Food Additives From Islamic Perspective

Keywords: Halal, Haram, Food Additives, Islam

Introduction

This is an attempt to describe ingredients of food produced by industrial means and other organic substances in daily use from the Islamic perspective. Until recently, a Muslim could determine in most cases without much difficulty, weather or not something is haram or helal. The holly Qur'an has succinct and clear descriptions for it. The industrialization of food processing in the 20th century, swept away many of the old (known) recipes (e.g. Bread), substituting them with machine friendly production methods. The unclear situation, makes it for the normal Muslim difficult to assess the situation. Besides, many new products have been invented (Coca Cola, chewing gum etc.) which leaves people guessing from what it is made of! This industrial products produce a twofold question mark in the heads:

• Is the product halal?
• Do I risk my health with it?

There are lots of sources available answering the second question, therefore this page devotes itself solely to "what contains this product from the islamic perspective?". The classification of each particular ingredient as haram/helal is something best left over to a clerical. Besides there are considerable differences between the fiqh of various mezhab, so I will only deal with ingredients here. For fatva please contact a knowledgeable person you know.

The translation to English leaves many glitches in style since I am not a native english speaker. It is also quite difficult to get (complete and not contradictory) information about ingredients. So if you consider yourself able to improve this page, please contact me by e-mail. My address can be found at the end of this page.

Also keep in mind, that the information presented here has been compiled for Austria, Germany and Switzerland and may not be applicable for the United States, where different regulations exist.

The page has the following structure:

• Food additives (E-numbers)
• Substances without an E-number
• Some foods in detail
• Medicines
• Toothpaste
• Soap, shampoo, cosmetic articles
• How complete is this page?
• Conclusion
• References
  

Food additives (E-numbers)

Food additives are a subsection of ingredients [GuE].

They are added to foods to ease production or improve the acceptance by the consumer. In order to standardize the substances and enable the consumer to recognize them in all states of the European Union (different languages) numbers have been introduced. Each number is made up of 'E', a 3 or 4 digit number and in some cases a letter (numbers without an E are national only). The industry must declare used food additives. This requirement is valid only for packed foods, however the industry (probably through effect on the politics) attained some waivers. The sequence of the ingredients on the food package, hints the weight wise importance of the substance [AK]. There is no requirement for foods with packages of less than 10cm ². In case of fresh vegetables and fruits, cheese, butter and whipped cream no ingredients must be declared [AK]. Flavors may be declared natural or artificial, without specifying the composition. Natural flavors are produced with physical, enzymatic or microbial methods [AK]. For some foods, containing mostly additives (like chewing gum, candies) no declaration is required at all. For foods that are not packed up (like bread), in general no ingredient list is made available. Another important problem of declarations is the restriction to ingredients added by the last producer only (not so in the USA I guess). If for example, a bakery buys a ready to use wheat mix, it is not required to declare the ingredients added by the mill! Another problematic point is the production procedure for food additives. To open cell membranes, sometimes some doubtfull substances are used. If this substances are not supposed to show up in the end product, they are not declared. I am afraid that we have to deal also with gene manipulations in the not so far future, this will prove to be elusive, since the matter is completely new (e.g.: what about pig genes in foods?) [Reg].

The following table lists substances that may be produced from animal. The table can not be considered as complete. Often there are several production methods for a single substance, so you can't be sure about its origin.

List of additives to stay away from (often made of pig):

CAUTION!: The tables below list additives that may be made from (any kind of) animal (not necessarily pig). Some of them are certainly not objectionable such as fish or egg. The reason why I left those substances in the list is to provide a through description of all additives that may be produced from animal

Table of substances that may be produced from animal:

List of substances made of sea - fruits / bacteria:

Substances without E-Numbers

The following substances may be made of animal :

Please refer to [Lis] for a comprehensive list.

Some Foods in Detail

Ice cream

Almost every ice cream contains emulsifiers (at least I never saw one without). The used emulsifiers are often of the E471/E472 type. The added fruits or chocolate sometimes contain alcohol and/or emulsifiers. Some of the used flavors may also be of concern. It is common, to re-pasteurize ice that could not be sold and mix it with other sorts. Especially chocolate ice, can be successfully mixed with other ice [Ice]

Drinks

Be sure to check the ingredients. Some include gelatin [Sof].

Chewing Gum

Some contain Glycerin!

