacDonalds, Burger King and Wimpey:- Do not sell Halal food in the UK
Supermarkets in the UK are selling Halal meat without any indication it is Halal.
- Tesco:- All New Zealand Lamb is Halal - 35% of UK Lamb is Halal
- Waitrose:-All Lamb is Halal -
- M&S:-All New Zealand Lamb is Halal -
- Sainsbury:-All New Zealand Lamb is Halal -
- Asda (Wal-Mart):- Refused to Comment
- Somerfield:-All New Zealand Lamb is Halal -
- The Co-op:-All New Zealand Lamb is Halal -
The Food industry is selling us Halal Slaughtered meat and are not telling us it is Halal or what a Halal Slaughter is.
Muslims tell us Halal Slaughter is much more humane than the way the west slaughter animals.
You decide.
This is done in the name of Religion.
References:
BBC1 - The Big Question:
Daily Mail - News article:
the Co Op spokesman responded on Facebook:
ReplyDeleteWe specify that all abattoirs and processing plants supplying own-brand meat and poultry products are required to work to the standards laid down by the Humane Slaughter Association in their Codes of Practice.
For further info please contact our customer relations team at http://goodwithfood.co.uk/contact-us
Contact Us | Queries, suggestions and feedback | Co-operative Food
www.co-operative.coop
If you have an enquiry and would like to contact us please fill out the form below, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.
So could you please inform me if your lamb product could be halal?
DeleteThank you
A concerned customer ff your Bank and stores
Thanks for highlighting this Paul. It's an issue which won't go away. More pressure on retailer is needed to be honest with their packaging and sourcing of products in order to keep consumer confidence.
ReplyDeleteReally very excellent video and thanks for sharing with us
ReplyDeleteHalal Meat
Thanks for highlighting this Paul. It's an issue which won't go away. More pressure on retailer is needed to be honest with their packaging and sourcing of products in order to keep consumer confidence.
ReplyDeleteHalal Meat
Dear Halal Meat,
ReplyDeleteHave you actually viewed the video?
Why would you endorse a video that demonstrates the brutality of Halal slaughter when you are a Halal retailer?
Why did you copy and paste vjohn82's post?
Are you an automated spam bot?
Why am I responding to a post made by a pro-Halal spam bot that's too stupid to realise it's promoting the criticism of Halal slaughter?
Why have I got a sudden urge for a bacon sandwich?
Dear Anonymous,
DeleteThe actions in the video seem to meet all the requirements of Shariah and what is prescribed in the Qur'an and the Hadith:
http://www.shariahprogram.ca/eat-halal-foods/islamic-guidelines-slaughtering-animals.shtml
If you think the slaughterhouses are doing it wrong then perhaps you should tell THEM not me.
It is irrelevant whether people who made the video have seen a valid Halal slaughter or not, they are not the ones doing the slaughter, they are just filming what they see in a Halal slaughterhouse.
Why shame on me? I'm not the one doing the filming or the inhumane killing. If you think it's shameful to point out unethical practices, it says more about your moral standards than mine.
This is all untrue, clearly you can see that this video is not made from a slaughter house in which halal meat is produced. I have seen with my own eyes how halal meat is slaughtered and it is not done that way. You have little evidence and you seem a little biased, you may have just got that video from any old part of the web and stuck it on here to make Muslims look bad in the way they slaughter animals.
DeleteFrom my experience of seeing animals being slaughtered is that they have to be fed and hydrated before they are slaughtered, they must be in a calm environment and other animals must stay away as they could be traumatised in seeing one of their kind slaughtered, they are layed down in a certain position in which they are comfortable with, their eyes must be covered so they cannot see what is happening and an extremely sharp knife must be used to make one sharp clean cut, special prayers must be said whilst slaughtering the animal.
To watch the video does not objectively tell u the pain the animal is undergoing.. As human beings we merely base it on our opinions and ideas on what the animal is going through.. The halal way may look more bloody and painful-I agree. However it is not necessarily more painful for the animal..
ReplyDeleteThe same way in which as human beings we do not feel cuts/even stab wounds (this from experience) until seconds if not minutes later is also felt by animals and this is scientifically proven. When the throat of the animal is cut, the pain is not immediately felt. This is due to the starvation of oxygen associated with cutting the throat as well as major neurons and blood vessels being cut to the brain so that the animal cannot record, register or feel any pain. The animal is pretty much brain dead and cannot feel what it is going through. (please note that this is proven by many scientifical institutes such as hannover university Germany to name one. The western method may stop the heart of the animal but does not stop the pain being registered however the animal doesn't have that many convulsions due to barbiturates which prevent it from. However, the animal shows on EEG and ECG recordings to feel pain.. Therefore the halal way may look more painful but scientifically proven it is not.
