KOSHER MEAT
I am currently reading Prof. Tim Spector’s book, Food for Life. It is a fascinating and deeply informative account of all aspects of the food we eat and its impact on our health and our planet.
In his chapter on meat and poultry, Specter alerts us to the potential risks associated with consuming meat and poultry that has been reared on an industrial scale.
It is well-known that kosher meat is more expensive. As well as the costs of employing special slaughterers – shochtim – we should also bear in mind that the kosher market sources healthier animals that are more expensive. We do this so that there are fewer problems of ‘treifa’ – the animal being found unfit for consumption after shechita. Nevertheless, it also has the effect of reducing some of the issues raised by Tim Spector.
Kosher meat and poultry can only be eaten if the animal or bird has been killed through Shechita.
The source for this is a verse in this week’s parasha:
“You may slaughter from your cattle and sheep…as I have commanded you.” (Devarim 12:21)
The precise method has been handed down, by Oral Tradition, since Moses.
UK law requires an animal to be stunned before regular slaughter. The mechanical methods that are used are captive bolts for large animals. The animal is shot in the head by a steel bolt that renders it unconscious. Smaller animals are stunned by gas or electric calipers. Poultry are first shackled upside-down and then receive an electric shock by immersing their heads in a water-trough through which a voltage is passed. These methods are not perfect and there is a percentage of times where the stun or electric shock has failed and the animals suffers in pain before the bolt-gun is reloaded, or the electric tongs reapplied.
A kosher animal/bird must be healthy and uninjured at the time of shechita. All the mechanical methods outlined above are forbidden in shechita because they cause injuries to the animal or bird before slaughter. It must also be definite that the animal has been slaughtered by shechita alone and its death is not caused by, or in conjunction with, another method.
The law in the UK recognises that these stunning methods are not permitted for kosher food and legislates for shechita to be exempted from such stunning, provided the animal is ‘shechted’ by a duly licensed Shochet. When the shechita incision is made, it severs the major organs, arteries and veins, thereby causing a massive and immediate drop in blood-pressure in the brain. At the moment that blood-flow to the brain is lost, all awareness ceases and there can be no recovery from unconsciousness. Thus, although shechita is not a conventional stun, it provides the equivalent.
We make no claim that shechita is the most humane method of slaughter. It is, however, a humane method and justly protected in law. Eating kosher fulfils a divine command and links us with thousands of years of Jewish history.
For further information: https://www.shechitauk.org/