The current hullabaloo about horse meat which has been found in burger patties in some UK and Irish supermarkets is indicative of level of deception to which the mass media has risen: where Muslim and Jewish ritual slaughter is ignored but a great fuss is made over something as minor as horse meat.
The horse meat carry-on has even reached parliament, where David Heath, the farming minister announced that the Food Standards Agency is investigating how horsemeat was found in beefburger samples. Apparently they are “considering the need for legal action.”
Yet the strange thing is that the same people who make a fuss over horse meat (which is actually eaten as a regular meal in many parts of South America) refuse to say anything about the fact that most meat on UK supermarket shelves is ritually slaughtered according to bizarre Semitic rituals to appease Muslims and Jews alike.
While the Muslim halal ritual slaughter method is reasonably well-known to the public, the Jewish method of ritual slaughter, called shechita, is not. There is no reason for this, as the Muslim and Jewish methods are identical, and the lack of publicity for the shechita method of slaughter can only be ascribed to attempts to downplay it in the media.
Glimpses of the truth do however emerge every now and then, although mostly in the far left newspapers where there is less strict control on editorial content.
For example, in The Independent of 22 June 2009, an article by that paper’s consumer affairs correspondent revealed that religious slaughter by both Muslims and Jews was cruel.
“Religious slaughter techniques practised by Jews and Muslims are cruel and should be ended, says a scientific assessment from the Government’s animal welfare advisers,” the article said.
“The Farm Animal Welfare Council says that slitting the throats of the animals most commonly used for meat, chickens, without stunning, results in “significant pain and distress”. The committee, which includes scientific, agricultural and veterinary experts, is calling for the Government to launch a debate with Muslim and Jewish communities to end the practice.”
This call was echoed by the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe, who in an official paper on the topic, reviewed the scientific aspects of slaughter without prior stunning, in relation to animal welfare and food hygiene.
“FVE is of the opinion that from an animal welfare point of view, and out of respect for an animal as a sentient being, the practice of slaughtering animals without prior stunning is unacceptable under any circumstances, for the following reasons:
“Slaughter without stunning increases the time to loss of consciousness, sometimes up to several minutes. During this period of consciousness the animal can be exposed to unnecessary pain and suffering due to:
– exposed wound surfaces;
– the possible aspiration of blood and, in the case of ruminants, rumen content;
– the possible suffering from asphyxia after severing the n. phrenicus and n. vagus.
“Slaughter without prior stunning requires in most cases additional restraint, which may cause additional stress to an animal that is almost certainly already frightened.”
Not surprisingly, most European governments have backed down from banning ritual slaughter outright, mostly out of fear of offending Jews.
Nonetheless, kosher and halal ritual slaughter is, by any normal person’s measure, a barbaric and horrific way of slaughtering an animal, as the shechita video below demonstrates well.
It is good that people are upset that they have been sold horse meat instead of beef, but it would be even better if they rose up and objected to the fact that the rest of the meat they buy in supermarkets is slaughtered in this primitive and downright evil way.