We need a debate on the integration of vegans.

[Machjo]

According to this article:

French fast food chain expands its halal-only outlets | Reuters

The Quick restaurant chain is segregating Muslims from others by introducing a halal-only menu, according to some French leaders.

This is indeed worrisome. After all, here in Canada, nay in Ottawa itself, we're witnessing a growth in vegetarian and vegan restaurants, and farmers' markets, all of which are halal even among the unwitting sellers and buyers. By God, I don't profess Islam myself and so should not be exposed to halal food. We need a national campaign to inform us of halal products to help us avoid halal products. We could start by labelling all fruits, vegetables, and water as being halal.

And to ensure that those of us who don't want to have halal food forced down our throats, we should boycott all food vendors who cannot provide non-halal alternatives. This would be easy, really. All a restaurant or supermarket would need would be a bottle of liquidized pork fat (aka 'de-halal-izer'). Any customer in a restaurant who insists on getting a non-halal glass of water could just request a drop of dehalalizer be added to ensure it isn't halal. The same should be required in vegan restaurants and farmers' markets. After all, would it be that difficult to sprinkle some dehalalizer on all fruits and vegetables at the supermarket, or to a delicious vegan meal to protect us against the imposition of halal products? After all, it's bad enough that we're witnessing a growth in halal foods; it's even worse that soemthimes even the producers are unaware that the foods they're producing are halal.

What are your thoughts on this? Should we boycott all restaurants that can't guarantee that each meal it serves will be non-halal?

 

[Tonington]

The French whiners should shut their pie hole, or stuff it with some custard. If the Halal market is booming, and this chain wants to exploit that, then all the power to them.

 

[gerryh]

you're kidding, right? being facetious?

 

[Machjo]

Actually, I was just thinking that a bottle of liquidized pork fat is not without its problems. Pork does go bad after awhile. A better 'dehalalizer' would be a bottle of pure alcohol. Just sprinkle a drop on anyting you fear might be halal, such as in your kid's milk bottle. God forbid we should be exposing children to halal products at so young an age.

Warning. Once you sprinkle the milk with dehalalizer, you need to mix it in well to make sure each and every sip will be non-halal, otherwise you risk having only the surface portion being non-halal.

Another problem is that since only the dehalalizer itself is non-halal, we could argue that the rest of the product is halal. Just to be safe, perhaps we should jsut ban all halal ingredients altogether. Just replace cow's milk with sow's milk. Bingo.

Hmmm... then again, banning all non-halal ingredients would kill us. After all, how healthy would we be without any fruits, vegetables, legumes and grains at all in our diet? Perhaps we could compromize and just satisfy ourselves with dehalalizer I suppose.

Then again, if we consider that any food offered as a sacrifice to any god but God is also not halal, all we'd need to do is require all fruits and vegetables to be sacrificed on an altar to Zeus before being sold onto the market. Bingo!

I think France should read this thred. It could give them some practical ideas on how to deal with this epidemic. For cryin' out loud, we'd been eating halal fods even before Is;am existed. You see how insidious this is.

you're kidding, right? being facetious?

I hope so.

I see room for a whole new industry here. Consider how much more some are willing to pay for organic produce. Now imagine a farmer loading up his truck with fruits, vegetables, legumes and grains, driving it up onto an altar to Zeus, reciting a prayer sacrificing his load to Zeus, then driving it off to the nearest supermarket marketing it as 'dehalalized' produce. Especially in more prejudiced communities, a dehalalized produce section would be a profit-maker. Just think of how much more some people would be willing to pay for dehalalized produce once they realize that the fruits and vegetables they'd been eating all their lives was halal.

Heck, I think t's time for me to move to France and set up my very own dehalalized-produce farm. It'll be a profit-maker alright. It'll just need the right marketing for the right market.

 

[Ron in Regina]

Definition: Halal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halal

(Figured this might help those in debate on this subject)

 

[Sparrow]

Do you know what the letters KOR on products in your grocery store means?

 

[Chiliagon]

I for one think that places like Sporting arena's need to provide healthy alternatives instead of just fast food type stuff.

 

[karrie]

I happily shop halal delis... I happily go to vegetarian restaurants... I'll even eat at Indian restaurants, Chinese restaurants, and tonight hope to try a Turkish restaurant here in town. Life would be pretty sad if I expected every restaurant I visit to stock their menu with only what I want.

