Thursday, November 18, 2010

What Halal Means In Restaurants

By Gabrielle West

A lot of us have read the word "halal" on food tags and restaurants, but not all of us know what it actually means. Our Muslim pals base their choice on this word because it indicates what is acceptable for them to buy or consume. For a country that has inhabitants with mixed religious affiliations, that term is just as critical.

Muslims in Islamic nations don't have problems eating in halal eateries and picking up halal products as most likely than not, they are halal-certified. But for those who are in nations that have various religious groups, the term is not as rampant as they would like. Good thing that more establishments are now becoming conscious of their customer's preferences.

Halal means lawful or legal. If a food label has this word on or a eatery claims they are halal-certified, it means that the preparation of their products is in accordance with the Islamic dietary law, and consequently, they are allowed to consume the items.

Just what are permitted in Islamic law? For meat products, the manner in which an animal should be slaughtered must be swift. When butchering an animal, its windpipe and gullet must be cut and done quickly.

And because there are halal or allowed items, there are also haraam or prohibited products. For starters, Muslims are forbidden to eat pork and consume alcohol. So a product or an eatery must not use those ingredients to their menu. There should also be no contamination of the items, meaning, if a knife has been used to cut a pork meal, it should not be utilized anymore to prepare a halal-approved item.

Other forbidden items include blood, carnivores or birds of prey, animals slaughtered in the name of any other god but Allah or have been committed to another god, and corpse of an animal.

Halal-certified establishments should conform to the Islamic dietary laws. And because some items are hard to determine whether they are halal or not, there are Muslim groups who certify food products as halal for buyers. Those products with halal authentication are used as ingredients by halal restaurants, just to make very certain that they are strictly following the laws.

Today, more and more restaurants not run by Muslims still make great effort to abide Islamic dietary laws. Those eateries show that they value and respect all their customers, regardless of their religious orientations.

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