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Halal Food
Halal food has become a highly conversational subject in our world. Many people are familiar with the word Halal, while others do not know what Halal means. Halal food refers only to meat and chicken, and it means that the meat is slaughtered in different way. Halal is an Arabic term that means permitted. The food is permissible according to Islamic law; for a meat as certified Halal, it is not forbidden such as meat from hindquarters or animal such as pork. The Halal method is specifically practiced by the religions that believe in the God of Abraham. Both the Muslim and Jewish faiths have their specific requirements for the slaughter of acceptable animals religiously. The major difference from the general practices in most countries is that the animals are not stunned before it is slaughtered. There are specific standards that people should follow in order to make food Halal, and if even one of them has not been done, then the food is considered not Halal and people especially Islam would avoid eating it. Halal food has spread all around the world; some restaurants depend on Halal food as their major portion of the menu. The Elevation Burger as one of the most popular fast food restaurants in the East Coast has announced the addition of Halal food as a major part of their menu. KFC has begun to sell Halal chicken, when I personally asked a KFC crew member, why they sell Halal food, that employee responded, “in Australia and England, Kentucky restaurant depends on Halal food as a main source for their menu.” This idea has led to attract much more customers to KFC. Muslims try to capitalize the idea in all Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurants in other places. “Though some countries wanted to ban Halal food, the process is an important tradition for Muslims and is allowed. It is important to follow the Halal slaughter guidelines accordingly. It describes the process of Halal food and counters the arguments that some governments and animal rights activists are against the process.” Initially, the first step of slaughtering an animal in the Halal method is to give water and say the name of Allah or God. Giving water to the animal gives satisfaction before it is slaughtered, and the animal can be killed without becoming uncomfortably thirsty. In addition, the water cleans the animal's esophagus from the impurities of the animal food such as grass and corn; the animal is fed with a natural diet and did not include animal by-product. Saying God's name added comforts to the animal, leading the animal to desire its own death. Halal slaughter in New Zealand and Australia is carried out by regular plant workers . During the slaughtering procedures, Muslim religious leaders are present and recite the appropriate prayers. The sharpening of the knife in order to slaughter an animal is one of the main parts of making the food Halal. If the knife is not sharp, then no one is allowed to slaughter the animal. The animals, slaughtered the Halal way by making a quick, deep incision with a sharp knife on the neck and cutting the jugular veins and carotid arteries of both sides jointly with the trachea and oesophagus, leaving the spinal cord unbroken. This requirement is intended to make the slaughter more humane by avoiding the risk of torturing an animal by cutting its throat with an unsharpened or unprepared knife. However, some argued that the Halal method of cutting the animal’s throat is cruel to animals and might cause harmful pain for the animals. When the knife is fully sharpened, the animal does not feel pain and dies in seconds, making the Halal method more consistent with animal rights than other options. As suggested, more work is needed on training programs to teach the slaughter men the proper sharpening of knives and to improve the actual slaughter procedures.
In addition, vegetarian argued that killing animals for the advantage of humans is cruel and a violation of their rights. This is seriously a flawed argument because if animals had rights comparable to humans, animals should have equivalent duties as humans. It implies that humans can blame and punish animals if it violates the rights of others.
Another important part of the Halal method is that the animal must be conscious at the time of slaughter. Many argue that this makes slaughter more painful than stunning or shocking, but researchers found that the opposite is true. Generally, stunning prior to slaughter is not the practice. However, a non-penetrating concussion stunning prior to slaughter received an approval from some Muslim authorities. In the 80's, in New Zealand, led to the advance of a very sophisticated electrical stunning device that met a Muslim standard where an animal should be able to recover its consciousness in less than a minute and should be able to eat within five minutes. Scientific researchers agreed that sheep lose its consciousness within 2 to l5 seconds after both carotid arteries are cut . When I visited two slaughterhouses, one Halal slaughterhouse, and the other is not. My objective during the visit is to see the difference between the two methods. In the slaughterhouse that uses the Halal method, the animals are alive and eating grass before it is slaughtered. In contrast, the other slaughterhouse looks like an animal cemetery. When I asked an employee how they died, he explained that they had been stunned already so they would be easy to slaughter. All the animals are initially dead after stunned or electrocuted and ready to be slaughtered. This experience made me see how better and clean the atmosphere of the Halal slaughterhouse is compared with the none Halal method. Non-Halal slaughterhouses demonstrate cruelty to animals.
The animal should be hung after it is slaughtered for the food to be Halal. The reason why slaughtered animal is hung upside down is that it allows all the blood to drain away from the animal because eating blood is not Halal. It protects the meat and preserves it for a long time, so people can eat the delicious aged beef that results. The hanging method prepares the animal to be cut and cooked through facilitating removal of skin and fats. In addition, to take the extra time and costs to hang the beef, consumers would have the best flavor and tender meat. In the Halal slaughtering process, the animal must be kept away from other animals to avoid the other animals witness the process. It explains why the Halal method is the best method in slaughtering animals. This separation is intended to respect animals’ live recognizing that animals have emotions . Characteristically some believers discourse that animals are capable of ranges of emotions: happiness, empathy, sadness, curiosity, grief, anxiety, anger, and fear. The other living animals would be feeling stress if the slaughtered animal were beside them. A key rational consideration is separation of the variable of restraint stress from the reaction of the animals to the slaughter procedures. Painful or stressful methods of restraint mask the reactions of the animals to the throat cut. These are some reasons why the Halal method has a respect to animals that still live.
In Denmark, some people claimed that Halal practices are cruel to animals and are therefore being banned. The government claimed that killing an animal while it is awake is cruel and could violate animal rights. In fact, the Danish government ignores their practice in the zoo of allowing lions to kill giraffes in front of children and adults. An animal rights activist argued that this is a violation of animal rights too. However, Halal methods are in fact the best way to make the animal comfortable while killing it, in contrast to cruelty arguments. To support this point, the Halal method of slaughter, there is no changed in the EEG graph for the first three seconds after the incision is made in the scientific facts, it indicates that the animal did not feel any pain from the cut itself.
The Halal method is specifically practiced by religions that believe in the God of Abraham, Islam, and Judaism. Only those who believe religiously can say God’s name to make the meat Halal. Jews and Muslims have similar prayers intended to comfort the animal during the slaughter. The Halal process is very precise and protects animal rights through keeping animals comfortable and away from other animals being slaughtered. There are also taste benefits from the process, especially the act of hanging the animal before preparation. Halal procedure is an important practice for many Muslims and Jews and banning is not a hindrance to keep these people from being able to eat meat in accordance with their religion. The Muslim rules with respect to animals and slaughter are written in the Holy Quran. Pork, blood, and animals dying through beating, falls, goring or other damages from animals and animals dedicated to religions are all forbidden respectively. Halal food should be available everywhere because it is the best way to prepare the meat during meals and involves important religious rights. Halal food is perfect, and it has a significant process.
Works Cited
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