Food and religion

A meaty question

Who should regulate kosher and halal food?

See article

Readers' comments



Do poor people (who spend almost 80% of their daily wage on food) also check these labels?

Very well, if they do.

but if they don’t, will they go to hell or whatever equivalent there is?

Kenneth Childers in reply to R1S8

Halal is fairly strict, but only within its borders. When halal food is not reasonably obtainable, one need not confine oneself to it. The ill and similarly situated people are exempt (if they choose to be), and it's Ok to eat non-halal food rather than go hungry. Finally, in theory, depending on the practitioner, even pork can be acceptable for Muslims to eat - although it would not be halal - since Islam allows Muslims to eat any food fit for other people of the book - basically, Jews, Christians, and probably Zoroastrians. Fellowship of the households seems to be the idea here. If you visit a friend who greases the skillet with pork fat, and the friend is Christian, you should be Ok - even if you know about it, per this exception (though admittedly most Muslims would not go that far). Finally, many minor halal rules - not eating octopus or squid, as well as the requirement that even fish should be killed the halal way - are routinely ignored.

Ernesto Simanungkalit

I think the author of this article missed out Indonesia, a country with the world's largest muslim population, as a living example of halal certification and its huge influence on domestic market.


Who should regulate kosher and halal food?
For religion with a dietary restriction, usually there is an exemption clause: If halal/kosher food isn't available, you are allow to eat non-halal/kosher food. By adding non-halal/kosher element to everything, everything is halal/kosher certified.

Kenneth Childers in reply to neutrino123

yes, but with some foods, you can personally halal it ... like the old treatments for making wine drinkable (intoxicants are generally not halal), or killing the fish the right way (fish SHOULD be killed the halal way), and so on ...

Antidot Nyarlat

Halal and Kosher are as scientifically unfounded as "living water", "Kirilan aura" or "Homeopathic remedies". It´s religious mumbo jumbo. You pay for a service you don`t need.

Au contraire, there is substantial science backing up the view that the way one kills the animal in halal and kosher slaughter causes the least suffering and allows for quickest death and maximum draining of blood which reduces the risk of the meat rotting and making you sick.
The only religious mumbo jumbo is the requirement to read a prayer while slaughtering.


It is a money-making business to define and certify what is allowed and what not. I work in the chemical commodity industry based on refinery gases and is was required that we undergo an audit on the kosherness of our chemical commodities. The argument was to avoid any issues in the US market. We talk about chemical commodities here and not food or food precursors. We had to pay a significant amount for that onsite audit and the certificate.


“Halal” pies and pasties recently served to Muslim prisoners in British jails turned out to contain traces of pork : O lucky prisoners, or is horse meat not Halal, or does it depend upon how the horse is slaughtered?
In the UK and EU and presumably the US there are already government standards concerning food content,labelling and standards of preparation: Separate chopping boards/storage, defining and labelling vegetarian and organic food, horse content in lasagna etc. These are enforced by government departments. Why should kosher and halal food standards be different? Are we suggesting that people who insist on organic, vegetarian, halal, kosher should be denied that protection?

forsize in reply to CFCHeadHunter

yes, we're saying your own food superstitions should not be given official government sanction. food safety rules that attempt to minimize health issues are legitimate. the government regulating your food superstitions is not.

Kenneth Childers in reply to forsize

But I'm entering a contract in many cases when I buy food ... thus, the government implicitly backs my ability to get wheat I'm paying for ... exact standards and disclosures can be negotiated, but I have some contractual rights here ...


The government has a legitimate interest if there's fraud. For example, if a private certifying body has a trademark, and that mark is placed on products which have not been certified by the owner of the trademark, that is fraud, not a religious matter. Whether a private certifying body is reliable is, however, an entirely private matter.

Ah Beng

The Kosher problem is at least tempered by the fact that while there is some debate on the more abstruse questions of dietary law, there is at least a unifying spectrum. Not so for Halal.
When my girlfriend discovered she had a serious shellfish allergy, I started researching the mess that is Islamic dietary law so that we could guarantee we could go out and not have her go into anaphylactic shock before the end of the first course. Turns out there are four different Sunni schools of dietary thought alone, some of which might allow shellfish and some which do not. And the Shias do something else entirely! Alas, we still have to call ahead to every Halal restaurant we go to.

