Is Halal meat ethical?

moggymutt

Bing vegan is extremely easy.....

FatVonD

I'm in two minds and don't know enough about it to argue a good point but for me what would make a difference is where/how the animal was reared.

I'd rather eat a chicken that had lived a free-range life before being hung upside down to have its throat cut and bled to death than one that had been factory farmed leading a miserable existence then terrified while it waited its turn to be 'stunned' before being... hung upside down and bled to death.

.Johanna.

FatVonD wrote: »

I'm in two minds and don't know enough about it to argue a good point but for me what would make a difference is where/how the animal was reared.

I'd rather eat a chicken that had lived a free-range life before being hung upside down to have its throat cut and bled to death than one that had been factory farmed leading a miserable existence then terrified while it waited its turn to be 'stunned' before being... hung upside down and bled to death.

I agree, I would like to know what the living conditions of these animals are like before eating their meat. A quick death is cold comfort if their life is nothing but suffering.

blizeH

moggymutt wrote: »

Bing vegan is extremely easy.....

I wish it was. It's something I'm relatively open to but also find it VERY limiting when outside the house. Finding places to eat, going to visit my family or my girlfriend's family (though her mum and sister are vegan) could be difficult.

Also, I've been trying different vegan milks lately and they are all quite awful, especially when put in tea.

And thanks very much for the responses guys, it looks like Halal/Kosher meat is something I should definitely try to avoid. To be honest as much as possible I'm going to avoid meat anyway (I'm quite a fussy eater unfortunately, and veggie stuff is always like mushsooms, tomatoes, aubergines, butternut squash etc which I don't like)

threemuttleys

FatVonD wrote: »

I'm in two minds and don't know enough about it to argue a good point but for me what would make a difference is where/how the animal was reared.

I'd rather eat a chicken that had lived a free-range life before being hung upside down to have its throat cut and bled to death than one that had been factory farmed leading a miserable existence then terrified while it waited its turn to be 'stunned' before being... hung upside down and bled to death.

Absolutely.

Kirri

blizeH wrote: »

I wish it was. It's something I'm relatively open to but also find it VERY limiting when outside the house. Finding places to eat, going to visit my family or my girlfriend's family (though her mum and sister are vegan) could be difficult.

Also, I've been trying different vegan milks lately and they are all quite awful, especially when put in tea.

And thanks very much for the responses guys, it looks like Halal/Kosher meat is something I should definitely try to avoid. To be honest as much as possible I'm going to avoid meat anyway (I'm quite a fussy eater unfortunately, and veggie stuff is always like mushsooms, tomatoes, aubergines, butternut squash etc which I don't like)

Rice milk is supposedly ok in tea. I've not tried it but after a vegan experimental month I read a lot of good reviews and my mum tried it and said it was the best. I use other non dairy milks but don't drink tea/coffee to know what they are like in it.

Re the original question I wouldn't put ethical and halal in the same sentence. But then seeing footage from general abbatoirs is distressing enough, I think the DM has images of a pony being slaughtered today but I didn't look apart from the headline. If I did eat meat I'd be going for organic, smaller suppliers then at least they only suffer at the end and not throughout their lives so much.

I used to be fussy, never ate veg but been veggie for a very long time now and eat a much wider range of food than I did as a meat eater, there are lots of things out there you could try as even if you gave up the meat you are only giving up 1 item out of however many hundreds of other foods there are Going veggie was easy, going vegan was quite hard in comparison.

moggymutt

blizeH wrote: »

I wish it was. It's something I'm relatively open to but also find it VERY limiting when outside the house. Finding places to eat, going to visit my family or my girlfriend's family (though her mum and sister are vegan) could be difficult.

Also, I've been trying different vegan milks lately and they are all quite awful, especially when put in tea.

And thanks very much for the responses guys, it looks like Halal/Kosher meat is something I should definitely try to avoid. To be honest as much as possible I'm going to avoid meat anyway (I'm quite a fussy eater unfortunately, and veggie stuff is always like mushsooms, tomatoes, aubergines, butternut squash etc which I don't like)

Virtually any food you like. there is now a vegan version of- yoghurts, cheeses (one of my sheep nicks my Tesco Cheddar Style Spread all the time), ice creams, and if you google the Redwoods range of mock meats you will see that there's masses to choose from. Vegan was more like what your idea of it is, about 30 years ago, but now even Tesco's has a refridgerated 'free from' section, as well as in its ordinary aisles.

I have more of a problem because I have to be gluten free, and I hate most vegetables.

Putting it all in context, it's a lot less hard on me being vegan, than it is on an animal going to the abbattoir.

from'

moggymutt

Kirri, living on a dairy farm for a year made being vegan very easy after the sights I saw.

Fire_Fox

We kept chickens when I was a child, my father cut their heads off when the time was nigh. They don't bleed to death drop by drop, it floods out fast especially if they are upside down.

You can't lump all Halal meat together as ethical or unethical, some is treated better than others during it's lifetime, it's not even all from the UK. The death is only a tiny fragment of the comfortable life or suffering an animal may endure. We focus on death because we are squeamish and lacking in knowledge not because logically it's the worst thing we do to some of our food animals.

True Halal meat should be reared without hormonal growth promoters, antibiotics and the like and must be healthy (pure), so the birds are much slower growing and smaller than a battery chicken. They therefore can't really then be packed in too tightly without disease or injury being rife in the flock. But unless you get meat that has some sort of traceability you can't assume the animal has been reared the proper Halal way. I struggle to believe the Halal chicken offered by my local KFC is anything but battery meat killed according to Muslim custom.

blackandwhitebunny

I could be wrong but I understand it as: Kosher meat means that the animal must have its throat cut and the blood allowed to drain out but animal can be stunned, whereas Halaal meat the animal needs to be conscious when its throat's cut. Kosher has requirements about the animal not being caused unnecessary suffering, Halaal does not. For instance hunted game can only be kosher if there was no other alternative.