Kosher and Halal rules

All I know is, both Halal and Kosher meat is slaughtered using inhumane methods, the animals suffer and death is drawn out...

Meat is murder.

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I found this on an Islamic website:

http://www.soundvision.com/info/halalhealthy/halal.kosher.asp

http://www.jewfaq.org/kashrut.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_dietary_laws

The last two sites describe the kosher and halal laws.

For a meat to be Halal, the slaughtering process has to be Islamic:

- The animal has to be slaughtered with a sharp object (knife) and in a fast way so that the pain of slaughter is minimised.
- The slaughtering is to be done by cutting the throat, windpipe and the blood vessels in the neck causing the animalÂ’s death, but without cutting the spinal cord.
- The blood has to be drained completely before the head is removed. The purpose is to drain out most of the blood, which would otherwise serve as a good culture medium for micro organisms. Hence, for this purpose, the spinal cord must not be cut, otherwise the nerve fibers to the heart would be damaged during the process causing cardiac arrest, resulting in stagnation of the blood in the blood vessels.


Advantages of the Islamic method:

- Blood is a good medium for germs, bacteria, toxins, etc. Therefore the Muslim way of slaughtering is more hygienic as most of the blood containing germs, bacteria, toxins, etc. that are the cause of several diseases are eliminated.
- Meat slaughtered by Islamic way remains fresh for a longer time due to deficiency of blood in the meat as compared to other methods of slaughtering.
- The swift cutting of vessels of the neck disconnects the flow of blood to the nerve of the brain responsible for pain. Thus the animal does not feel pain. While dying, the animal appears to struggle, writhe, shake and kick, not due to pain, but due to the contraction and relaxation of the muscles deficient in blood and due to the flow of blood out of the body.

Muslim1 What a load of crap.

If I cut your throat how long do you think it would be before you stoped feeling.

it's not a load of crap at all, humans have been trying to find the fastest most humane (and most reliable) way to kill something for a long, long time.

even today, we think of (or don't think at all) or treat lethal injection as the perfection of that effort, but it has its problems. the guillotine works on the same idea as the ways kosher cows are slaughtered. it was designed by a doctor to minimize the suffering of the condemned, but people obviously decided it was too gruesome.

the factory methods we normally use for killing cows are a lot less reliable. cows can be torn apart and hang from chains for a long time before they die, because the job gets botched. stunning them first (with hammer bolts on a conveyor) isn't that reliable either.

of course, the guillotine occasionally stopped short too. oh and to answer your question, if you did a perfect job, between 30 to 90 seconds. possibly fewer if he enters shock.

Just change 'animal' for human - and there you have it...

That's the way Ken Bigley, Daniel Pearl and many others were slaughtered. Must please their families no end to know they were dispatched using the Halal method.

TG, it sounds like you're saying you think what muslim1 is talking about is like a guillotine, is that right? Because it's not, it's throat cutting. He even specifically says the head can't be removed until all the blood is drained. Cows killed to be kosher (I don't know as much about Halal, but it sounds like it's the same process) often suffer for a long time, as they are often conscious and hanging by their hind legs as their blood drains. Not that I'm saying the non-kosher way is humane either...

re the guillotine, it is supposed to be the fastest method.

From what I understand, from the time the person walked up to the plank, which swiveled them into position, which triggered the blade, it was a matter of seconds. The decapitation occured in less than a second.

Walk, swivel, bam.

I'd say that had to be painless, the head would instantly lose enough blood to be unconscious, then dead in short order.

If the blade fell short, well rig it up so as the first blade falls, a second and even a third backup blade, working independantly on separate tracks from the primary blade could be released as soon as the 1st blade traveled mere inches.

Gruesome for who? The people that chose to watch?

If I was forced to watch, I'd rather see someone get the guillotine than hanged or electrocuted. Those can be nasty deaths

I suppose a guillotine wouldn't work with cows though, since so many are slaughtered in one day, and they're so much bigger than a human.

I'm sure, given a little time, I could come up with a system that's powerful enough to decapitate the cow quickly.

The suffering is not during the decapitation but in the days and hours before the guillotine comes swooping down while held as a prisoner.

I make a point of looking for halal or kosher meats. I'm much more comfortable with the processes used in killing the animal, as well as the resulting quality of the meats.

Marks and Sparks was well-known in the foodie world for using the same processes - and the excellent quality of the resulting product.

Thanks, muslim1. That was interesting.

Hmm, a lot of rage in place. I don't know enough, and will follow the thread.

Rage?

I didn't sense any.

I guess you could see it that way though, because of the subject matter.

Personally, I find it very interesting. I mean, someone has to figure these things out.

Talk...your post about the suffering before the decapitation....very true, no argument there for sure.

Relating that to cattle going to the slaughter, although their time at the slaughter house is short, their lives in general are not happy ones.

Good thing they're not the brightest animal in the world, or their lives would be even more miserable.

oh....here's the name I was trying to recall, and her website....

Dr. Temple Grandin

She's best known for being autistic, and developing more humane slaughter methods. On the site, there a section about halal and kosher slaughter.

The fact she is autistic, primarily I find it interesting that she was able to complete her education (although obviously intelligent) and enter the field she's in.

This is going to sound really, well, "wrong" to say, but I've read that the fact she's autistic helps in her work, because, well, she doesn't empathize with humans, and is able to look at her surroundings from "a cow's point of view"

I know I said that really badly, maybe someone can say it better.

isn't she interesting? it's one of her books i get the information on tricolor vision / pheremones from. she also talks about how she used to think that skinner was the coolest guy, until she met him.

i've been following the thread, i'll have to have a look at her page on kosher/halal in the near future. i've always had faith that the method used was humane, but i'm willing to give it another look. i'm already familiar enough with the industry methods from fast food nation, but i'd be willing to give those another look in the future too. i can certainly tell you which method is more likely to result in e. coli contamination.