The Truth About Meat Used In Halal Meals

By Andrea Davidson


The way meat is prepared in foods for Muslims often leads people to believe that their ways are inhumane. The truth is that Muslims respect animals and their methods of preparing meat are designed to protect the animal from undue suffering. It's important to know that halal meals with meat have animals that have been treated with the love and respect they deserve.

Muslim food is now very much a part of mainstream culture. Most people will have no idea if the food they are eating has been prepared to the culinary standards required by Islam, but the chances are it has. Hospitals, pubs and schools are well known for serving it. The fact is that many people believe that food prepared in accordance with Sharia Law is best for you.

Meat that is killed for Muslims is done so under strict religious guidelines. Muslims also have restrictions on the type of food they eat. For instance, they cannot eat anything that comes from a pig, and any animal they do eat has to be slaughtered in God's name.

Critics have suggested that the methods of slaughter are tantamount to torture. This idea conveniently leaves aside the fact that they have a very caring attitude toward animals. Indeed, animals are usually killed in such as way as to make the death instant and painless. This often involves slitting the jugular vein and windpipe of the animal, causing instant death.

Increasingly, animals are actually stunned with a blow to the head before being slaughtered. The jury is out on this way of killing animals, as no-one really knows for sure if they suffer before dying. Increasingly, as Islamic food becomes part of mainstream food production for companies like KFC, this method is being adopted. Some suggest that 90% of halal meat is now killed this way.

What needs to be mentioned is that Muslims do not use animals that have been abused or have been the subject of cruelty. It should give customers peace of mind to know that livestock is treated very well and that the rights of the animal are respected. This is not always the way with mainstream production practices, where animals are sometimes treated very badly.

All halal food is labelled as such. This means that the food you have chosen is within Islamic law as laid down by the Koran. In essence this means that the food has: no blood products in it and no alcohol. Moreover, what many people do not know is that Muslims do not eat birds of prey or carnivorous animals. The word for such foods is haram, which means forbidden.

Halal meals are made with the welfare of the animal in mind. Because the Islamic religion teaches people to be kind to animals and cause them no suffering when you next see something labelled "halal" you should remember that. These days the foods are available from places like supermarkets and specialist stores.




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