Running blood and meat slaughter
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Peace
The verses of the Quran are clear that running blood (i.e. blood in the arteries) is forbidden for us to eat. It is also clear that the sectarian method of slaughter is not mentioned in the Quran.
HOWEVER, how does one reduce the running blood in the animal? Presumably slaughter through cutting the carotid artery (carries blood from the heart to the brain) is a good way to do this.
How does stunning (the dominant method of animal slaughter in Europe) allow for this?
Roshan
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peace,
As far as I'm aware, stunning the animal simply knocks it out, thus when their throat is cut, the blood still gushes out like normal/conscious, hence drains most of it. In terms of what method drains most blood, or if there is a significant difference conscious or unconscious, I'm not sure.
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... a new study conducted at the University of Bristol has proved that stunning does not affect the "bleed-out" in sheep or cattle. In fact, the blood of animals who are stunned prior to slaughter drains at the same rate as that of animals who are slaughtered while they are still conscious and able to feel pain.
http//www.islamicconcern.com/feat-halalslaughter.asp
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... a new study conducted at the University of Bristol has proved that stunning does not affect the "bleed-out" in sheep or cattle. In fact, the blood of animals who are stunned prior to slaughter drains at the same rate as that of animals who are slaughtered while they are still conscious and able to feel pain.
http//www.islamicconcern.com/feat-halalslaughter.asp
Peace
Thanks Wakas and Leyna.
Yes, I was unsure of exactly this issue concerning exsanguination. However, Leyna, can't get up your study. But what I wanted to know whether the stunning itself terminates the cardiovascular system. It seemingly does not.
Roshan
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Halal-standard slaughtering doesn't need animals awake
"He has only forbidden you dead meat and blood, and the flesh of swine and that on which any other name has been invoked besides that of God." (The Koran, 2173)
Muslim religious law requires, among other things, that an animal must be drained of blood before it is halal - permissible for consumption. Ritual slaughter according to Jewish dietary law - shechita - has the same prescription. Most Muslim slaughterers believe that drainage will only be complete if the throat of the animal is slit without stunning it first, but now Haluk Anil of the University of Bristol, UK, and colleagues have shown that the amount of blood drained from the animal, and the rate of blood loss, is the same regardless of whether or not it is stunned first.
Anil's team have already shown that stunning does not affect "bleed-out" in sheep. Now they have done the same thing in cattle. They measured the bleed-out in 13 cattle killed by the tradition Muslim method, and 13 killed in the same way, but having first been stunned by a captive-bolt-pistol blow to the head (Animal Welfare, vol 15, p 325).
"Stunning does not impede blood loss, therefore this objection cannot be used any more," says Anil, who is coordinating a European Union project to examine legislation and welfare issues related to religious slaughter, both shechita and halal.
http//www.newscientist.com/article/dn10712-halalstandard-slaughtering-doesnt-need-animals-awake.html
Animals feel the pain of religious slaughter
Brain signals have shown that calves appear to feel pain when slaughtered according to Jewish and Muslim religious law (Image Alex Segre / Rex Features)
Brain signals have shown that calves do appear to feel pain when slaughtered according to Jewish and Muslim religious law, strengthening the case for adapting the practices to make them more humane.
"I think our work is the best evidence yet that it's painful," says Craig Johnson, who led the study at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Johnson summarised his results last week in London when receiving an award from the UK Humane Slaughter Association. His team also showed that if the animal is concussed through stunning, signals corresponding to pain disappear.
The findings increase pressure on religious groups that practice slaughter without stunning to reconsider. "It provides further evidence, if it was needed, that slaughtering an animal without stunning it first is painful," says Christopher Wathes of the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council, which has long argued for the practice to end.
Stunning result
In most western countries, animals must be stunned before they are slaughtered, but there is an exemption for religious practice, most prominently Jewish shechita and Muslim dhabiha. Animal welfare groups have long argued that on welfare grounds, the exemptions should be lifted, as they have been in Norway.