I've came across videos of Islamic beheadings (of adults and innocent childrens in uncivilized Islamic theocracies), and evidence says that they all do suffer immensely as their throats are sliced before they die.
DeleteGood point if you're an idoit
Delete@Iram aslam: I wish you people would stop quoting those now refuted (even by the guy who ran them!) EEG experiments. Why is it that faithheads always stop their "learning" at the stuff that proves their case in ther own minds, and then ignore everything else after that?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17972-animals-feel-the-pain-of-religious-slaughter.html
ReplyDeleteRead that Iram and just accept that you are wrong. Im going to go eat me some bacon.
To the people mention bacon in their comments/replies, what is the point, us Muslims do not care about NON-Muslims eating NON-Halal meat, God has given all of us free will, and we use it the way we want, which should be accepted by us human beings
Delete"Muslims tell us Halal Slaughter is much more humane than the way the west slaughter animals.
ReplyDeleteYou decide."
first of all, this article is pretty weak as it only appeals to emotions by showing the video, (sure it seems cruel and inhumane, but have you been slaughterhouse, its all inhumane)
secondly, for a website claiming to be skeptical you do the name shame, by not citing at least 1 scientific research pro or con to halal slaughter, your duty as a skeptic blogger is to show both sides of the argument based on (if available) scientific research carried out by proper scientists (proper as in the research paper was peer reviewed)
i stumbled upon your blog while searching myself for the 'truth' about halal slaughter and many of you will probably dislike this post, if you're wondering i don't really care, if this post is any indication of the kind of inquiring abilities this blogger had then stop wasting your time, or start criticizing it.
cheers
A
IMO, levels of cruelty could be managed, and should. Islamic/Kosher methods of animal slaughter is *unnecessarily* inhumane and cruel.
DeleteThe sheer bias of this is ridiculous. Here is a FACT 36 seconds of normal slaughter,,,,,,,no wait a second, it is NOT! What they did was stun an animal, and give 1-2 seconds of footage of it slide through a gate. End. Was there extensive footage showing if the animal was stunned to unconsciousness? Was there footage of cutting and killing? Was there footage of electrocution? Was more than one animal killed?
DeleteThe Kosher/Halaal method supposedly shown was rife with after effects, blood and muscular twitching, something evident in ANY method FACT and if you want we can go to court to pursue this let me know.
In PROPER halaal or kosher a razor sharp blade is to be used and sever the main artery in one cut. They are fed better and graze naturally, not in shit pens and with antibiotics and chemicals and ground up animals. Like caused CJD in the "normal" manner
The throat is cut, blood sprays, muscles twitch, but conciousness is lost due to lack of blood pressure. THIS IS FACT
Normal ways animals are rapidly herded together in a mad crush, they are stunned, if a stun is not succesful a second stun or worse method can be used. Poultry is strung upside down ALIVE and dunked in water baths that is electrified, alive or dead the throats are then slit. Muscle twitching occurs leaking fluids and pouring blood
However as we are sensitised to the slaughter of anyhting, if you say NORMAL and show a cow roll over and cut away then say HALAAL EVIL WAY and show blood and noise and blood and noise and say EVIL.
On the stupid it works.
Yeah there are bad halaal places but there are bad "normals" there is significantly lower amounts of halaal because it takes longer. The entire process from birth to slaughter is wrong and nasty in the normal method.
Added to which, this IS just a matter of food on the table, we are meat eaters so ok make no suffering but they suffer less than a lion attack.
We are too far removed from our food these days.
Not only this, but 99.9% of halaal and kosher objectors are anti muslim/anti jews
I neither eat halaal, nor do i support all muslims or all jews, i see the wrongs of some muslims and the wrongs of some jews,
But because i know not ALL account for the actions of a few, i can examine the actual truth not resort to skewed fraudulent biased propaganda because i am anti semitic etc
Hello Barry,
DeleteThank you for your thoughtful reply.
First I should point out that you are responding to the post made by "Anonymous29 October 2012 10:29". He is on your side. he is defending Halal Slaughter. Perhaps you meant to respond to me?
Secondly, Go and read the original post again. The original post is about food labelling. At no point in the original post did I make any moral or ethical judgement regarding Halal Slaughter. In fact I suggested that the reader should decide for themselves. The video was presented to show what happens in a mediocre Halal Slaughter House to assist them in that decision.
Please explain how: 'asking the reader to decide for themselves' and 'a complete absence of moral or ethical judgement' leads you to say "The sheer bias of this is ridiculous".
