Halal food in non Muslim Countries

Society Religion & Philosophy
1

ASalam O Alaikom,

I have a question, I will ask the sharaee perspective of this issue from a Mufti when I get the opportunity, but want to know the views of people on this forum as I believe many people here would have far greater first hand experience of this issue then me , cause I live in Pakistan & the availability of Halal food is not a concern at all here.

Lately have been traveling for work to some european countries, I dont spend a lot of time at a single place

The practice that I follow for halal food is that I look up for halal places on internet e.g zabihah.com - your guide to halal eating, I trust the reviews of halalness of people on these websites
in addition to that if I find some place that appears to be owned by muslims for instance I generally find a lot of kebab places in here, I ask the owner if the food is halal - if the person is a muslim & they say that the food is halal i trust them - but I have no way to verify whether they are lying or saying the truth.

For non-muslims places I only eat veg or fish, I do ensure that the ingredients of the food do not contain any obvious non halal components but i cannot verify details like for instance if they are using the same utinsils for cooking veg / seafood as non-halal food or if any of the ingredients have any non-halal component , frankly before this I didnt even realize that there are certain preservatives etc. that may compose of non halal ingredients.

I did not have these considerations before was chatting with a friend & he made me realize about this. Inshallah I will try to be more careful now but I want to know what practices people here specially those who live in non muslim countries use for ensuring they are not consuming non halal foods.

Jazakallah khair

2

Re: Halal food in non Muslim Countries

Correction … Halal food in Pakistan is just as much as a concern in fact more so … it is because in Pakistan it is taken for granted … Please make sure that all animals are slaughtered in front of you in the correct manner.

HMC are UK’s halal quality monitoring service - voluntary but their methods of inspection are reliable so it is possible with a bit of travel and more expense to get true halal food here …

However, it is not necessary for a Muslim to eay meat … so there is no reason to obtain any dispensation … one can survive on vegetarian food. Only if there is a medical need to eat meat and one lives in an area where there is no halal meat to be found then fatawa are required.

Peace

Check here for meat shops, take aways/restaurants and products under HMC certification in the UK only.

Gawalmandi - A taste of History
3

I disagree with you as we had some problems when in shops we found food stuff from Thailand and european countries which we do not eat here in europe due to haram additives and people use them in Pakistan without knowing.

Here I know what to buy and where to buy but It was different back home as we were checking all the imported items for Haram additives.

Now your question about Halal in Europe. I am (many others also are ) very much carefull eating at bosnian / turkish kebab shops. They just say Halal when it means that animal is Halal but not slughtered according to Islamic Shariah Law.