Religion News Service | By OMAR SACIRBEY HUFFINGTON POST
(RNS) When McDonald’s announced it would discontinue the sale of halal chicken nuggets and chicken sandwiches at two restaurants earlier this week, it brought to light a thorny issue riling the Muslim-American community: inconsistent halal standards and fraudulent advertising and marketing of Islamically permitted products.
The United States is now home to thousands of halal-compliant food industry businesses, offering Muslim Americans a choice of offerings and convenience that earlier generations could only have imagined.
But this booming halal market is often accompanied by a lack of consensus about what constitutes halal — and that has caused confusion and controversy among Muslim Americans. In addition, several well-publicized incidents of fraud have left halal consumers vulnerable to unscrupulous merchants and suspicious about the sources of the products they are buying.
These problems surfaced when McDonald’s announced it would discontinue halal nuggets and sandwiches at two restaurants in Dearborn, Mich. The decision follows a 2011 lawsuit alleging McDonald’s falsely advertised non-halal chicken as halal. In January, McDonald’s paid $700,000 to settle the suit, but denied any wrongdoing.
It is not the first such settlement. In 2011, the Orange County, Calif., district attorney obtained a $527,000 settlement against the Super King Market in Anaheim, alleging the store falsely advertised generic and mixed meat as halal. The store denied wrongdoing.
“There is a lot of cheating,” said Syed Rasheeduddin Ahmed, founder of the Muslim Consumer Group, a halal certification and educational group in Huntley, Ill. “I am glad McDonald’s stopped the so-called halal chicken because they are not real halal.”
In part, the problem stems from the explosion of products racing to meet growing market demands.
READ MORE HERE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/27/halal-food-fraud_n_3513016.html?ir=Religion
McHalal Donald
Categories: Americas, United States
Wrong link to the main story.
Sorry, now corrected:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/27/halal-food-fraud_n_3513016.html?ir=Religion
Much ado about nothing.Muslims can eat People of the Book’s supplied meat.Moreover, there is fish sandwich in every fast food place.
American Arabs have bigger problem & issues to tackle.
They need to organize & try to to elect Arab congressional leaders. There is not a single elected Arab US senator/House Rep. in MI.
They should condemn terrorism by Arabs.
They should worry about human right violation in ARAB countries.
All Muslims blame others for their problems & Arabs are no exception.
The Arab Christians in US are more educated, advanced & have more political clout.
The head of the Arab-American Group, Mr James Zogby
who is Christian, regularly defends Islamic causes.
Muslims (Arab & non-Arab)have never criticized Sudanese Muslim leaders for slaughtering Christians in Darfur.They have not pointed to persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt.Their major hobby is America-bashing & crying discrimination after every failure.
A small correction: most inhabitants of Darfur are Muslims, not Christians. They are African (non-Arab) Muslims.
Best not to eat halal. It is fake.
Avoid meat. Become vegetarian.