The original post is almost entirely about food labelling. It looks to me as though you have viewed the video and made assumptions about the original article WITHOUT ACTUALLY READING IT.
I don't know where you get your information from; certainly here in the UK, cattle are not kept in "Shit Pens" and CJD is caused by ingestion of Prions, not antibiotics and chemicals.
You suggested that I may want to pursue something in court with you. I haven't got the slightest idea what it is you think I would want to go to court about. Perhaps you were just being a little melodramatic.
Please indicate where I have said "HALAAL EVIL WAY". I have not stated any such thing. You just made that up. This is a sign of your intellectual dishonesty. You are unable to address the issue so you invent some inflammatory statement the argue against the thing you just invented.
If you want to debate this issue then debate against something I have actually said, not something you just made up.
You said: "We are too far removed from our food these days."
At last we agree on something. All meat eaters should either be required to kill the food they are to eat or at least be required to witness the animal being slaughtered. Failing that, perhaps a video?
You said: "... 99.9% of halaal and kosher objectors are anti muslim/anti jews".
Please indicate where you have got this figure from. Perhaps you just made that up as well?
You said: "i can examine the actual truth not resort to skewed fraudulent biased propaganda".
It seems to me that "Facts and Truth" are somewhat missing from your argument... unless of course you can present some objective, verifiable, factual studies by an accredited research organisation that demonstrate "99.9% of halaal and kosher objectors are anti muslim/anti jews".
Barry, If you have a problem with the sloppy practices in that Halal Slaughterhouse, then take it up with the owners of the Slaughterhouse.
If you have a problem with the people who covertly videoed the practices in that Slaughterhouse then take it up with them.
If you want to discuss if Supermarkets and Fast Food restaurants should be required to label Halal food then you're in the right place.
Dear Anonymous (29 Oct),
ReplyDeleteSuppose a decision had been made that you had to be executed by having your throat cut and your head pulled back to prevent you inhaling your own blood among other reasons.
You are given 2 options:
1. To be fully conscious while your throat is cut and your head pulled back while you bleed out.
2. To be rendered unconscious and be totally unaware of the procedure.
What would you choose and why?
Suppose this was one of your children?
Having been rendered unconscious both chemically and mechanically, I can categorically state that this would be a preferable state to be in before any trauma is inflicted on my body including having my throat cut. I see no reason why such a courtesy should not be extended to animals. In fact, I would insist on it.
Yes I have been in an abattoir. There were strict rules and procedures regarding humane slaughter and animal husbandry. High up on the list is that no animal gets to see another animal being slaughtered, bled out, skinned or butchered (I understand this is not the case with poultry), they do this so as not to cause stress to the animals awaiting dispatch. Clearly this is not the case in the video. In fact animals got a front row seat to the slaughter of their peers.
Furthermore, I'm afraid you don't get to tell me what my "duty" is. If I present an article on pedophilia within the Catholic Church, I would not be required to present a pro-pedophilia argument to balance things out. If I were a Muslim presenting the case for the truth of Islam, I would not be required to present a case for the truth Judaism or Christianity to provide balance. If I were a geologist presenting an article on tectonic plate shift, I would not need to balance it with a case for flat Earth theory.
As for peer reviewed studies, I have not seen any that are reliably objective. Halal advocates say the animals do not suffer, Animal rights organisations say they do.
On a positive note, more and more Halal abattoirs are moving to "stunning" which I do not have a problem with. Likewise, if religious folk feel the need to invoke the name of their God at the moment of slaughter, that's OK with me too. My issue is specifically with Dhabihah slaughter which comes from the Hadith, not the Qur'an.
One of the main objection to "stunning" I have heard is that captive bolt stunning can cause instant death which would render the animal "carrion" and therefore, non-Halal or Haraam.
I've also heard subjective claims that the meat of an animal that dies in fear tastes better.
Swiss,
ReplyDeleteYou said:-
"All animals are stunned before they have their necks cut halal or not to you and the British public..."
WRONG!
According to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), in 2011: 84% of Halal slaughtered cattle is stunned, 81% of sheep and 88% of poultry.
RESULTS OF THE 2011 FSA ANIMAL WELFARE SURVEY IN GREAT BRITAIN
http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/board/fsa120508.pdf
Tell me Swiss, Who is providing misinformation? Where are your facts?
Are you also claiming that the issue is not important because that specific video was made in Belgium? I can show you video's from all over the world that depict the same practices in Halal Slaughterhouses. If you saw a video of a robbery in Italy, would you refuse to admit robbery was a problem anywhere else simply because the video you saw was made in Italy?
Is this really your standard of evidence?
Do you really believe we don't import any meat from Europe?
