The media storm this week regarding halal chicken on certain well known pizzas is little short of pure comedy. Only last year our newspapers were laying in to our beloved supermarkets over their decision to put horse meat in to several ready meals. Before I address the various religious arguments, I'm compelled to point out the common theme. In each instance, the general public have, of their own volition, purchased the said items. Nobody held a gun to their head - it was a free choice.
Granted, we now live in an age in which everything must be labelled to within an inch of it's life for fear of litigation but that is only one half of the transaction. Caveat emptor: Let the buyer beware! It is incumbent on all of us to spend our money in haste and repent at leisure. The counter argument has it that fore armed is fore warned. That is all well and good but with the quite staggering amount of choice to the consumer in today's world, we sometimes tend to forget that we can still question things if they actually mean that much to us.
Which brings me on to the religious arguments. Shock horror! We have been duped in to eating food especially prepared for the Muslim population. Absolute rubbish! The ready meal "scandal" was one of those stories which has just waiting to happen. Did nobody step back and wonder how the supermarkets had been generating such vast profits for so long? Did nobody stop to question the integrity of the food manufacturers whose profit margins were gradually being eroded by the greedy supermarkets?
A debate briefly surfaced a couple of weeks ago in which our Prime Minister insisted that we remain a Christian country. Since then, no less a figure than the Archbishop of Canterbury has added his voice to that of Mr. Cameron. As a church goer myself, I can only say that if this country is really still Christian, it manages to hide it admirably. That said, the Queen is still head of State and head of the church - the two long since having become quite unrelated. Can anyone claim that the UK is of this faith or that faith? That might have been possible before the wars but since then, we have embarked on a route of nihilism and hedonism.
Perhaps the real issue here is one of good old fashioned hypocrisy. It seems as though the uncompromising demands of faiths such as Islam are a little hard for us to accept. Perhaps if we followed suit and followed the faith which many of us continue to espouse (based on all recent census data), this would not even be an issue.
As far as I can recall though, the Christian tradition has seldom been a big consumer of meat anyway. Shrove Tuesday was the day when leftover bits of meat were consumed in a pancake with sweet things also being finished ahead of the fast of Lent. Meat was not consumed (Halal or otherwise) during Lent. Even when Good Friday arrived, Christians would eat fish, not meat. Jesus famously fed the five thousand with fish and loaves - no meat involved.
It's a great "story" for the Daily Mail and Nigel Farage but I'm not sure it's a story at all. Instead of going to a famous chain of restaurants to buy an over priced pizza, why not be radical and stay at home but make your own. That way, it will cost you a lot less with the added bonus that you will be master of what goes in it. The other day, we entertained a group of children aged between 6 and 9. Together, we made the pizza bases and the children made their own pizzas from base ingredients. We knew where every ingredient was from because we don't shop at the big supermarkets. Ergo, we didn't have to worry about any of the ingredients because we were able to buy them from small local independent retailers. For fear of sounding overly smug, it was a very satisfying experience. I don't know if my local butcher would know how to spell the word "halal", let alone define it. But he could tell me the name of the local farm whence our food came. You pay your money and you take your choice...
In 1943, Maslow espoused his now famous "hierarchy of needs". In it, he portrayed our human needs in a pyramid with the base representing our basic needs. These include breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis and excretion. Nowhere does he specify our need to differentiate between our food and how it was prepared. If we are stranded in the desert on the verge of starvation, it's fair to say we will eat whatever we can find. Nothing has changed.
Granted, we now live in an age in which everything must be labelled to within an inch of it's life for fear of litigation but that is only one half of the transaction. Caveat emptor: Let the buyer beware! It is incumbent on all of us to spend our money in haste and repent at leisure. The counter argument has it that fore armed is fore warned. That is all well and good but with the quite staggering amount of choice to the consumer in today's world, we sometimes tend to forget that we can still question things if they actually mean that much to us.
Which brings me on to the religious arguments. Shock horror! We have been duped in to eating food especially prepared for the Muslim population. Absolute rubbish! The ready meal "scandal" was one of those stories which has just waiting to happen. Did nobody step back and wonder how the supermarkets had been generating such vast profits for so long? Did nobody stop to question the integrity of the food manufacturers whose profit margins were gradually being eroded by the greedy supermarkets?
A debate briefly surfaced a couple of weeks ago in which our Prime Minister insisted that we remain a Christian country. Since then, no less a figure than the Archbishop of Canterbury has added his voice to that of Mr. Cameron. As a church goer myself, I can only say that if this country is really still Christian, it manages to hide it admirably. That said, the Queen is still head of State and head of the church - the two long since having become quite unrelated. Can anyone claim that the UK is of this faith or that faith? That might have been possible before the wars but since then, we have embarked on a route of nihilism and hedonism.
Perhaps the real issue here is one of good old fashioned hypocrisy. It seems as though the uncompromising demands of faiths such as Islam are a little hard for us to accept. Perhaps if we followed suit and followed the faith which many of us continue to espouse (based on all recent census data), this would not even be an issue.
As far as I can recall though, the Christian tradition has seldom been a big consumer of meat anyway. Shrove Tuesday was the day when leftover bits of meat were consumed in a pancake with sweet things also being finished ahead of the fast of Lent. Meat was not consumed (Halal or otherwise) during Lent. Even when Good Friday arrived, Christians would eat fish, not meat. Jesus famously fed the five thousand with fish and loaves - no meat involved.
It's a great "story" for the Daily Mail and Nigel Farage but I'm not sure it's a story at all. Instead of going to a famous chain of restaurants to buy an over priced pizza, why not be radical and stay at home but make your own. That way, it will cost you a lot less with the added bonus that you will be master of what goes in it. The other day, we entertained a group of children aged between 6 and 9. Together, we made the pizza bases and the children made their own pizzas from base ingredients. We knew where every ingredient was from because we don't shop at the big supermarkets. Ergo, we didn't have to worry about any of the ingredients because we were able to buy them from small local independent retailers. For fear of sounding overly smug, it was a very satisfying experience. I don't know if my local butcher would know how to spell the word "halal", let alone define it. But he could tell me the name of the local farm whence our food came. You pay your money and you take your choice...
In 1943, Maslow espoused his now famous "hierarchy of needs". In it, he portrayed our human needs in a pyramid with the base representing our basic needs. These include breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis and excretion. Nowhere does he specify our need to differentiate between our food and how it was prepared. If we are stranded in the desert on the verge of starvation, it's fair to say we will eat whatever we can find. Nothing has changed.
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