Johnson's work, funded by the UK and New Zealand agriculture ministries, builds on findings in human volunteers of specific patterns of brain electrical activity when they feel pain. Recorded with electroencephalograms, the patterns were reproducible in at least eight other mammal species known to be experiencing pain.
Johnson developed a way of lightly anaesthetising animals so that although they experienced no pain, the same electrical pain signals could be reliably detected, showing they would have suffered pain if awake.
The team first cut calves' throats in a procedure matching that of Jewish and Muslim slaughter methods. They detected a pain signal lasting for up to 2 minutes after the incision. When their throats are cut, calves generally lose consciousness after 10 to 30 seconds, sometimes longer.
Cut-throat practice
The researchers then showed that the pain originates from cutting throat nerves, not from the loss of blood, suggesting the severed nerves send pain signals until the time of death. Finally, they stunned animals 5 seconds after incision and showed that this makes the pain signal disappear instantly.
"It wasn't a surprise to me, but in terms of the religious community, they are adamant animals don't experience any pain, so the results might be a surprise to them," says Johnson.
He praised Muslim dhabiha practitioners in New Zealand and elsewhere who have already adopted stunning prior to slaughter. They use a form of electrical stunning which animals quickly recover from if not slaughtered, proving that the stunned animal is "healthy", thereby qualifying as halal.
Pressure drop
Representatives for both faiths responded by claiming that stunning itself hurts animals. A spokesman for Shechita UK says that the throat cut is so rapid that it serves as its own "stun", adding that there is abundant evidence shechita is humane.
"Shechita is instantaneous, and due to the immediate drop in blood pressure and of the brain, the animal loses consciousness within 2 seconds," he says. "It conforms to the statutory definition of stunning, in that it is a process which causes the immediate loss of consciousness which lasts until death."
Ahmed Ghanem, a halal slaughterman based in New Zealand, says that blood doesn't drain properly from stunned animals, although this has been countered by recent research at the University of Bristol in the UK.
Ghanem cites a 1978 study relying on EEG measurements led by Wilhelm Schulze of the University of Hanover, Germany, apparently concluding that halal slaughter was more humane than slaughter following stunning. But Schulze himself, who died in 2002, warned in his report that the stunning technique may not have functioned properly.
Journal reference New Zealand Veterinary Journal, vol 57, p 77
http//www.newscientist.com/article/dn17972-animals-feel-the-pain-of-religious-slaughter.html?full=true&print=true
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Halal-standard slaughtering doesn't need animals awake
"He has only forbidden you dead meat and blood, and the flesh of swine and that on which any other name has been invoked besides that of God." (The Koran, 2173)
Muslim religious law requires, among other things, that an animal must be drained of blood before it is halal - permissible for consumption. Ritual slaughter according to Jewish dietary law - shechita - has the same prescription. Most Muslim slaughterers believe that drainage will only be complete if the throat of the animal is slit without stunning it first, but now Haluk Anil of the University of Bristol, UK, and colleagues have shown that the amount of blood drained from the animal, and the rate of blood loss, is the same regardless of whether or not it is stunned first.
Anil's team have already shown that stunning does not affect "bleed-out" in sheep. Now they have done the same thing in cattle. They measured the bleed-out in 13 cattle killed by the tradition Muslim method, and 13 killed in the same way, but having first been stunned by a captive-bolt-pistol blow to the head (Animal Welfare, vol 15, p 325).
"Stunning does not impede blood loss, therefore this objection cannot be used any more," says Anil, who is coordinating a European Union project to examine legislation and welfare issues related to religious slaughter, both shechita and halal.
http//www.newscientist.com/article/dn10712-halalstandard-slaughtering-doesnt-need-animals-awake.html
Animals feel the pain of religious slaughter
Brain signals have shown that calves appear to feel pain when slaughtered according to Jewish and Muslim religious law (Image Alex Segre / Rex Features)
Brain signals have shown that calves do appear to feel pain when slaughtered according to Jewish and Muslim religious law, strengthening the case for adapting the practices to make them more humane.
