Halal is a word in Arabic. It means “Legal, legitimate, valid”. It’s antonym is haram meaning “illegal, illegitimate, invalid”.
Pork and all food and additives containing substances of porcine origin, alcohol and blood in beverages are “haram” according to Islamic rules. Bovine and ovine animals such as cattle, sheep, chickens, turkeys are halal provided they have been slaughtered by a Muslim according to Islamic procedure in the accompaniment of the recital of allahuekber and basmala. If animals that are halal are not slaughtered according to Islamic procedure, neither their meat nor their other parts are halal.
Surah Al-Ma’idah (5:3) Al-Qur’an al-Kareem orders as follows:
“Prohibited to you are dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allah, and those animals killed by strangling or by a violent blow or by a head-long fall or by the goring of horns, and those from which a wild animal has eaten, except what you are able to slaughter before its death and those which are sacrificed on stone altars, and prohibited that you seek decision through divining arrows. Because that is erring from the right path.”
Food consumption is one of the daily essential activities of people. Halal and balanced nutrition are important for the protection of human health and for raising healthy future generations. The concept of halal food is defined as “food allowed in line with Islamic rules”. Foods of animal origin are among the most influenced foods in terms of religion and beliefs in consumption.
Milk, non-toxic plants, fruits and vegetables, dried pulses, husked seeds are defined as halal foods. In meat and meat products, birds (eg geese, poultry, turkeys, pigeons) other than predatory birds and animals with split hooves (such as cattle, sheep, camels, goats) are described as halal.
Among food items that are considered haram are pork and its products, blood, carnivorous animals such as felidae and wolves, meat and products of all reptiles, all insects except grasshoppers, the meat of dead animals, carrion, meat slaughtered in the name of anyone other than Allah and alcohol products.