Why is halal meat restricted in Europe?

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Why is it considered inhumane and unethical to kill farm animals in the method that Muslims traditionally do? And do Western meat makers drain the animal of blood like Muslims do???

Halal does not permit an instant death, ergo it is argued that the animal suffers more as it bleeds to death. Western slaughter requires a virtually instant death to prevent suffering.

Western slaughterhouses do drain the animal of its blood BUT this occur after it is dead.

Not always true. It is not banned. There have been attempts to ban it.

The animal is normally stunned. Some countries require this like Denmark.

Oic, ok.

I have generalized too broadly in light of what you have said, for that I apologize.

In my country, and in the Slaughterhouses that I have personally toured, what I said was true.

I should not have extended my comments beyond my personal experience.

Thanks for the additional info.

I get the impression that there is some flexibility in what is considered halal.

I am aware of the slaughter and exsanguination method, but i learned in a round-about way that the halal butcher in salt lake city only deals with whole animals that have already been slaughtered.

sort of a funny story. My chinese coworker was asking around where he could have a sheep slaughtered. He and his chinese ex-pat friends had determined where to buy a whole live food-grade ewe, from which they wanted to go all plains indian every part, but they couldn't find anyone willing to slaughter it AND give them the blood.

When i suggested the halal butcher, he said that was the first place he went, and they don't slaughter. They get whole skinned animals from a slaughterhouse.

This was also when i learned that lamb is the premium meat in china, and the chinese ex-pats in salt lake city get their lamb at the halal market.

Also, learned that chinese are all about fully exsanguinated meat. Not because they don't like blood, it's an aesthetic thing about the clarity of flavor, lack of scum in the cooking liquid, etc. They like blood just fine, but it has to be prepared separately. Duck is expensive in chinese restaurants in part because exsanguinating a duck is a lengthy process compared to other fowl.

They ended up driving deep into the woods and slaughtering and butchering themselves. He said he had a freezer full of blood and guts.

ANYWAY.

What i hear is that due to the increasing number of muslim immigrants in the EU, and the corresponding demand for halal meat, a large number of slaughter and butcher establishments have gone fully halal. It is not hard to be both halal and kosher at the same time, and none of that decreases the quality of the meat for christians and atheists not to mention buddhists, animists, etc. This is just sound business.

Some number of bigots lose control of their bowels when they hear that they are eating meat that is acceptable to observant muslims.

Those people can and should be ignored.

My one and only concern is the ethics with regards to the animal in this matter. I too was under the impression that halal meant that blood had to be drained by the animals own heart (hence slow death), and that stunning or otherwhise incapacitating it was out of the question. Beyond that, I don't really care what incantations are spoken over the meat by whom, or who will and will not find the meat acceptable afterwards.

To stun the animal does not mean it's heart has stopped.
IMO There are no reasonable grounds for any objection to stunning.

OP - All animals that are slaughtered need to be bleed out. Blood is the first tissue type to decompose, if it's left in the carcass, will then spread to the meat and spoil it.

Nor did I say that, sorry if that was unclear. I said that my objections were 1: that the animals blood had to be pumped out by its own heart, leaving it alive for longer than necessary after having recieved a fatal wound, and 2: that measures to alleviate suffering such as stunning were deemed unacceptable.

Hello Wolfram, No apology necessary, it was more likely due to me misreading/misquoting.

The draining of blood is most efficient by the animals own heart. All slaughtering depends on this method.

The heart contains it's own pacemaker circuits that produce the contraction, while the brain stem regulates heart rate. With oxygenated blood in the heart, the pacemaker circuit will be powered until the oxygen levels drop off significantly. Exsanguination will occur even if the animal is decapitated, poultry for example, although gravity can be used to aid the process.

The majority of halal meat produced in the UK (~85%) is stunned before slaughter. The issue seems to be with the interpretation of the ritual rules. Most muslims interpret that the animal needs to be alive and healthy and accept stunning, where as others, with more fundamentalist views, say the animal needs to conscious at point of slaughter and stunning is not acceptable.

There was a recent case (Dec. 2014) of a non-stunning halal slaughterhouse being covertly filmed in Yorkshire. The main issue was that the slaughtermen were using dull knives, requiring a number of passes to complete the cut. Which itself contravenes the halal ruling requiring "a single cut with a sharp tool". The staff were also physically abusing the animals and verbally abusing each other at the same time. I'm not sure how this meat can be seen as sacred.

Huh. I was under the impression that western slaughter methods relied primarily on gravity as opposed to the heart beating, and that this was a compromise in favor of a quick death vs. more effective exsanguination.




Ah, so this will occour even without the brain even being alive and present? Because I thought this was the reason for the islamic insistance on throat slitting as the method of death; to take advantage of the heart still beating for the bleeding out.




I seem to recall this being a debate over how to intepret the verses that say the animal can't be drugged, and if the modern stunning methods fall under that. Funny how that works, considering how much antibiotics, which probably counts as drugs, are given to livestock as "preventative measures".




Halal apparently requires one of three methods, one of which is throat cutting, another is a stab in the heart region, and the last one is "any other method" which seems to render the idea of specific methods being acceptable or unacceptable sort of moot...

In the U.S., Halal methods are currently allowed, though I'm not sure about the stunning part. Personally, I find this cruel. A quick shot to the head, followed by an immediate hanging by the rear legs accomplishes the same thing. If you hang them quickly and cut the throat arteries, the heart is still pumping somewhat and the carcass is drained pretty thoroughly. I raised 3 hogs a few years back, and when it came time to slaughter them, the guy that did it for me did just that. He also does Halal slaughtering for a meat packing plant in the Central Valley, so this is how I heard about the Halal method.

Most people seem to believe the stun methods are the cause of death. Main methods currently used are the captive bolt gun, electric shock and gassing which are all designed to render the animal unconscious not kill it, the bleeding out of the animal is the ultimate cause of death. There is a chance of accidental death from any of theses methods, which would render the meat as carrion according to halal rules.



For a short period of time, yes.
IMO the reasons were originally attempting to reduce poor practices and conduct slaughter efficiently and humanely. The main ruling to forbid the consumption of carrion, blood and swine seem to make sense to me. Carrion is obvious, blood and pork spoils quickly, both blood and pigs can carry a high parasite load which can be transmitted to humans



Gas stunning is usually by carbon monoxide/dioxide so not an active drug. I'm not sure if this is acceptable or not.



I don't know, do you have a source?
Personally I feel that only the most efficient method possible is acceptable in a commercial slaughterhouse. Anything else is sadistic and should be guarded against. A person who is over familiar, with killing, tends to become less responsible in their actions.

I very much agree. I oppose all needless cruelty to animals, and I'm a little on the fence with regards to the legality of halal slaughter, but leaning slightly towards allowing it, if only so as to not open any venues for black market hacks to make a profit from animal cruelty.

"Any other method" ("'Aqr") seems to apply to accidental woundings of unweidly livestock or the hunting of wild animals.

Source (Page 8 )

Thanks for the link.