Fruits and Vegetable

Oranges, lemons etc. and apples are often sprayed. Exotic fruits that come from far away are often treated with substances to make them last longer.

Cube sugar

I have heard that bone meal is used during production. However I couldn't verify this.

Medicaments

Most pills are made from animal substances [Bra]. Especially antibiotic capsules (generally two color) are made of gelatin. It is usual to produce gelatin from bones (often from pigs). Some capsules that open in the guts are made of synthetic material.

Is it possible to open the capsule and take out the medicine ?
It depends on the medicine. Ask your doctor if you can remove the capsule, if possible let him prescribe you medicine in tablet form.

Some alims believe, if the medicine is necessary for treatment than the ingredients are second in nature and all can be used. Despite this I wanted to write about this topic since sometimes it is possible to use an alternative.

I found the following substances (not complete):

[Lis] contains a detailed list of substances made of animals.

Toothpaste

They often contain substances from pigs (especially fat). I have seen lists of American Jewish organizations listing kosher toothpastes (they are however useless in Europe because of different brands) [GR].

Check if you can find toothpaste not containing animal substances. Maybe we should also use more often misvak, a root recommended by Muhammed SAS which can be obtained from most mosques.

Some non-islamic substances used:

Gelatin [Ani]
Bone flour [Ani]

Lard [GR]

Lauryl and sorbit substances [Lis]

Hog bristles (in natural brushes) [Ani]

Refer to [Lis] for a detailed list for substances made from animals.

Soap Shampoo, Cosmetics

Many products available today contain proteins. Proteins generally are made of slaughter remnants, blood or cadavers (dead home pets).

Detergents may contain enzymes (especially those for removing stains). Todays enzymes are produced synthetically but in the past have been made of pig stomach tissue. Some detergents contain glycerids.

Check for the following substances:

You may refer to [Lis] for a detailed list.

Non Food

There are indications, that the backside of stamps is covered by a glue that includes animal substances. To stay on the safe side, dont put stamps to your lips.

Is this information complete (and correct)?

No! This information was compiled from the references listed below. Further research is necessary to improve the information presented here. In addition to that, it is just a new page. If you can contribute please send an e-mail.

Epilog

I hope to have provided some clues that maybe helpful on your next shopping. You will probably need some extra time in the beginning to check the ingredients. However it will be next to impossible to make sure to eat only helal substances when processed foods are considered. Thus perhaps the most important rule is:

buy as much as possible foods that are unprocessed.

Try it on your own: Mix up yogurt and fruit at home and see how it looks and smells the next day. Even such a simple food is almost impossible to produce without additives. The more a food is processed the higher the chance some additives have been added.

A challenge to the islamic community is to setup a food laboratory, where for each brand the true ingredients are analyzed and made available to the community. Maybe someday we will have the necessary funds and experts.

References

Some of the links belove may not be active any more.

[AK]	Was steht drauf? Arbeiter Kammer Österreich, 1995
[Ani]	ANIMAL INGREDIENTS A TO Z, The E.G. Smith Collective
[Bra]	Do capsules and tablets contain animal products?
[Bry]	Bryngollie, 2004.
[GR]	Gida Raporu. Huseyin Kami Buyukozer. Nizam Yayinevi, 1992.
[GuE]	GU Kompaß E-Nummern, Elmadfa, Muskat/Fritzsche, Grãfe und Unzer.
[Hal]	A Guide to Halal Food Selection, Halal Foundation
[Hot]	AK-Hotline (Österreich): Wie gesund sind unsere Lebensmittel?
[Ice]	The Kashrus of Ice Cream, Rabbi David Senter
[Kos]	Ingredients and their Uses, Rabbi Edlitz
[Lis]	List of Substances Derived From Animals (rec.food.veg) (Enthält eine sehr umfangreiche Liste tierischer Stoffe)
[Leb]	Lebensmittelzutatenliste - Was bedeeuten E-Nummern?, Verbraucherzentrale Hamburg 1993
[Reg]	The Food Industry, Kosher Foods, and Modern Technology, J Regenstein, C. Regenstein.
[Sof]	Soft Drinks and Gelatine. The Vegetarian, Spring/Summer 1994
[VUK]	Vegetarian Society UK. E Numbers, Web page 1996 (Transcript from The Vegetarian Autumn 1994)
[Wash]	Waschmittel, Jörg Haidrich

e-mail tv204@yahoo.com

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