Following on from the previous week’s scaremongering front-page story, the Mail returned this weekend to the subject of halal meat.

We were in fact treated to two stories, “How 70% of New Zealand lamb imports to Britain are halal… but this is NOT put on the label” in Saturday’s issue and “Top supermarkets secretly sell halal: Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, and M&S don’t tell us meat is ritually slaughtered” in the Mail on Sunday.

Saturday’s report states at the end: “The trade body Beef & Lamb New Zealand said the form of halal slaughter used there does allow for the animals to be stunned. A spokesman said: ‘In New Zealand the process for halal slaughter is virtually the same as for non-halal slaughter’.”

In fact, earlier this year New Zealand imposed a legal requirement that all animals killed for commercial consumption must be stunned prior to slaughter.

Inayat Bunglawala tells us that he was contacted by the Mail for a comment and gave them the following quote:

“Supermarkets should not be afraid of labelling their products as Halal. Consumers – despite risible tabloid scare antics – are quite capable of appreciating that in a globalised world meat is sourced from many different quarters and that halal meat tastes just the same as non-halal meat. It is just that with halal meat the method of slaughter is with a sharp knife instead of a gun and that the name of God is recited over the animal in order to give thanks to God for providing us with food.”

And how does the quote appear in the Mail on Sunday? Like this: “Supermarkets should not be afraid of labelling their products as halal. Halal meat tastes just the same as non-halal meat.”

Predictably, the Mail reports are seized on by mad Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs: “In a little-known strike against freedom, yet again, we are being forced into consuming meat slaughtered in a barbaric, torturous and inhuman method, Islamic slaughter. Ugh.”