Lexi,
Aside from not knowing how meat is obtained, some don't know milk comes from animals, or eggs from chooks.

These people are better off not knowing that fish die when taken from the water or how black pudding is made or what tripe originally was.

Then there is sausage skin.

Who was it that said 'people who like law and sausage should not watch either being made'

But that is nothing to what some cultures consume.

Dear Banjo,

Damn straight on that one that's for sure. Better not to know in some cases either. I remember being at a dinner-party of an Indian colleague of my husband's in Los Angeles and being offered with pre-dinner drinks something that I thought were walnuts. They were crunchy and tasted quite nutty - and I complimented our host. He was thrilled and told me that he was delighted that I liked the delicacy of his grasshoppers.

AS deputy director of the Islamic Research Centre at Griffith University, Halim Rane knows a great deal about Muslim culture.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/debate-on-sharia-law-sign-of-healthy-democracy/story-e6frg97x-1226068250656

And in his view, Australia's Muslims do not need nor want sharia law.

"Ikebal Patel has expressed his view, but others from his own community have disagreed with that. And that is a healthy thing," Dr Rane said. "It shows that it is not something a majority of Muslims desire."

Like some other leaders of the Muslim community, Dr Rane had been surprised by the push for sharia. He was also surprised it had originated with the president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ikebal Adam Patel.

"I don't know Ikebal Patel to be inclined towards this type of discourse. I didn't think he was one of those promoting sharia, or separate laws or legal pluralism or anything like that," Dr Rane said.

Dr Rane, who specialises in relations between Islam and the West, believes sharia is not needed because state and federal law already meet "the higher objectives of Islamic law".


He makes the point that the reason sharia arose was to bring law and order to the Arabian peninsula at a time when there was an absence of law.

"But the fact of the matter is that we do have a legal system here that provides all of the rights, protections and freedoms that people need to maximise their benefits and protect them from harm, which essentially is what all legal systems are about," he said.

Dr Rane, who is also a lecturer at the National Centre of Excellence in Islamic Studies, said he was unaware of any significant push within the Australian Muslim community for sharia law.

He said the community needed to be very cautious when considering transplanting laws developed in the ninth or 10th century to a modern society.

"I suspect it could lead to injustices; outcomes that are contrary to the intent of law in the first place," Dr Rane said.

click on link to continue reading..

End 'cruel' religious slaughter, say scientists

Beasts should be stunned before their throats are slit, Jews and Muslims are told

By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent

Monday, 22 June 2009

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/end-cruel-religious-slaughter-say-scientists-1712241.html


Meat Hygiene Service suggested 114 million animals were killed under halal and 2.1 million under kosher methods each year in Britain

ALAMY

Meat Hygiene Service suggested 114 million animals were killed under halal and 2.1 million under kosher methods each year in Britain
Religious slaughter techniques practiced by Jews and Muslims are cruel and should be ended, says a scientific assessment from the Government's animal welfare advisers.

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.

One Muslim organization, the Halal Food Authority, already insists on the slaughterhouses it regulates stunning animals first on welfare grounds, as long as they are still alive when their throats are slit. But in other halal and almost all kosher slaughterhouses, animals have their throats slit without prior stunning which would render them insensible to the pain. Religious groups say that doing so would be against their interpretation of religious texts.

"Such a large cut will inevitably trigger sensory input to pain centres in the brain," the council said. "Our conclusions ... are that such an injury would result in significant pain and distress ... before insensibility supervenes. Fawc is in agreement with the prevailing scientific consensus that slaughter without pre-stunning causes pain and distress. On the basis that this is avoidable and in the interests of welfare, Fawc concludes that all birds should be pre-stunned before slaughter."

....

In the 70s the abbs; i worked in done both Halal & Cosha, under the supervision of the respective countries people. There was no problem with the stunning of the animal by bolt gun for cattle, and electric jab for sheep.
The abbs; Indonesian style, are pretty sad enterprises. Dealing with a foreign country on how they conduct their processing may be a big order.
The more stress caused to an animal at the point of slaughter, reflects in the quality of meat after rigor-mortus. It would be in their own interest for the animal to be stunned before slaughter.
All of these cattle from AU,s north should be slaughtered and quartered in AU. The whole shippment and handling of these cattle, which have had little to none involvement with human-beings is all wrong.
Northern cattle should be shipped south, rested and lot fed for four months before slaughter.

597, those cattle can't be moved south, the numbers don't stack up.
Bos Indicus is regarded as second grade meat, unlike Angus etc.
They don't like cold weather either.

The first thing that needs to happen is for MLA to start replacing
their 100 boxes with some that actually work properly, which I
gather they are in the process of doing. Whoever was in charge
of that programme has some explaining to do.

Secondly they need to get some cattle moving, or there will
be an animal welfare disaster in the North. Stations need money
to buy minerals, pump water etc. We'll find out in a few days
wether the Indonesians will even issue permits for Australian
cattle, when present permits run out on June 30th. The grapevine
claims that they are telling importers to source elsewhere. That
would be a disaster for our industry, with lots of suffering for
the livestock involved. Unintended consequences are seldom
considered in these matters, but its the animals that pay the price.

The premise that things cannot change and that people cannot learn
in the 3rd world, is a flawed one. Given that they learnt to use
Twitter and Facebook to stage their revolutions, its clearly not
the case.

We clearly have to accept our share of the blame. We installed those
crappy boxes, which clearly are a good deal of the problem.

The Dept of Agriculture, which audits what MLA does and how it
spends its money, has some explaining to do as well.