This academic work is entitled “Influence of the Slaughter Method on the Hygienic Quality of Beef Cattle Meat and Animal Welfare Biomarkers” and has been developed by Said Bouzraa Tahiri, a graduate in Chemistry and Veterinary Medicine and Director of Auditing, Inspection and Control at Instituto Halal.
Said Bouzraa Tahiri, originally from Morocco, but of Spanish nationality and based in Cordoba, holds a degree in Chemistry from the University Mohamed I of Oujda in 1998. In 2005, he also ob
tained a degree in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Cordoba (UCO).
Since 2007, he has been the director of the audit, inspection and control department of Instituto Halal.
He has been invited to numerous events, forums, congresses and trainings on the Halal industry and market in various parts of the world, such as Indonesia, Holland, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Italy, Kuwait, Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Turkey, Germany, United Kingdom and Croatia.
He is currently participating in one of the doctoral programmes hosted by the University of Cordoba and, in fact, on 10 March 2023, he published the first of a series of scientific articles that he is expected to develop within the framework of this academic programme together with several professors and specialist lecturers from this university.
The recently published article is entitled “Influence of Slaughter Method on the Hygienic Quality of Beef and Biomarkers of Animal Welfare”.
The original text has been published in English through Animals, an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal devoted entirely to animals, including zoology and veterinary sciences, and disseminated online every six months by MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute), a publisher of open access scientific journals with article processing charges based in Basel, Switzerland.
The study
The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of slaughter method on meat microbiology and physiological animal welfare indicators for cattle.
Three slaughter procedures were compared, namely conventional slaughter (with penetrating captive bolt stunning), halal slaughter (without stunning) and halal slaughter with non-penetrating captive bolt stunning (reversible stunning accepted by some halal religious authorities).
In its conclusions section, the study highlights that halal slaughter with reversible stunning showed the best results for microbial counts (enterobacteria and coliforms) and for biomarkers considered for animal welfare (lactate dehydrogenase, glucose and creatine kinase; however, this method of animal slaughter showed the highest amount of cortisol.
Summary
The main objective of this research was to carry out a comparative study between different types of slaughter, with and without stunning, used in cattle destined for meat production. In addition, the hygienic quality of the meat obtained was determined by microbiological analysis and animal welfare at slaughter was assessed by physiological parameters. A total of 52 blood samples were taken from animals during slaughter in an approved slaughterhouse (10 for each type of slaughter: regular, halal and halal with stunning; 10 during resting time and 12 inside the rotating slaughter box). They were analysed by means of physiological parameters indicating the degree of animal welfare, namely glucose, cortisol, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and creatine kinase (CK). In addition, meat from 30 of the above-mentioned animals was analysed for mesophilic aerobic bacteria, enterobacteria and coliforms. In addition, a radiological study of possible cranial damage due to the non-penetrating captive bolt used at the time of stunning during halal slaughter was performed. A significant difference (p < 0.05) was observed in the microbiological counts for each type of slaughter. Plasma glucose, LDH, CK and cortisol were found to be influenced (p < 0.05) by slaughter type. Halal slaughter using non-penetrating captive bolt stunning resulted in the best hygienic meat quality and had the lowest values for all biomarkers of animal welfare.
The full article can be found here.