Do you really believe the FSA inspections are a complete fabrication?
If you also disapprove of the practices in that video, why are you calling me a bigot? If you are in denial that animal cruelty exists in British slaughterhouses, you can pretend it doesn't happen but you are no advocate of animal welfare even if you do claim to be a Vegan.
What I find hilarious is the hypocrisy here from all parties. I am vegetarian and for me all slaughter is cruel. But everyone of you who ended their responses to Muslim commentators with 'I feel like eating bacon' is a massive hypocrite. So, let me ask you, have you seen the cruelty of meat production and secular animal farming including that of pigs. SO we have a video here, have you actually investigated further without any bias the state of the slaughterhouses and the unbelievable torture inflicted on animals before and during slaughter? If you care about animal welfare, you must care about the whole system that produces your meat not just one aspect of it; not just slaughter or halal vs. non-halal.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, to use the analogy of 'if you had a choice and it was your child' is nul. You cannot make an analogy between what you would eat (meat) and what you wont (child) in an argument in about slaughter for meat which you Paul don't have a problem with eating. It's a nice rhetoric tool but it is illogical. Accordingly, then if you stun the child before it is slaughtered then its ok? that stems from the same logic of that same analogy.
ReplyDeletePaul, don't bring children into this. This is about meat and animals. Do you at meat? If this were one of your children would you go for halal or non halal? lol :)
ReplyDeleteThe so called Halal method shown in this video does not seem to be the real Islamic method of slaughtering the animal. It wouldn't surprise me if the video itself was made by anti-islamists, given the amount of islamophobia out there!
It also annoys me when people want to codemn the Islamic and Jewish methods of slaughtering animals for food, without actually educating themselves on the topic. Methods aside, Halal and Kosher meat is much cleaner and definitely more healthier. Coming back to the slaughtering...
Iram aslam's comment on 24 July 2012 19:32 is sensible and contains what I have read and heard before from reliable sources.
Just copying it here so those who're too lazy to find/scroll down to it can read it here.
Regards,
Roy
"To watch the video does not objectively tell u the pain the animal is undergoing.. As human beings we merely base it on our opinions and ideas on what the animal is going through.. The halal way may look more bloody and painful-I agree. However it is not necessarily more painful for the animal."
"The same way in which as human beings we do not feel cuts/even stab wounds (this from experience) until seconds if not minutes later is also felt by animals and this is scientifically proven. When the throat of the animal is cut, the pain is not immediately felt. This is due to the starvation of oxygen associated with cutting the throat as well as major neurons and blood vessels being cut to the brain so that the animal cannot record, register or feel any pain."
"The animal is pretty much brain dead and cannot feel what it is going through. (please note that this is proven by many scientifical institutes such as hannover university Germany to name one. The western method may stop the heart of the animal but does not stop the pain being registered however the animal doesn't have that many convulsions due to barbiturates which prevent it from. However, the animal shows on EEG and ECG recordings to feel pain.. Therefore the halal way may look more painful but scientifically proven it is not."
HERE IS MORE EVIDENCE FOR YOU!
ReplyDeleteA Four Year Study of Ritual Slaughter was carried out by European Scientists for the EU and they came to the conclusion that halal Ritual Slaughter is unnecessarily cruel.
Their findings are fully explained in this paper (see next comment) and they also made a video of evidence which you can watch here...
This Video is by Leading European Scientists Condemns HALAL RITUAL SLAUGHTER WITHOUT STUNNING
This outrage is going on in many countries of the world.
WARNING - VICIOUS CRUELTY SHOWN - BOYCOTT HALAL!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxAqLDBc9Eo&feature=player_embedded#!
Here is some bedtime reading... This is the Full Scientific Report that was appointed by the EU into Ritual Slaughter... That video was made to illustrate EU VETERINARY CONCERNS!
Halal Authorities say there is no evidence that cutting an animals throat while fully conscious, then hanging it to bleed slowly to death is cruel - but clearly there is:
Veterinary Concerns
http://issuu.com/florencebergeaud-blackler/docs/veterinary-concerns
The sanitary risks linked to halal slaughter.
ReplyDeleteBy Alain Peretti, Doctor of veterinary medicine. | Vl
This article contains the health risks associated with Halal slaughter and also has an attached video. The video begins with the more humane methods of slaughter followed by the muslim method of halal slaughter... be aware the video is graphic. This form of slaughter is one I'm sure most, if not all of you will find disturbing and cruel and its why we need to stop this cruel practice.
http://vladtepesblog.com/?p=41428
By the way - we have been checking EU MEAT CODES on the meat on our supermarket shelves over the past three years and we have not once found Unlabelled Kosher Meat... but we have found HALAL RITUALLY SLAUGHTERED MEAT every time... in every supermarket, being sold unlabelled as such... sold as traditional meat. STOP THIS OUTRAGE NOW!
