Contaminated by halal!

In the news this weekend, we hear that there is outrage that some of the supposedly 'halal' food provided to Muslim prisoners in the UK includes traces of pork.

Well . . . what might we all think about that?

First of all, since I'm paying for that food, to maintain a healthy and humane lifestyle for those who have been convicted of crimes serious enough to warrant imprisonment, I would like to know that it has not imposed additional costs in its production.  I would like to see this humanity extended to the animals who are involved in the process and as a matter of principle I object to being involved in deliberate cruelty to animals in order to satisfy the savage iron-age whims of a minority.

Secondly, call me insensitive, but I think the UK has bigger fish to fry than to worry about whether a trace quantity of pork is found in the food provided free to our prisoners.  It almost makes you wonder what real news is being hidden by this mock outrage.

After all, Muslims are specifically permitted to eat food that is not halal if their lives are at risk as a consequence of not eating it.  If they are in prison, their lives would certainly be affected if they were not being fed free of charge.  So it works one way when convenient, but not the other way whenever they have an opportunity to claim their status as victims.

I'm much more bothered about another outrage though.  I'm very concerned about my own ethically sourced food, produced in a way that is actually required by legislation to minimise the suffering of the animals that we eat.

There appears to be a good chance that my food is contaminated by meat that is classified as halal, because the barbaric Islamic practice of slaughter produces more meat than the halal market requires.  For some odd reason, Islamic slaughterhouses are not required to prove that all their produce goes into the Islamic market.   They can kill as many animals as their capacity allows and send it out to other markets willy-nilly.

This is the real outrage!  Halal slaughter should simply be banned in all civilised countries - NOW!