Britain goes halal, on the sly

[Scooter]

Lets face it, you haven't given a coherent reason why it should not.

IT is reason enough, not to force someone to do something, that no credible reason exists to force them.

Would it be ok in your view for meat NOT produced by the halal method to be labeled as "not halal"?

I have said repeatedly that producers should be able to make whatever truthful claims about their products if they so choose.

If someone wants to market their product as halal, fine, so long as they can demonstrate that it is halal.

If someone wants to market their product as "not offered to idols", fine, so long as they can demonstrate that it has not been offered to idols.

If someone wants to market their product without making one claim or the other, also fine.

The only evidence to support the idea that halal is not cruel comes from your unsourced paper which seems to have been translated from the German.

Not relay credible evidence.

What do you mean, "unsourced"? Both the authors and the publication it appeared in are credited. Your typical response when faced by irrefutable evidence which contradicts your preconceptions is to deny its validity without any foundation.

The evidence stands. The claims that ritual slaughter is inherently inhumane do not hold up.

Again, if the USA can require halal meat to be labeled as such, why is it wrong for others to have this knowledge?

The U.S. does not require any such thing. How many times does this point have to be driven into your skull before you finally get it?

[Gob]

The public's right to choose if meat, if it is halal, kosher or not in its production, is enough reason for me for it to be labeled.

Seeing as many Muslims, in your own country even, are calling for some legislation to be put in place to this effect, just goes to support the view of labeling.

If people choose to sell meat labeled as "halal" which is not produced in the correct fashion, do you think they should be liable to prosecution?

Wouldn't statutory legislation make this more clear.

Your article is just one bit of information, it does not provide cast iron proof that halal slaughter is as humane as stunning the animal first.

Brain signals have shown that calves do appear to feel pain when slaughtered according to Jewish and Muslim religious law, strengthening the case for adapting the practices to make them more humane.

"I think our work is the best evidence yet that it's painful," says Craig Johnson, who led the study at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand.

Johnson summarised his results last week in London when receiving an award from the UK Humane Slaughter Association. His team also showed that if the animal is concussed through stunning, signals corresponding to pain disappear.

The researchers then showed that the pain originates from cutting throat nerves, not from the loss of blood, suggesting the severed nerves send pain signals until the time of death. Finally, they stunned animals 5 seconds after incision and showed that this makes the pain signal disappear instantly.

"It wasn't a surprise to me, but in terms of the religious community, they are adamant animals don't experience any pain, so the results might be a surprise to them," says Johnson.

Ghanem cites a 1978 study relying on EEG measurements led by Wilhelm Schulze of the University of Hanover, Germany, apparently concluding that halal slaughter was more humane than slaughter following stunning. But Schulze himself, who died in 2002, warned in his report that the stunning technique may not have functioned properly.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... ghter.html

The bold above, that would be your study wouldn't it? Disowned by its author.

I think you are right, I may have made a mistake on compulsory labeling in teh USA.

However there is some legislation;

HALAL and ZABIAH HALAL:
Products prepared by federally inspected meat packing plants identified with labels bearing references to "Halal" or "Zabiah Halal" must be handled according to Islamic law and under Islamic authority.

KOSHER:
"Kosher" may be used only on the labels of meat and poultry products prepared under Rabbinical supervision.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/Mea ... /index.asp

[Scooter]

The public's right to choose if meat, if it is halal, kosher or not in its production, is enough reason for me for it to be labeled.

The public has every right, currently, to choose meat that is kosher, halal, or neither, according to their preference.

What, you say, but there is no such thing as meat that is labelled as "non-kosher" or "non-halal"? Then I guess there must not be a market for it yet. If and when there is, producers will market it as such, and will not require any regulation to goad them into doing so.

Seeing as many Muslims, in your own country even, are calling for some legislation to be put in place to this effect, just goes to support the view of labeling.

It is not the same thing at all. Saying that if food is labelled halal, it should meet the requirements of halal, is COMPLETELY different from saying that if food meets the requirements of halal, it must be labelled as halal

If people choose to sell meat labeled as "halal" which is not produced in the correct fashion, do you think they should be liable to prosecution?

Making an affirmative claim which is not true would constitute fraud.

Wouldn't statutory legislation make this more clear.