We have always found in Supermarkets like ASDA which have Halal Meat Counters - that the Meat on their Non-Halal Meat Counters has UNLABELLED HALAL MEAT amongst that on sale too!
Check it out for yourselves... Learn how to Read the EU Meat Codes at our MEAT WATCH group!
BOYCOTT HALAL (if you know where it is!) & thereby Reduce Demand & Slow Production.
AND TELL THE SUPERMARKET WHY YOU ARE NOT BUYING IT!
The meaning of Halal slaughter differs sometimes quite dramatically dependent on Halal Authority, even here in the UK. The differences are even bigger from country to country never mind continents. In Australasia for example, no animal can be killed without stunning. The use of electrical stunning in lamb slaughter is standard, and regional Halal authority boards, (As do some in the UK), accept that as the carcass is intact before bleeding, it is Halal as long as a muslim prayer is conducted. A large part of the arguement above against the major retailers is therefore redundant. In the UK Beef sector for example, Ritual hand slaughter makes up a very small fraction of production. Kosher on the other hand is much more prescribed, and the use of any stunning implement is disallowed, therfore the vast majority of the 'proper' ritual slaughter as percieved is Kosher, contrary to popular belief. The vast Majority of beef sold as Halal is killed following a percussive blow with a non-penetrating bolt gun which acts to concuss the animal prior to the cut. For the same reason as above, it is accepted by most Muslim Authority Boards. Indeed in some countries, penetrating bolt guns have been accepted as Halal by local authorities on the basis of the time between Stun to Slaughter interval being negligble. Emotive though this issue is, many articles and perceptions on either side of the aisle are very much flawed by fundamental misunderstandings. As a non-muslim researcher in Humane Slaughter Technologies,I have found one of the few Internet resources which provides a slightly less baised perspective on Halal Slaughter is
ReplyDeletehttp://behalal.org/consumer/slaughter-methods-explored/.
As a welfarist, no animals should have to suffer, but this is not a simple argument to make when any slaughter method is carried out in a proper mannner. I believe Ritual slaughter needs to be limited to the annual tonnage which caters to the market which requires it, and acknowledge that the rights to practice religion as engrained in EU law is not incorrect.
So does the right to practice religion supercede moral and ethical obligations? Does the illogical worship of mythical being give people the right to carry out barbaric and cruel practices? Should we make animals suffer because humans are too stupid to think for themselves and blindly follow a book without thinking about the implications? What about Christians should they be forced to eat meat slaughtered according to anothers beliefs. Are we really going to let animals suffer for outdated religious practices just because we are scared to say no this is not acceptable in our country. we don't allow bigamy or forced marriage we don't prevent women from wearing shorts or persecute homosexuals all of which is done in the name of religion in other cultures so why allow this?
ReplyDeleteAs a target, all New Zealand lamb is killed halal and stunned before the throat is slit (done with a prayer as per). I have worked in the largest lamb meatworks (abattoir) in NZ and know the practice quite intimately as you can imagine. Please stop scaremongering because you are presenting a very biased case for a 'skeptic'. On a further issue that the UK public are disillusioned, Tesco tried to stop NZ meatworks from using sheepdogs to herd the animals into the yards for slaughter on the basis that it caused the animals undue stress. Now this is ridiculous. For their short lives, the animals on the farms (in NZ every sheep and cow are free range) are used to dogs herding them, so I can't see how in this one instance (final instance) that the dogs are used it would cause more stress than say a human waving a stick at them and whacking the slowest lamb on the bum.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17972
ReplyDeleteIn response to the Muslim commentors, thank you for sharking your scientific knowledge, as this is correct. Animals should not feel pain once the blood vessels in the neck has been cut. But what is incorrect is that this is not the method of halal slaughter. A few key points are the follow:
ReplyDelete1. The knife should go through the animals neck only once, it should not be cut more than one time
2. The animals eyes should be closed
3. The animals should not be slaughtered in front of one another
4. A prayer should be said out loud before the slitting of the neck and after
This is the correct way of slaughtering: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8jSOFfgBqY
No panic hormones, no sudden blows to the head or disturbances.
This might be the kosher way of slaughtering animals.
Why can't you all be vegetarian?
ReplyDeleteAnother perspective on what Halal slaughtering is. Indeed, you decide:
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/dU3O5rykwe4
In response to the new-found problem, the PQ proposes a solution: clear labelling to protect the people of La Belle Province from halal meat.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete