America's Costly Halal Food

WASHINGTON — Though they concern themselves with eating halal food, American Muslims are finding it difficult to get affordable foodstuff to cater to their needs with the skyrocketing prices of Shari`ah-compliant items.

"The concept of halal food is costly," Tariq Javid, a manager at a local restaurant in Virginia, told IslamOnline.net while shopping at a halal grocery store.

"If someone is selling halal food cheap, I will think, it’s not halal."

Muslims should only eat meat from livestock slaughtered by a sharp knife from their necks, and the name of Allah, the Arabic word for God, must be mentioned.

Like fellow Muslims nationwide, finding low-priced halal food items costs Nafees Syed, a 27-year-old mother, a lot of time and effort.

"I am buying stuff other than meat and chicken from American stores like Giant, Shoppers etc., comparatively cheap, but I must buy meat and chicken from halal store," she said while shopping at the grocery store.

According to a survey by the New York¬-based advertising agency J. Walter Thompson on Muslim shopping trends, 44 percent of Muslim-Americans feel that halal food products available do not meet their needs.

Syed Sultan Ahmad, a Pakistani who worked as butcher for the past nine years, has an explanation for the costliness of the halal meat.

He says that special arrangements are needed to slaughter the animals according to Shari`ah.

"Special and trained and Muslim work force for this purpose is also costly and limited."

Ahmad says that stores also raise the prices to make up for the cost of ordering food from distant places, sometimes in other states.

"We are ordering our halal meat and chicken from Noor Halal Slaughter House in Pennsylvania," he noted.

A Must

But no matter how difficult it is to get affordable halal food, Muslims insist that it is worth the trouble.

"Being a Muslim mother this is my duty to feed my kids with halal food," says Mrs. Nafees.

"It is not possible for Muslim to follow Islam having haram (unlawful) food in their stomach."

Rab Nawaz, a butcher in the same halal grocery store where the Muslim mother was shopping, asserts that her stance matches that of many customers who come to the store.

"For American-Muslims it is a must to buy halal food, otherwise they object."

Sales of halal food are maintaining a slow but steady increase nationwide.

According to the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA), 90 percent of America's estimated seven million Muslims would want to purchase only meat that has been slaughtered by a Halal-certified butcher if it were widely available.

The Chicago-based research firm Mintel International Group estimates that approximately 5 percent of those who limit foods for religious reasons only eat foods that are Halal.

Javid, the Virginia restaurant manager, says that while American Muslims want to eat halal food, there must be ways to help them get it at affordable prices.

"There should be a price check, there should be no expire products in the stores and if some are violating the rules, there should be strict actions against them."

Yet, being an observant Muslim, Javid also agrees that till these problems are solved, he has no other option but to hunt for affordable halal food products.

"We must buy it, no matter how much costly it is."

The West went out of its way to make the slaughter of animals as humane as possible. Now here come the muslims that want them to bleed to death. A very slow death. Isn't allah a wonderful concept? Of course muslims must have "special" food.