Lloyd-Rosenburg in reply to Ah Beng

So? Stop complaining and dump her then. If you really loved her you wouldn't care lol p.s. thats utter b.s. ALL seafood is permitted in Islam. Infact it is one of the most-agreed upon laws. Just ask any avg. muslim you know.

Ah Beng in reply to Lloyd-Rosenburg

Why would I go through all the effort of researching if I wanted to dump her because of a food allergy?

Actually, I have asked Muslims (from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Lebanon, Iran, etc.) from all different schools. Fish are Halal and do not need to be slaughtered (except for eels) but there is considerable debate over shellfish. Since that's precisely where much of my difficulty lies, it still requires me to work on a case-by-case basis.


Q: Why would governments want to regulate halal and kosher? A: To shut down small business in favor of large corporate interests. How are they going to get around the constitution which guarantees freedom of religion and separation of church and state? Even if they could get around the constitution, they would need a small army to enforce rules that they don't comprehend.


I wish the Federal government would apply the same policy it applies to Kosher/Halal food to Organic food. The Organic movement may not consider itself a religion, but it might as well be. Tax dollars shouldn't be spent on certification beyond basic health and safety.

Dirk Gently

As this is a religious matter, I'd say that it should be attended to by people of the religion in question. People not of that religion shouldn't be obliged to spend time or money on it.

neutrino123 in reply to Dirk Gently

In Singapore, most if not all our poultry bought in the market are halal certified. As a non-Muslim that certification is meaningless to me, however I'll be paying audit and certification cost as long as I purchase those poultry. Like it or not we, people not of those religion, are involved and spending money on it too.

Lute Song

What a farce. Any so-called religion that "certifies" meat is a misnomer. We of the vegetarian persuasion beg to differ.
There are many reasons not to eat meat, the first of which is 'do no harm'. All else follows: spiritual, economic, health reasons to take other sources of protein; much healthier sources.
The fact that the mainstream religions do not condemn the eating of flesh is a fine reason to abandon them.

mav3rick in reply to Lute Song

so you want us all to eat trees like you? humans are omnivores this is how we are created and this how we adapted and grew on this planet, think about this when u talk about 'do no harm' you wouldnt be alive if ur ancestors didnt kill and eat few cows along the way.

zahidiftikhar in reply to Lute Song

Do not eat meat if you please. Just do not bother with the rest of us. And what is this 'so-called religion' stuff. The feelings of moral superiority are not what this article is about. Must you shove your feelings here?

Readeru in reply to mav3rick

Check meat analogues on google. We are not constrained to eat meat as our ancestors were. Other sources of protein are available, and frankly a lot of them have a rather good taste. This argument about ancestors is irrelevant

Sir Alex is gone long live Sir Alex

"Some countries allow products containing a small percentage of non-halal ingredients to be classed as halal"

This is not strictly true. Some schools of thought say that if you take a non-halaal substance and process it so much such that it bears no resemblance to the original source then this is permissible. Gelatine derived from the bones of animals that may not have been slaughtered halal is the best example of this.

Is mixing really the same thing as "processing?" I know an analogous concept exists in Jewish law, but the issues of how much unkosher food must be changed to become kosher and what proportion of unkosher food can be accidently mixed with kosher food are considered completely separate. Most religious Muslims I know would probably object to any quantity of pork being knowingly added to food (like the example in the article) whether or not they care strictly about gelatin.

Yeah, no one will touch it if it says pork on it. But what i was referring to is you may see a halal logo from a certifying body on something that has gelatin inside it even though the gelatin may have been derived from a non-halal source. In this case the certifying body is following the opinion that the substance has been so materially altered that it bears no resemblance to the original constituents. It makes me a bit queasy personally and I avoid. This will become more and more of a problem over time as a) more and more processed additives are added to foods to make them last longer etc and b) the number of religious opinions on this matter proliferate


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