 

[Goober]

According to this article:

French fast food chain expands its halal-only outlets | Reuters

The Quick restaurant chain is segregating Muslims from others by introducing a halal-only menu, according to some French leaders.

This is indeed worrisome. After all, here in Canada, nay in Ottawa itself, we're witnessing a growth in vegetarian and vegan restaurants, and farmers' markets, all of which are halal even among the unwitting sellers and buyers. By God, I don't profess Islam myself and so should not be exposed to halal food. We need a national campaign to inform us of halal products to help us avoid halal products. We could start by labelling all fruits, vegetables, and water as being halal.

And to ensure that those of us who don't want to have halal food forced down our throats, we should boycott all food vendors who cannot provide non-halal alternatives. This would be easy, really. All a restaurant or supermarket would need would be a bottle of liquidized pork fat (aka 'de-halal-izer'). Any customer in a restaurant who insists on getting a non-halal glass of water could just request a drop of dehalalizer be added to ensure it isn't halal. The same should be required in vegan restaurants and farmers' markets. After all, would it be that difficult to sprinkle some dehalalizer on all fruits and vegetables at the supermarket, or to a delicious vegan meal to protect us against the imposition of halal products? After all, it's bad enough that we're witnessing a growth in halal foods; it's even worse that soemthimes even the producers are unaware that the foods they're producing are halal.

What are your thoughts on this? Should we boycott all restaurants that can't guarantee that each meal it serves will be non-halal?

They are also kosher - God forbid.

 

[Machjo]

They are also kosher - God forbid.

O my Gawd, I nearly forgot. What a travesty that is! As far as I know, Jews can consume alcohol. So while alcohol would be a wonderful dehalalizer, it would do little to nothing to dekosherize the baby's milk. I guess we have to go back to blan A: pork juice, the ultimate dehalalizer and dekosherizer all in one. That's kind of a mouth-full though, so let's just call it a 'culinary secularizer'.

Just remember to keep it in the fridge and keep an eye out for the expiry date though. I think pork blood would do perfectly. The good thing with blood too is that if you can keep it liquid, you can just inject a little bit of it into an apple, use an eye dropper to put some into a glass of water, etc. A very versatile way to secularize your food.

I'm sure some bigot would pay top-dollar to buy a secularized apple once he realizes that the apples he'd been eating till then were not only halal, but kosher too. God forbid indeed!

Hey, wait a minute. Why complicate things. This whole debate in France really is a non-issue. Just carry a bottle of secularizer with you and at the restaurant, sprinkle a drop onto your food, and Bingo! your food is 100% secular. To keep the pork's blood fresh though, I'd recommend a bigger bottle you keep in the fridge, and a smaller refillable bottle that can carry about, let's say, 3 drops or so of pork blood, so that you can just sprinkle a drop onto every meal. The bottle would be so small you could even fit it into your trouser pockets. Bingo, problem solved. If you fear that your meal might be offensively religious, just squeze a drop of pork blood onto it, and then dig into a truly secular feast.

Now I don't know if this is a real Quick ad or a spoof, but either way it's hilarious:
YouTube - Quick halal: la "fausse" pub!

 

[karrie]

What you need is a product like Bacon Salt, but with actual pork in it instead of just the flavour.

 

[Machjo]

What you need is a product like Bacon Salt, but with actual pork in it instead of just the flavour.

Brilliant. We need to e-mail this recomendation to the French embassy right away. I think they'll be thrilled. Maybe they could just make Bacon Salt available in all local government offices free of charge for all who fear to be exposed to halal food. The government to launch an advertising campaign informing people of just how much stuff they eat every day is in fact halal and how a simple sprinkle could solve that problem.

 

[bill barilko]

A better 'dehalalizer' would be a bottle of pure alcohol. Just sprinkle a drop on anything you fear might be halal,

I am so there!

 

[Machjo]

I am so there!

The problem with alcohol though is that while your food would no longer be halal, it might still be kosher. bacon salt would seem to be the way to go. Or maybe alcohol-pickled porc blood, just to be sure. You never know, some obscure religion or other might allow pork but not alcohol. We need to secularize in all possible ways.:lol: