In one of my previous posts I looked at the issue surrounding the controversy about halal meat in France. I got the urge to further search for such an issue at home. I typed ‘religion and food issues in the UK’ into a search engine and was surprised to see many online articles and YouTube video clips on the topic. What caught my eye was the title ‘Britain Goes Halal (…but nobody tells public)’.
The issues at home are slightly different than across the channel. Here the public is consuming halal meat without knowledge of it being so. The criticism at hand was not so much of the meat being halal, but it was directed at various supermarkets who sold meat without labelling it halal. What difference does it make? For Muslims it has to be prepared according to Islamic religious rituals. For others, it was more to do with whether the animal was stunned or non-stunned prior to killing, as discovered in this video.
According to this video, there is not much of a difference between halal or non-halal meat, as animals are stunned prior to killing, only 10-12% of the halal meat in the UK is non-Stunned. Having discovered that, we end with the question of whether stunning the animal prior to killing renders it lawful or not in Islam.
If I remember it correctly, some years ago there was a similar issue about stunned and non-stunned animals prior to slaughter. This problem caused many individuals to give up eating meat especially poultry. My own father never consumed poultry after this issue. Being a fan of fried chicken I didn't want to give up, but the question for me was ‘How Halal was my Chicken’? Having watched the above video I found myself asking the same question again. Here on one hand we have the issue of Britain going Halal but on the other hand we have some Muslims (like me) still struggling to find Halal poultry or Halal reliable takeaways. I mean when going to places, I have to check in advance for the availability of 'HMC' restaurants or takeouts, otherwise our going out ends up on a pure veggie meal or a pack lunch from home. The reason I choose 'HMC' labelled takeouts is that previously I was told I’ll be on the safe side if I only consumed ‘HMC Halal’ labelled poultry. Is this correct? Well according to many websites this is the best solution to the problem. But what about the other 'Halal', labels? Are they not 100% halal also? This table shows the difference between these labels;
Looking at these differences, it is clear which one is more reliable. Doesn't this make you think then what is all the fuss about 'Britain going Halal', when there is an issue with so the called 'halal' being halal?
Like yourself I am very wary about my meat. Is it really halal or not? I always buy my meat from a local butcher. Although all the meat does have the HMC label that is not why I buy my meat from there. I buy it because the butcher himself seems like a pious practicng Muslim who is God concious - he is very apprehensive about the meat he sells as halal. The slaugter house where he gets the meat from, he does go there regulary to make sure the procedure is 100% Islamic.
ReplyDeleteNow just as I want my meat to be halal, I can understand from a non-Muslim's point of view, if the slaughter process has any Islamic aspect to it, he/she has the right to know.
That's very good, that you have a trustable supplier near you. I don,t have halal meat shops in my area, that's why when ever I used to buy meat or poultry in the past, I used to check the hmc website to find the nearby hmc certified stores. Now there are hmc certified stores on Stratford road and Coventry road, so I don't have difficulty to get halal meat. But there are times when I still have some difficulty in finding hmc certified take outs as my children are more interested in fried chicken rather than curries.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right as much as Muslims have the right to halal meat, non-Muslims have the right to know what type of meat they are buying, i.e it should be labelled properly.
The owner of a slaughter house admitted that when they told the public that their meat was halal, most of the time it was not. It made me wonder what he considered to fall into the bracket of 'halal'. Could it be a)The animal was stunned prior to slaughter and therefore was not killed in the traditional Islamic way or, b)It was not slaughtered using the religious guidelines at all. So, your last statement sums it all up and couldn't be more corret
ReplyDeleteThank You for your comment, I am not sure if you had the time to watch the above video, It sort of makes it clear. But as most of the animals are being stunned prior to killing then We do have a big concern.
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