@Zeuhl "That works on the assumption that their processes are applied consistently and achieve what they are supposed to do in terms of stunning etc
I doubt if that is the case in any of the large, industrialised slaughterhouses"
But is that a fair assumption? i have no experience of large slaughterhouses, although i have worked in a small one for a time as a teenager. Industrialisation and large scale processes lend themselves to standardisation of approach, since that tends to be the most efficient and cost effective method, consistent with the various rules and regulations surrounding the operation.
Given that stunning of animals is a pre-condition of slaughterhouses, legislated by statute and enforced by inspection from Vets etc - why is your assumption a fair one?
Or should we just assume that any large scale process automatically circumvents the rules and procedures, and that this is the way it is and we just have to live with it?
I understand the arguments of the kosher/halal proponents wrt suffering or lack of it to the animals - but I do not accept it. I simply do not believe it, and meat produced from slaughter without stunning should be clearly labelled as such. What concerns me more is that there appears to be a disparity between most muslim understanding of halal meat - ie the animal is not pre-stunned - and official reports which say the majority of animals slaughtered in that fashion are stunned. But other links and comments suggest that even when stunning is carried out in a halal environment, it may be stunning as the average consumer might understand it.
There is confusion here, and a kind of complicity about the labelling or lack of it that i dislike.