Halal, Shechita, And Your Salt Beef Special

One of the most endearing manufactured controversies of the Twentieth Century and now on well into the new Millennium is the issue of ritually slaughtered food, in particular shechita and lately halal. If on the off-chance you are not familiar with either of these terms, shechita is the Jewish method of animal slaughter, principally cows and chickens but also sheep though never pigs, curiously enough.

Halal is the Islamic method and is broadly similar to shechita. Over the past half century, the Islamic population of these islands has swelled enormously, so halal butchers are fairly common in many areas.

Leaving aside cranks like Arnold Leese – Britain’s most obsessive anti-Semite – most of the objections to both shechita and halal come from leftists, vegetarians, and people who don’t know what they are talking about.

The meat from animals slaughtered by either method taste no different from those slaughtered by regular means, unless you believe that uttering a prayer, a blessing, a curse or a nursery rhyme in the process triggers some sort of enzyme that permeates its flesh.

Is shechita barbaric? Is halal? Yes, but so is killing animals for food by any method, indeed so is raising them a lot of the time. Free range chickens have a better quality of life than battery hens, and some cows are better off than others, but when a dairy cow gives birth, its calf is taken away almost immediately, and if that calf is a bullock (ie male), it will be slaughtered within months to make veal.

It has often been said of sausages that it is best not to see them made. Animal slaughter, ritual or otherwise, is not for the squeamish, indeed non-ritual slaughter involves stunning the animal electrically before cutting its throat, except for chickens. Ordinary people who keep chickens kill them by cutting their throats or chopping off their heads; the aftermath of the latter can be amusing because the body can enter spasm and flap around for a minute or two.

Nature is red in tooth and claw. Anyone who has any doubt about that should view some of the shocking death scenes people have uploaded to YouTube and other video sites, scenes like a pack of hyenas feasting off a live zebra, or even a python eating an alligator.

If you can’t stomach the mere thought of animal suffering, best become a vegetarian.