Is Halal the Future of Healthy GreenEating?

Various aspects of halal lifestyles appearto be converging with mainstream beliefs about the environment and health.

Vegan Kebob Meat

Photo Credit: My Little Milk Bar

When Muslims from India and Pakistan beganarriving in the United Kingdom in large numbers in the 1960s, they imported twoanxieties common to immigrants: what to eat, and where to pray. The newforeigners, usually men, sought places of worship and a dependable supply ofnutrition associated with their homelands. This included ‘halal’ food ? meatand poultry killed in accordance with Quranic guidelines derived from theteachings of the prophet Muhammad. In cities such as Leeds and Manchester,where mosques weren’t available, Muslims prayed on factory floors or worshippedin converted flats. Halal food was harder to come by. Many urbanised Muslimssought out the services of agricultural workers who had resettled in the UKafter the convulsions of empire. Men would buy chickens from farmers, formerAsian farmhands or imams, who would render the food halal.

Nearly 70 years later, few areas of modernlife remain untouched by the requirements of 2.7 million British Muslims. Oncea marginal sector (the UK was home to just 50,000 Muslims in 1939), the halalindustry now influences every aspect of the worldwide food-supply chain. Around30 per cent of the global food market is now made up of halal products. In theUK, multiple halal certification bodies compete to authenticate halalsuppliers; chains such as Nando’s, Subway and Chicken Cottage sell halal items,usually chicken, as part of their menus; and Pizza Express serves onlyhalal-certified chicken in all its 470 UK branches. Halal meat (includingpoultry) can now be found in supermarkets such as Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s.In urban centres such as London, Manchester and Liverpool, secondary schoolsoffer halal lunches to Muslim students.

For many Muslims today, this modern halalindustry feels far removed from its origins in the Arabian Peninsula. While theQuran promises ‘rivers of milk’ and ‘rivers of purified honey’, the earliestMuslims living in the austere environment of the Middle East in the seventhcentury relied mostly on limited vegetation and milk products from camels,sheep and goats. Meat production and consumption was severely restricted by thescarcity of water: camels were used to transport goods and slaughtered only incases of necessity. Arabs consumed dates and large terrestrial birds calledbustards, while the Bedouin ate grasshoppers. In coastal regions such as theGulf, Arabs ate fish. Yet even out of this austerity, early Muslims sought tocodify their religious beliefs, with ‘halal’ describing not only products butalso rituals regarded as lawful or permitted, and ‘haram’ employed to mean theopposite. This 360-degree view of Islam can be found throughout the Quran,which states that ‘Allah has permitted trade and has forbidden interest’.During the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, hunting land animals is‘forbidden’, but eating seafood is ‘lawful’. In everyday dealings, charity is ‘halal’,usury is ‘haram’; most fish is ‘halal’, pork is always ‘haram’.

link-> https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/halal-future-healthy-green-eating