Thursday, February 25, 2010

Significance Of Halal Labels On Food And Eateries

By Rachel West

A lot of us have seen the word "halal" on food labels and restaurant establishments, but not all of us know what it actually means. Our Muslim brothers and sisters base their selection on this term because it signifies what is permitted for them to buy or consume. For a country that has citizens with mixed religious groups, 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 aware of their customer's orientations.

The word halal simply means legal, which implies that if an eating establishment claims they are halal-certified or a food product has this term on its tag, the preparation of their items is in accordance with the Islamic law. Muslims, therefore, are permitted to use or consume the product.

So what is allowed in Islamic law? There are a number of guidelines, but let's start with how a meat should be prepared. An animal should be slaughtered by cutting its windpipe and gullet quickly. This method of ritual slaughter is believed to kill instantaneously and painlessly.

And because there are halal or permitted items, there are also haraam or forbidden products. To start with, Muslims are forbidden to feed on pork and consume intoxicants. 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 used any longer to prepare a halal-approved item.

Haraam items also consist of blood, birds of prey or carnivores, animals butchered in the name of any god but Allah, corpse of an animal, or those that have been dedicated to another idol.

Halal-certified establishments should conform to the Islamic dietary laws. And because some items are difficult to determine whether they are halal or not, there are Muslim groups who certify food items as halal for consumers. Those products with halal certification are used as ingredients by halal eateries, just to make very sure that they are thoroughly observing the laws.

Nowadays, more and more eateries not run by Muslims still make great effort to follow Islamic dietary laws. Those eateries show that they honor and respect all their consumers, regardless of their religious orientations.

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