Re: Gatorade is HARAAM!
Assalam O Alaikum Sadiyah
Your opinion is not correct, are you going to trust those 800 numbers operators and e-mails from the food companies who do not know what is Halal means, how could you trust them. It needs professioinal Muslims to guide Muslims based on their education in food science and their food industry experience. There only three Muslims food scientists in US who take the task of teaching US food industry about Halal foods requirements through professional food magazines. There only two Halal food web sites out of so many in US who run by US food industry Muslim food professionals. The food company provides information to their consumer affairs department for common consumer, for example they never provide alcohol information because every non Muslim consumer drink alcohol, it does not matter to them whether the food conatins alcohol or not. For specific group such as Muslims and vegetarian they have to get additional information from technical people within the company. You have to have ability to question in a right way to these consumer affair people. For example if you ask them "is there any alcohol in the food" they will look at ingredients statement and then say "No" because it is not there. Alcohol in flavor is a hidden ingredient, then you have to ask " is alcohol is used in flavors as a solvent" they have no information about it because only the flavor house who provide flavors to a food company and the technical people who formulate the products, QA and technical service people know about it because it is come with flavor specification or fact sheet which indicates which non flavoring solvent or carrier was use in the flavor. Carmine color comes from beettles and all insects except locust are Haram for Muslims of Hanafi Mazhab. FD&C colors in liquid form can be made with pork glycerin as a solvent, this information is not availbel at customer service departments.
So you need the help from professional Halal food web sites.
Syed Rasheeduddin Ahmed