"I think our work is the best evidence yet that it's painful," says Craig Johnson, who led the study at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Johnson summarised his results last week in London when receiving an award from the UK Humane Slaughter Association. His team also showed that if the animal is concussed through stunning, signals corresponding to pain disappear.
The findings increase pressure on religious groups that practice slaughter without stunning to reconsider. "It provides further evidence, if it was needed, that slaughtering an animal without stunning it first is painful," says Christopher Wathes of the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council, which has long argued for the practice to end.
Stunning result
In most western countries, animals must be stunned before they are slaughtered, but there is an exemption for religious practice, most prominently Jewish shechita and Muslim dhabiha. Animal welfare groups have long argued that on welfare grounds, the exemptions should be lifted, as they have been in Norway.
Johnson's work, funded by the UK and New Zealand agriculture ministries, builds on findings in human volunteers of specific patterns of brain electrical activity when they feel pain. Recorded with electroencephalograms, the patterns were reproducible in at least eight other mammal species known to be experiencing pain.
Johnson developed a way of lightly anaesthetising animals so that although they experienced no pain, the same electrical pain signals could be reliably detected, showing they would have suffered pain if awake.
The team first cut calves' throats in a procedure matching that of Jewish and Muslim slaughter methods. They detected a pain signal lasting for up to 2 minutes after the incision. When their throats are cut, calves generally lose consciousness after 10 to 30 seconds, sometimes longer.
Cut-throat practice
The researchers then showed that the pain originates from cutting throat nerves, not from the loss of blood, suggesting the severed nerves send pain signals until the time of death. Finally, they stunned animals 5 seconds after incision and showed that this makes the pain signal disappear instantly.
"It wasn't a surprise to me, but in terms of the religious community, they are adamant animals don't experience any pain, so the results might be a surprise to them," says Johnson.
He praised Muslim dhabiha practitioners in New Zealand and elsewhere who have already adopted stunning prior to slaughter. They use a form of electrical stunning which animals quickly recover from if not slaughtered, proving that the stunned animal is "healthy", thereby qualifying as halal.
Pressure drop
Representatives for both faiths responded by claiming that stunning itself hurts animals. A spokesman for Shechita UK says that the throat cut is so rapid that it serves as its own "stun", adding that there is abundant evidence shechita is humane.
"Shechita is instantaneous, and due to the immediate drop in blood pressure and of the brain, the animal loses consciousness within 2 seconds," he says. "It conforms to the statutory definition of stunning, in that it is a process which causes the immediate loss of consciousness which lasts until death."
Ahmed Ghanem, a halal slaughterman based in New Zealand, says that blood doesn't drain properly from stunned animals, although this has been countered by recent research at the University of Bristol in the UK.
Ghanem cites a 1978 study relying on EEG measurements led by Wilhelm Schulze of the University of Hanover, Germany, apparently concluding that halal slaughter was more humane than slaughter following stunning. But Schulze himself, who died in 2002, warned in his report that the stunning technique may not have functioned properly.
Journal reference New Zealand Veterinary Journal, vol 57, p 77
http//www.newscientist.com/article/dn17972-animals-feel-the-pain-of-religious-slaughter.html?full=true&print=true
Peace,
Just wanted to add my two cents. There are different studies on the non stunning method issue and there is no real consensus on the issue. To read another viewpoint that partially critiques the study you cited, look here http//www.grandin.com/ritual/slaughter.without.stunning.causes.pain.html
I would at least advocate low level stunning used by the halal folks in New Zealand just to avoid the risk of having had animals suffer. This is assuming that this does not carry any other outstanding risks, which I know there is some controversy concerning the risks of captive bolt stunning.
Peace
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Peace It seems that stunning is an advancement from not stunning. I was not aware of all the issues until now. I think some Muslims reject stunning because they feel it kills the animal (or something along those lines). However, stunning is not a 'blow to the head' and does not violate any of the Quranic issues.
It is interesting how the sectarians, with their plethora of hadith, imams, fatwas etc. cannot adopt to a modern practice. The Quran lays down the principles and hence is adaptable to technology.
Roshan
