[struwwelpeter]

I've worked in a lot of packing houses, in Europe and the states, and observed closely (as part of my duties) Kosher and Halal.

Kosher at least looks like it has some scientific basis - cutting through the mandibular salivary glands similar to the USDA food safety inspectors looking for calcifications (bovine TB), lots of lung and thoracic palpation. Brine bootwash I couldn't understand, but I guess that may have been an early sanitizing agent. Can't argue with 5000 years of success.

In one plant I was at, on Saturdays when the rabbis were gone (Shabat), an Albanian guy would come try to cut his own arm off. They had to build the knocking box facing Mecca for all that magic. Another plant did Sunni and Shiite Halal, and they had to build the knocking box on a hydraulic turnstyle, like in a railyard, so that they could keep adjusting Mecca and because the Shiite claimed the knife point had to face Mecca, not the steer.

Also, getting those guys to wash up after contamination and sanitizing their knives was very difficult. Had to do a lot of neck trimming after Halal.

BTW: Both Kosher and Halal caracasses had a lot of petechial hemorrhages in the meat, probably agonal processes.

[null and void]

BTW: Both Kosher and Halal caracasses had a lot of petechial hemorrhages in the meat, probably agonal processes.

Hmmmm?

We had a thread here on FR where a Kosher butcher said that when properly done (razor sharp knife, smooth draw across the throat, and avoiding having the point of the knife touch the animal) the animal would bleed out with no signs of distress, indeed, it wouldn't stop chewing a mouthful of grain as it died.

That doesn't sound even vaguely like an "agonal processes" to me.