Halal Meat

In the midst of all the fuss and bother over the latest food scandal, the use of halal meat in food items sold by supermarkets and fast food chains, I have begun to wonder, not altogether tongue in cheek, whether or not over the years they haven’t been putting stuff in our food to make us all lose a few brain cells. I say this because I would suggest that anyone who has been in the least bit surprised by this latest revelation must be quite stupid; either that or living on another planet.

This wholesale deception has been going on for years in numerous ways. It will continue to do so, as long as we allow these masters of the shopping universe to dictate the dubious rules under which they choose to operate and exert control over our lives.

We should not have been deceived, but this is the price we pay for choosing to shop and eat this way.

I do appreciate that for many of us there are the real issues of convenience, especially if you are working all the hours that God sends, and have the obligation to feed a large family on a very tight budget.

However, does it really matter that much how the meat was killed?

Personally, I’m much more concerned about the life the poor animal led before being slaughtered. If we were all so concerned about this, instead of playing lip service to what is fast becoming a divisive religious issue, then we would surely stop buying battery chickens, sold practically as cheap as the chips that might accompany them.

Many of us choose to take our holidays in countries with predominantly Muslim populations; Turkey, Tunisia and Morocco spring readily to mind, where unless we are vegetarian, during our stay we will have undoubtedly eaten halal meat, and I don’t recall much fuss being made. Likewise, Jews do not eat pork products or shellfish, and not so long ago Catholics who dared to eat meat on a Friday were frowned upon. We all have our own social and cultural preferences, and the religious observance of eating habits and customs has in itself been a cause of controversy since the very beginning.

There is of course the usual cry for better labelling, but to be honest, this is no safeguard. I’d much rather eat food than read about it at length.

The real issue here is having unscrupulous businesses mislead us.

The only answer, if we do care, is to go back to doing what we used to do before supermarkets and fast food chains got us in their stranglehold; shop in person, instead of ordering online, so that you can select items yourself.

More importantly, if we want to preserve the values everyone is up in arms about, shop locally at places you know and trust, and where the local butcher knows the provenance of the meat he sells, and in all likelihood, the name of the animal too.