Legislation which set down the requirements for labelling a product as halal would help. Legislation requiring something to be labelled halal against the producer's wishes would not.

Your article is just one bit of information, it does not provide cast iron proof that halal slaughter is as humane as stunning the animal first.

The article I have linked to on the subject is the only scientific information on the topic that anyone has deigned to present. As such, it stands unrefuted.

Brain signals have shown that calves do appear to feel pain when slaughtered according to Jewish and Muslim religious law, strengthening the case for adapting the practices to make them more humane.

You criticize me for linking to an actual scientific paper in translation, and yet all you can come up with is a paraphrase of a study whose actual conclusions could have said anything.

But its flaw is readily apparent, as it provides no basis of comparison. The study I linked to compared ritual slaughter to stunning. This study looks at ritual slaughter in isolation. This:

The team first cut calves' throats in a procedure matching that of Jewish and Muslim slaughter methods. They detected a pain signal lasting for up to 2 minutes after the incision. When their throats are cut, calves generally lose consciousness after 10 to 30 seconds, sometimes longer.

is meaningless without determining how long a pain signal lasts after stunning, or how long it takes to lose consciousness. Might be 15 seconds, but it might also be 5 minutes. How is one to tell from this study which is worse?

Sorry, no cigar.

The bold above, that would be your study wouldn't it? Disowned by its author.

He didn't disown his own study. Perhaps if you had actually done the courtesy of reading it, rather than dismissing it because it didn't conform to your preconceptions, you might have read what he actually said about his concerns about the stunning technique. His comments were not limited to the study. He was concerned that stunning in general could not, when used in sheep, be calibrated precisely enough to ensure a quick loss of consciousness, and he recommended doing additional research on stunning to determine whether it really was as pain free as was generally believed.

A pity that the authors of the study you cited didn't choose to take him up on it, and instead chose a one-sided approach.

I think you are right, I may have made a mistake on compulsory labeling in teh USA.

However there is some legislation;

HALAL and ZABIAH HALAL:
Products prepared by federally inspected meat packing plants identified with labels bearing references to "Halal" or "Zabiah Halal" must be handled according to Islamic law and under Islamic authority.

KOSHER:
"Kosher" may be used only on the labels of meat and poultry products prepared under Rabbinical supervision.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/Mea ... /index.asp

Do you now see the difference between:

Meat labelled halal must be handled according to Islamic law

and

Meat handled according to Islamic law must be labelled halal

[loCAtek]

Also Halal IS already expressly not for idols;

Explicitly forbidden substances

A variety of substances are considered as harmful (haraam) for humans to consume and, therefore, forbidden as per various Quranic verses:

* Pork (i.e., flesh of pig)[Qur'an 2:173]
* Blood[Qur'an 2:173]
* Animals slaughtered in the name of anyone but Allah. All that has been dedicated or offered in sacrifice to an idolatrous altar or saint or a person considered to be "divine"[Qur'an 2:173] [Qur'an 5:3]

Idolatry is forbidden in Islam, which is why they take offense to depictions of Mohammad.

Plus, Halal may use less animal products, since they are trying to create products that aren't derived from pork;

Halal alternative

Cargill Texturing Solutions has developed a halal alternative to pork fat. Adrogel GR is a blend that enables manufacturers to obtain a restructured fat suitable to replace the pork fat used in many meat products – allowing food manufacturers to produce meat products that meet halal requirements while still benefiting from the functional qualities associated with pork fat.

With a valuable market of more than 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, Adrogel GR allows food manufacturers to produce meat products that meet halal requirements, while still benefiting from the functional qualities associated with pork fat. Being vegetable derived, it has a lower fat content than pork, making it ideally suited to light products.

Adrogel GR can be prepared with cold water and vegetable oil to produce a restructured vegetable fat. It has a white colour and consistency close to that of back pork fat, and can be cut into small pieces for use in meat such as turkey and poultry sausages.


http://www.scientistlive.com/European-F ... fer/17798/

[The Hen]

Perhaps instead of "Halal" or "Non-Halal" labels, we should have one which says the meat was "Lovingly Hand-slaughtered"?

[Scooter]

Or, corresponding, "lovingly drilled into the skull".

