Halal - a joke!

I have been doing a lot of research the past few days into the meat industry. Some of this has included trying to source local abbatiors that will allow me to go and slaughter my own animals which I can then sell on to friends and family (at the mo I can only slaughter for my own household's consumption).

Speaking to a few owners of abbatoirs has opened my eyes to the joke that is the halal meat industry. Today I spoke to two places and this is what they said:

1) "Yes, we do halal here. We have a Pakistani gentleman who brings lambs, reads a prayer and then leaves them with us. "

2) "Yes, all we do is halal. The demand is so much that we turned to 100% halal". "So all your slaughtermen are Muslims then?" I asked. "Well no, but the gentleman who brings us the lambs is."

There was obviously more to these conversations but you get the gist. In both cases the owner of the lambs is conning his customers. Neither of their meats is halal in any way whatsoever!! An absolute shambles.

Now dont get me wrong - I am sure there are people out there that do it properly but this goes to show that a lot of it is a big con. In short, you can go to market, buy 100 lambs, drive them to an abbatoir and then sell the carcasses to "halal" butchers saying that is halal. All of that meat is then eaten by unsuspecting Muslims.

This needs to change. Muslims need to demand they know where their meat comes from, who slaughters it and that is has been cared for ethically. Only then can they feel 100% confident that their meat is pure and halal. It is better to pay for meat like this from small, local and principled suppliers than line the pockets of unscrupulous meat traders with only one thing on their minds: money. If you dont want to pay then go vegetarian - it is better for you and the animals.

For anyone interested on what halal is all about, please leave a comment with your email and I will send you over a PDF file I have prepared which is aimed at local people to try and introduce the concept and what it means.