Amazing how slow the national press can be.
Shock! Horror! Today's Mail on Sunday has an "investigation" story which has found that a large proportion of the meat sold to consumers in the UK is Halal.
The Mail makes the hysterical claim that Animal welfare campaigners have long called for a ban on the traditional Islamic way of preparing meat - which involves killing animals by drawing a knife across their throats, without stunning them first - saying it is cruel and causes unnecessary pain.
During the last fifteen or so years I have stood on slaughter house lines and seen thousands of birds killed to Halal standards. From the evidence I have, it is a lie to say that the birds are not stunned first.
I first mentioned this issue after attending a meeting of the European Parliament's Agricultural Committee in November 2008. Some members were questioning the welfare standards of Halal produced meat.
I mentioned there one of my slaughterhouse visits and said "The meat is Halal (there are prayers on the blade and the back up slaughterman is Islamic trained) and the birds are stunned before slaughter". Although I did accept that different traditions of Islam had differing practices.
Earlier in 2008 I made the point now being made by the Mail but without the lurid headlines when I said virtually all the chicken meat sold in Britian's big supermarkets like Asda, Tesco, and Sainsburys and through chains like MacDonalds and KFC is Halal though not labeled as Halal and has been for nearly twenty years!
Most modern slaughterhouse regulations come very close to meeting the exacting standards set out in the Old Testament. "Ritual slaughter" for Halal meat often means little more having an Islamic prayer on the blade or as at Sun Valley in Hereford in the 1990s a prayer broadcast on a landline from a remote mosque over the slaughter area.
The company explained to me that there was a big market from British chicken meat among Britain
This raises a few questions.
Firstly does it matter if our meat is Halal compliant? The answer I feel is no. Eating a Halal chicken burger won't damage our faith.
Secondly, must we insist that Halal slaughtering meets accepted EU standards? Yes and there is no reason why it should not.
Thirdly, why has the Mail dug up what is a very old story? Sadly for the same reasons that seasoned anti-Semites used to campaign against Kosher meat production. They are trying to paint a minority in a poor light.
