Jon Bellamy spoke with the Barnabas Fund

Mark Green

In recent months it's come to light that a number of supermarkets have been selling halal meat without telling unsuspecting shoppers. The Supermarkets included Sainsbury's, Tesco, Waitrose and M&S.

Halal food is a new concept for many in the UK. Halal literally means permissible. To make meat halal, it has to be from an animal killed and prepared in accordance with Sharia, including Islamic prayer over the meat by a Muslim butcher.

The Barnabas Fund believe that Christians and other non-Muslims should have the freedom to make an informed choice about whether or not to eat meat that has been religiously slaughtered according to Sharia law. In response Operation Nehemiah has launched a petition online as part of its halal campaign.

Operation Nehemiah doesn't object to people from different religious backgrounds being catered for by the food industry, but they feel that halal is not something that should be imposed on everybody else. To talk more about this Jonathan Bellamy spoke with Mark Green, the Deputy Director of the Barnabas Fund.

Jonathan: First of all help us understand what is halal, what does the word mean?

Mark: Halal means permitted and it's really in opposition to the word haram, which means forbidden in the Islamic Sharia law.

Jonathan: How is the meat prepared in order to stay in accordance with Sharia law?

Mark: It needs to be slaughtered in a particular way and there is a little bit of division amongst Islamic authorities on that. It also needs to be prayed over and it's killed by a Muslim and a prayer said over the animal as it's slaughtered so it's dedicated to Allah.

Jonathan: And when we talk about meat, what types of meats do we mean and is there any one meat in particular more regularly halal?

Mark: We'll probably tend to find that lamb is more commonly halal, but it would be lamb, beef and mutton. It would be pretty much anything, chicken as well, anything except of course pork.

Jonathan: So if people didn't want to eat halal meat, pork would be halal free.

Mark: Exactly.

Jonathan: Fascinating. Where can you find halal meat in the UK?

Mark: Well, you can find it in a lot of places. Of course where there are significant Muslim populations you would expect to find a number of halal shops and halal restaurants and cafes and they would clearly label that their food is halal because of course they are appealing to Muslim consumers.