[Gob]

Here's his study Scoot

Ok, I'm willing to admit defeat on this one, I still believe that Halal is less humane than conventional slaughter, and that the public should be able to make an informed choice on whether they are purchasing halal slaughtered meat or not.

However I recognise Scoot's and other's arguments are valid.

I do not feel we can change each others minds here, and so as not to let this one drag on any further I'm willing to call off my attempts to change views here.

I hope this is accepted as offered.

[Sue U]

I have to say, Gob, that is about the most gracious thing I have ever seen posted at one of "our" boards. That is the true spirit of agreeing to disagree.

[Gob]

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible

[Gob]

[Sean]

LMAO - Only took seven months...

[loCAtek]

This is one reason, I don't eat animals.

[Aard Vark]

I have killed and eaten my own animals and I found that disturbeing.

Even with a religous or cultural backgrown I can't find any reason why anyone would say this is the best way to butcher any kind of animal.

There is no excuse for curlity.

[Scooter]

Sure, let us cherry pick examples where slaughter by bolt method appears to have gone off without a hitch, and also cherry pick examples where halal slaughter appears to have gone wrong, and let us pretend that we can draw meaningful conclusions to contradict the only actual science on the subject which has been presented in this thread.

[Gob]

I', sorry Scoot, I came across the video on another site and didn't think it worthy of a new thread. Still mates eh?

[Scooter]

Of course, I would never say that there are never any problems associated with ritual slaughter. I just wonder about the real agenda of whoever would make that kind of video. Lord knows someone could go on a PETA website or something similar and view all sorts of horrible examples of bolt stunning gone wrong. It doesn't mean bolt stunning is particularly inhumane. Slaughtering animals is not always going to be pain and suffering free, regardless of method.

[Gob]

Fair comment.

[loCAtek]

True it's nasty, but at any level it will be nasty. Routinely in nature, carnivores of any stripe, won't wait for their prey to die, but will begin eating its flesh while it"s still alive. Sometimes the animal gets as far as tearing itself off the feeding, for a few moments; only to be brought down and torn apart further.

Female lions will catch and release a beast over and over, in order to teach her cubs how to hunt; oblivious and uncaring of its terror.

That's as grisly and horrible as this video, so they don't often show it in documentaries, but naturalists don't call that cruelty. Seems the only way to avoid it, is not to be carnivorous.

[rubato]

I don't see how throat-cutting if it is done just as quickly, is less humane than any other mechanical way of slaughtering animals. Blood loss and thus drop in BP will cause a loss of consciousness in seconds. "Chinese" Gordon described being attacked by a lion which grabbed his shoulder and shook him like a rag. Gordon said that he went into shock immediately and there was no pain or fear even though he 'knew' that he was about to die (incorrectly as it turned out, the lion dropped him and left). So there is that too.

yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

THE meat industry has joined animal welfare groups in opposing the religious slaughter of sheep while they are conscious, amid calls to ban the "unnecessary and unconscionable" practice in Australia.

At least 15 Australian abattoirs have government approval to slit sheep’s throats without stunning them for halal and kosher markets. The RSPCA and Animals Australia criticised the absence of mandatory stunning in the federal government’s proposal to Indonesia last week to restart the live cattle export trade.

The Australian Meat Industry Council chairman, Terry Nolan, said it was in the industry's "best interests to have the most humane treatment of animals".
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"I personally don’t believe in unstunned slaughter. I kill animals for a living ...I believe that they need to be processed in the most respectful way."

The government-approved ritual slaughter of conscious sheep accounted for less than 1 per cent of slaughtering in Australia.

Australian standards require livestock be rendered unconscious and insensible to pain before slaughter.

Limited exceptions for cattle – broadly accepted by Muslim and Jewish groups – permit stunning with a captive-bolt pistol immediately after the throat is cut.

But about 15 abattoirs that service the halal and kosher meat market reportedly have state government approval to slaughter sheep without stunning them.

Rabbi Mordechai Gutnick, from Kosher Australia, said calls to ban such practices were motivated in part by ignorance and anti-semitism.

"A ban would mean we would not be able to eat kosher meat. In our tradition the way the animal has to be killed is by quick cutting of the throat of the animal.

"We make a concession for beef because cattle have a tendency to be much stronger and resilient."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/anima ... z1QKfubay7