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School System in Michigan Plans to Serve Muslim Fo
meraj
02/25/01 at 17:11:12
slm, cool stuff! mashallah for these people's efforts :) -------------------------- http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/25/national/25MICH.html February 25, 2001 School System in Michigan Plans to Serve Muslim Food By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS EARBORN, Mich. Feb. 24 — Kindergartners sometimes eat forbidden chicken because they are so hungry. Other children eat grilled cheese and vegetables for days on end because their school cafeterias do not have the proper meat. Dearborn schools do not serve food that meets Muslim dietary rules, a policy that has prompted thousands of parents to demand cafeteria food in keeping with the ethnic diversity of a city in which some grade schools are more than 90 percent Muslim. But officials are working on a plan to serve food that is halal, or permitted under Islamic rules, in several Dearborn schools by this fall. "We have a system of food," said Sheikh Jowad Al-Ansari, spiritual leader at the 5,000-member Islamic Institute of Knowledge. "This is very, very important to us. But children, when they are far away at school, how can you control what they eat?" Halal laws are similar to kosher laws. Mainly, animals must be slaughtered in a way intended to cause the least pain, and the blood is drained. Like kosher Jews, Muslims do not eat pork. The lack of halal meat in Dearborn has forced scores of students to throw out lunches, school officials say. Others simply break the rules. "My parents tell me, `Don't eat it if it's not halal," said Maha Alway, 10, a fifth grader at Salinas Elementary School. That is not always easy, however. "Sometimes, when I'm hungry, I just eat it," Ghuzlan Mawry, 10, said. Dearborn Public Schools is accepting proposals from halal food distributors to provide food at several of its 28 public schools. The program is likely to be tested by this spring, and will go districtwide, barring problems, this fall, Bob Cipriano, the district business manager, said. "The whole point is to give kids food they can eat, so they're nourished and can function in the classroom," Mr. Cipriano said. "If we can do that financially, we're going to do it." The district provides meatless lunches for Catholics on Fridays during Lent, Mr. Cipriano said. And eight years ago, the district banned pork from its lunches so Muslim children would not eat it by accident. "We look at this as providing for our ethnic diversity," he said. "We make concessions to all our ethnic populations, where and when we can." Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, has the highest concentration of ethnic Arabs outside the Middle East, according to the Arab-American Institute. About 35 percent of Dearborn's 17,000 students are Muslim. Many of those students eat breakfast and lunch at school. "So much is thrown away," Nada Harajli, assistant principal at Salinas, said. "They revert to junk food, cookies and candy. Having halal meats would be good for everyone."

Re: School System in Michigan Plans to Serve Muslim Fo
Kashif
02/25/01 at 17:52:17
assalaamu alaikum This reminds me of an incident when i was a young lad of only 7 or 8 years in infant school. One lunchtime they were serving sausages and i sat down having taken none because my mum had drilled into me NO SAUSAGES! The dinner lady - who looked strikingly like an old Margaret Thatcher - came over and told me to take some sausages, and i refused. She kept on saying "take them, take them, they're only beef sausages," but i refused. She kept on insisting so much that i ended up crying. She left me alone after that. Allahu-akbar its amazing that i can even remember the event! *smile* Before i finish, i have a question for revert muslims: before you took the shahadah what did you think halal meat was? Did you know that it was meat slaughtered in a specific way, or did you think that it was some dark ceremony that us Muslims performed on our meat? I just remember hearing Imam Siraj saying once that we should take some meat to our neighbour and present it to them as a gift, telling them its *halal* meat. They might think "eh?" but it gives you an opportunity to educate them just a little bit about the Islamic lifestyle. Kashif Wa Salaam

Re: School System in Michigan Plans to Serve Musli
Tarar
02/26/01 at 03:08:47
[slm] Oh yeah read thge same on Gaurdian [wlm] Tarar

Re: School System in Michigan Plans to Serve Musli
PacificBreeze
02/26/01 at 03:37:25
assalaamu alaikum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuh alhamdulillah wa Allahu akbar! i've heard some really good stuff from the MI community...they've implemented halal food in their hospitals and so many other accomplishments masha'allah.. :) well.....it's not a revert story...but, once when we were in NY...our flight was delayed so the airline had us stay at a hotel...they also served dinner etc...when we went to the banquet hall, they had some pak ppl dressed in full pak outfits..not waiters...so unsure if the ppl involved were muslims..and if the meal was 100% halal...we asked one african american waitor if it was halal..he replied, "no, it's chicken." :P :) it was hillarious..and it turned out to be 100% halal, alhamdulillah.  :) wa salaamu alaikum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuh p.s. however, nonmuslims or families of reverts like the halal meat..they claim it tastes healthier etc..and cleaner etc... :) so thumbs up! :)

Re: School System in Michigan Plans to Serve Muslim Fo
haaris
02/26/01 at 08:08:40
What did I think about halal meat before I became muslim? To be honest, when I was growing up I barely knew that muslims existed at all (despite living next door to a Turkish/Cypriot muslim family), let alone that they had special dietary rules. By the time I got to university and acquired a bit more "cultural savvy", as it were, I knew that halal was something to do with the way that the animal was killed and was similar to kosher.  Didn't know any details about it though. To be honest, I'm still a bit sketchy on the finer details of halal slaughter.  Just goes to show how living in a consumer society (even one with halal butchers) shapes the way we see things. For some reason, I knew that it was wrong for muslims to eat pork long before I knew it was wrong for them to drink alcohol!!

Re: School System in Michigan Plans to Serve Muslim Fo
Kathy
02/28/01 at 09:10:48
As salaamu alaykum When I first became Muslim I knew I could not eat pork or pork byproducts. It was months until I learned about Halal food- which was quite by accident, Humdil Allah, I took an old Muslim lady shopping for her groceries. I picked up a package of Oreos (this was before the heart scare- all the goodies were made with lard) She then told me about shortenings, and alcohol in food. It wasn't until years later, after marrying, that I found out about Zabiha foods. Realizing I had much to learn- I bought the book "A Muslims Guide to Foods" There is so much to learn!

Re: School System in Michigan Plans to Serve Muslim Fo
chachi
02/28/01 at 18:58:52
heh heh heh mine was a muslim majority school and we had to do all these demo's shouting ' We want halaal meat ' etc.. so next day we were told we'd be getting halaal keema so we were really pleased took our plates to the cooking pots and this massive spoonful 'slop'! was poured on our plates..man that must have contained more lard than ariel sharon's belly!...and it was tasteless with zero chilli's!
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